The Kingdom's financial watchdog, the General Auditing Bureau (GAB), has launched a new electronic system to keep an account of how public money is being spent. The system will allow the GAB to conduct monthly inventories instead of quarterly or annual checks, according to sources. The new initiative is to prevent wastage and theft of public funds. The GAB would be able to monitor financial transactions through a secret electronic link-up. According to sources, the GAB would make it compulsory for all government authorities to submit their monthly accounts on electronic discs instead of hard-copy portfolios, until the completion of the computerization of their systems over the next six months. A contract was signed last week with a companies to install the computerization system at a cost of SR3 million.
