10 corruption cases sent to Public Prosecution

The State Audit Institution (SAI) has referred a number of financial corruption cases to the Public Prosecution.

The supreme audit institution in a statement on Sunday said: "The audit and review of some accounts during the last year resulted in detecting a number of financial corruption cases represented in taking over public funds or illegally facilitating so by others. The SAI has referred those cases to the Public Prosecution in accordance with the applicable regulation in this regard."

Dr Harib Saeed Al Amimi, President of SAI, said the total number of cases that were referred to the Public Prosecution during the last two years is more than 10. Based on investigations and audit reports supported with documents, we proved that those cases include misuse of public funds by taking over or illegally facilitating so by others in addition to forgery, fraud and bribe.

He explained that based on audit findings, SAI requested recovering the illegally paid funds and collecting the revenues due to the general treasury in accordance with the applicable legislations and regulations at the Federal Government. The funds which the SAI requested to be recovered or collected from the auditees amounted to more than a Dh1 billion of the financial year 2010. The SAI informed the auditees of the details of the respective due amounts and stated them in its annual reports sent to the competent authorities in the UAE.

The efforts made by the SAI in this regard in cooperation with the Cabinet resulted in recovering and collecting some of the claimed amounts. The SAI is following up the recovery and collection of the remaining amounts and endeavoring to transfer them to the general treasury.

In addition, He pointed out that the SAI is still suffering from a low level of cooperation by some auditees with the SAI auditors to enable them to access to the financial statements in accordance with what is stated in the law which represents an obstacle to conducting the audit as required.

Moreover, the auditees response is still below the required level because some of them do not understand the nature and importance of audit role assumed by the SAI and that the aim of the audit is not to detect the committed errors and violations rather to evaluate and check the financial system whereby the public funds are spent and collected to develop performance at those entities and ensure the good use of public funds to scale up the general services level, luxury and progress of people of the UAE.

The SAI is endeavoring to cooperate with the auditees by holding meetings and interviews with the competent parties thereat to illustrate the reality of the SAI role in this regard by developing and issuing a number of best practices manuals in the field of financial management. These manuals provide the necessary guides for the auditees in addition to participating in training the competent parties in some entities based on the request thereof to reach the highest level of integrity, efficiency and accuracy in the audited funds management.

In accordance with Federal Law No. 8 of 2011, all auditees shall report to the SAI all the events involving financial violations, the evidences thereof and the actions taken in that regard once occur. To facilitate this task, the SAI provided the public with the service of reporting fraud suspicious cases by direct contact or through the SAI website ensuring confidentiality in dealing with such messages and studying them in accordance with the applicable legislations and regulations in the Federal government. The total electronic messages received by the SAI during 2010 reached to more than 75 messages as the SAI dealt therewith in accordance with the audit theories applicable at the SAI.

He stated that the SAI develops audit findings in periodic reports that include its comments and requests and it informs the concerned entities thereof. There are initial reports on audit findings sent to the concerned ministers and auditees' chairmen. Those entities shall inform the SAI of their responses to the comments, fulfill the SAI requirements and take the necessary actions to avoid defects, rectify errors and collect the lost amounts, those illegally paid or those due and not yet collected within a month from informing those entities thereof.

The SAI also issues final reports to all auditees including the draft general final account report of the UAE. This report includes the comments and disagreements between the SAI and the competent entity and the SAI opinion on the real financial position of the UAE. This report is sent to the Ministry of Finance within a period not exceeding a month from the date of receiving the full final account by the SAI. A copy of this report is submitted to the Cabinet and the Federal National Council.

Final reports are also prepared on the results of auditing budgets and the draft financial statements and final accounts of auditees. Those reports are sent to auditees to be considered by the authority concerned with approving the financial statements and final accounts thirty days before the deadline. A copy of these reports is submitted to the Cabinet and the Federal National Council.

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