Some Saudi public firms accused of inefficiency

Saudi Arabia's top auditing body has accused some government departments in the Gulf kingdom of inefficiency, following the delay of projects worth more than SR18billion (Dh17.6bn), a local newspaper reported.

The General Auditing Bureau (GAB) said unnamed public establishments have failed to benefit from allocations of SR18.7bn for new projects due to their delay in selecting project sites and handing them over to contractors.

Okaz Arabic language daily published what it said was the text of a report by GAB about the failure of some government offices in implementing projects allocated for them in the annual budget, adding that they accounted for more than 50 per cent of the projects assigned to them and nearly 19 per cent of the total government allocations for projects in the past fiscal year.

The report cited many reasons for the failure of those institutions to benefit from project allocations, including their lack of educational and technical expertise, poor engineering capabilities and a delay in preparing general terms, technical specifications and engineering designs for the projects.

"Other reasons included a delay in some of those establishments in handing over project sites to the contractors. It also accused some contractors of lacking preparedness to take over those sites and begin work on schedule because of their poor financial or technical resources," Okaz quoted the report as saying.

"In conclusion, the report blamed government institutions for the problem, accusing them of inefficiency and of lacking resources and capabilities to oversee the implementation and follow-up of some projects."