King stresses protection of public funds

Manama, Nov. 7 (BNA): His Majesty King Hamad bin Isa Al-Khalifa today received at Al-Safriya Palace National Audit Office (NAO) President Hassan bin Khalifa Al-Jalahma, who submitted the 13th NAO Report for the 2015-2016 fiscal year. HM the King hailed the dedicated efforts exerted by the NAO President and staff, commending their performance and strenuous progress in protecting public money and attaining the highest degrees of credibility, autonomy and transparency. He lauded the NAO strides and landmark oversight work whose positive indicators are reflected in the professional standard of the periodic reports. The King stressed the crucial importance of protecting public funds, monitoring spending and promoting rationalized expenditure, hailing the role of the office in assuming its duties fully, which contributed to enhancing the performance of state ministries and institutions. Al-Jalahma expressed his honour at submitting the 13th report for the fiscal year 2015-2016, as per Article 19 of the law on the National Audit Office. He underlined the crucial NAO-led role in implementing the state reform policy, overseeing public money, rationalizing its spending and optimising its dividends to benefit the national economy. "The National Audit Office spares no effort to develop institutional work, and support the legislative and executive branches of government to collect state revenues and spend them within the budget limits", he said. He said that the office had conducted 98 supervisory tasks during the 2015-2016 fiscal year which included different economic, tertiary, health and environmental sectors. The office has also issued during the same period 130 reports stating professional opinions relating to the final account statements of ministries and government departments as well as the consolidated account statement, the future generations reserve account. He reiterated the NAO determination to pursue the policies it had adopted since its inception to hone the competence of Bahraini cadres to enable them to obtain one of internationally accredited professional certification in the field of auditing and accounting "The rate of employees who are holders of such accredited certificates has so far attained 63% of the overall number of workers", he said, paying tribute to HM for his support which, he said, bolstered the NAO autonomy and professionalism.