An audit of documents and accounts by the General Auditing Bureau (GAB) at Umm Al-Qura University in Makkah and the Jeddah Mayoralty has revealed that a member of the teaching staff draws two salaries – from the university and Jeddah Mayoralty – at a total of just over SR51,000 a month. Osama Bin Ja'far Faqih, Chairman of the General Auditing Bureau (GAB), said the university had allowed a member of the teaching staff to work on secondment at the mayoralty for one year. The university would pay him his basic salary and the mayoralty would cover his allowances. However, according to a letter addressed by Faqih to the Mayor of Jeddah, which is in the possession of Okaz, “it became clear to the officials of GAB, while auditing the salaries of the members of the teaching staff at Umm Al-Qura University for the month of Rabi' Al-Awwal, 1431H (Feb/March 2010), that a member of the teaching staff was drawing two salaries every month. [He was receiving one] from the university worth SR15,372 including transport and cost of living allowances. At the same time, he drew another salary from the Jeddah Mayoralty of SR36,164.” The mayoralty paid the academic's salary for providing technical, administrative and technological services with an office specializing in geographic information. In his letter, Faqih said: “The salary paid by the mayoralty to the teaching staff member is a blatant violation of Article 69 of the regulation organizing the affairs of Saudi university personnel including members of the teaching staff and the like.” Faqih said he considered the decision to second the member of the teaching staff as another violation, which he described as “duality in payment”. This was because he received two salaries at the same time for one job for which he was seconded. Therefore, he received amounts that were not due to him. In his letter to the Jeddah Mayor, Faqih demanded an investigation into the matter and for the member to be questioned under Article 16 of the GAB regulations. He also demanded that the authorities at the mayoralty stop the salary of the teaching staff member, reduce the contract value signed with the geographic information office by the same amount as his salary. They also want all the money he had earned unlawfully to be paid back.
