Audit no to KD 281m transactions

KUWAIT CITY, March 3, (Agencies): In a preliminary step to halt the disbursement of salaries, the Assistant Undersecretary for Public Education Affairs at the Ministry of Education Osama Al-Sultan has requested for the names of non- Kuwaiti teachers who had worked until the end of the first semester and failed to report to work in the second semester.

In a bulletin he circulated to educational zones and the superintendents of all subjects, religious education and the Department of Special Education, Al-Sultan stressed the need for the data to include the teacher’s name, civil ID number, subject, work center, nationality, educational zone, and reason.

He said the concerned authorities should be addressed to halt the disbursement of the salaries of these teachers in the event that they fail to report to work in the coming 15 days as per the law.

In another development, Kuwait State Audit Bureau examined 2,647 financial transactions between April 2020 and February 2021 with a value of KD 2.8 billion ($9.2 billion), and disapproved 113 of them valued at KD 281 million ($928 million), a SAB official said Monday.

Loulwa Al-Fozan, Auditor at Pre-Audit for Social Affairs Department, said in a statement 92 percent of transactions, or KD 2.6 billion ($8.5 billion), were related to government budgets, and the rest belonged to budgets of independent authorities. The auditing took place between April 1, 2020 and February 28, 2021.

The pre-auditing process, she added, did not include transactions related to sale and purchase of oil and byproducts, nor investment. Al-Fozan said 73 percent of transactions, or KD two billion ($6.6 billion), have been approved, of them 65 percent were conditional on completing financial and technical procedures.

Informed
The pre-auditing department informed SAB’s financial penalties department about violations committed by some departments which carried out transactions without obtaining SAB’s approval, she said.

Al-Fozan said SAB recommended disapproval of 113 transactions with a value of KD 281 million ($928 million) because they would inflict damage on public funds.

Throughout the auditing process, she said, SAB also succeeded in preventing waste of KD 75 million ($247 million) in public funds due to variation in prices and quantities.