Public offices are not helpful: state auditor

Public establishments are not filly cooperating with the UAE’s state auditor and this is complicating its task of fighting  corruption and other financial malpractices, the country’s top auditing body has said.

The State Audit Institution (SAI) said it had detected 10 major corruption, bribery and other funds mismanagement cases through 2010-2011, adding that all of them had been referred to the prosecutor pending trial.

“The SAI is suffering from the low level of cooperation with its auditors by the departments under its control,” SAI chairman Hareb al Nuaimi said.

“Some of them are not giving us access to their financial statements and this is creating obstacles to our auditing and examination operations…in other words, the rate of cooperation by those parties is still below the required level.”

Nuaimi said the 10 cases discovered by the SAI during 2010-2011 included corruption, bribery, mismanagement of funds, forgery and swindling.

He said the SAI had demanded the return of all funds wasted or stolen, including more than Dhone billion for the state coffers.

“Many parties with which we are dealing still do not understand the nature of our work and the significance of auditing…we again say that our aim is not to discover mistakes and offences but to evaluate and protect the financial system to ensure sound use of public funds and support the domestic economy.”

Nuaimi said public departments which uncover any financial abuses must inform the SAI, adding that all such reports would be handled confidentially.

He disclosed that the SAI received nearly 75 such reports in 2010 and that all of them were dealt with in accordance with existing rules in SAI.

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