Abu Dhabi: The Government is tackling corruption head on, with the federal audit body reporting cases involving misappropriation of public funds to the Public Prosecutor, a senior official said yesterday.
Dr Hareb Al Amimi, head of the State Audit Institution (SAI), said audits conducted last year revealed officials of certain government bodies were found to be involved in misappropriation of public money or aiding others to do so.
"The State Audit Institution is fighting back using every resource and backing of the higher authorities," Al Amimi added in a statement released yesterday.
He did not name the officials, the governmental bodies or the amount of funds misappropriated.
This is a dramatic shift from the federal audit body's course of action as members of the Federal National Council (FNC) have recently suggested that its failure to hold officials accountable was so serious that it ought to be scrapped.
Investigations
They criticised several federal authorities for what they described as accounting irregularities, citing what they called "repeated violations" in ministries' spending habits, as reported in the 2008 federal accounts.
They pointed to cases of departments failing to spend their allotted budgets, and failing to implement projects for which they had been granted funding.
Al Amimi said the federal audit body referred these corruption cases after investigations and document-supported audit reports showed these government officials misused their positions to misappropriate public money.
He stressed that the SAI will spare no effort to protect public money and maintain integrity of public offices in line with the firm measures taken by the Government to fight all forms of corruption, including appropriation, breach of trust and fraud.
Foundation
"The Government has laid down a strong legislative foundation for transparency and accountability to ensure public funds are properly used and performance of government bodies are raised," Al Amimi said.
Violations cited in the report on the 2008 account written by the State Audit Institution, and amended by the FNC's financial, economic and industrial affairs committee included the Ministry of Finance's failure to perform internal audits of federal ministries' financial statements and instead sending them directly to the SAI.
The report accused the Ministry of Health of paying off contractors before projects were finished, in violation of ministerial resolutions.
The report also criticised the Ministry of Interior for appointing a private contractor to collect certain fees, against federal regulations.
Mohammad Ali Al Za'abi, an FNC member from Sharjah, who previously demanded the abolition of the State Audit Institution, told Gulf News yesterday turning corrupt officials to public prosecution is a good progress on the road to full accountability and transparency.
