Financial and Administrative Oversight in Palestine for 2024

"We did not leave the place"

●       This phrase is from the preface of the head of the State Audit and Administrative Control Bureau (SAACB) to the annual report for 2024...." Ms. Amal Faraj...where she completed her preface to the report...that "it was not merely a slogan we raised, but a practical reality we implemented during 2024, despite all the difficulties and challenges facing our Palestinian people"

●       Although I refrained from writing on Facebook pages in general throughout the events of the great new Nakba, which are still ongoing, of the genocide, starvation and thirsting, and the siege....that kill Palestinians to erase their cause, their existence, and their rights..in their homeland Palestine..I was nevertheless compelled to resume writing on certain topics..and one of those topics was the State Audit and Administrative Control Bureau (SAACB)’s annual report for 2024, which became available to the public on the Bureau’s website...on 29-7-2025..What concerns me in this 2024 report, in light of the ongoing Nakba events, is to review and know how government institutions performed, how public money was used in 2024, and what reservations the Bureau had regarding the entities subject to its oversight..numbering more than 4,000 entities..in terms of transparency, accountability and levels of corruption, and whether there was public work and public performance carried out responsibly, with care for public funds..in the atmosphere of these events and pains, given that people and the whole world are preoccupied with them!

●       And I say that the state of oppression among the Palestinian people, from siege, displacement, mistreatment, starvation, thirsting, and the genocide by the Israeli occupation army..to which the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip have been subjected for many years, coinciding with what this occupying army and the settlers do of destruction, killing, burning, displacement, demolition of houses and infrastructure, raids and arrests, mistreatment, confiscation of lands,..and accelerating and expanding settlement activity, and inspection checkpoints across the West Bank, whose number has approached one thousand checkpoints in the West Bank and Jerusalem. All of that..and the existence of a wrongful silence cannot be described merely as difficulties and challenges facing the Palestinian people in general..because the Nakba and genocide are clear in their features... Yet all these events, pains, abandonment, the daily genocide..and the tightening of the belt, materially and morally, have not prevented the monitoring eyes of the Bureau from following up public work and how public money is used...and assessing institutional performance..to promote integrity, transparency, accountability and combat corruption...and this is what the State Audit and Administrative Control Bureau (SAACB) did in its 2024 report..according to the Bureau head’s preface..to the report that was published for the public on 29-7-2025, as we noted above....and with a total of 254 pages

●       The State Audit and Administrative Control Bureau (SAACB) in Palestine ..is an oversight body that is almost alone (except for some civil society bodies)...and despite the limitation of its powers, not encompassing all public work, and not being fully deployed..and not making its reports obligatory for the entities under its oversight, considering them no more than "recommendations," where the Bureau "works on responding within the limits of its jurisdiction"!..Not to mention the long absence of the legislative authority..the hosting body that has direct responsibility for the Bureau’s entire work. And despite the difficulties mentioned above that the Palestinian people have experienced and continue to experience....the Bureau issued 95 audit reports in 2024, in addition to 50 follow-up reports on recommendations in the same year!

●       We summarize below some of what appeared in the annual summary report for 2024:

●       The Bureau issued 95 audit reports for 2024 – as we noted above – for the entities subject to the Bureau, numbering 4,643 entities, distributed across the following sectors:

1-     Economic sector: it has 13 subject entities, while the share of reports directed to this sector reached 6%!(Considered a low percentage)

2-     Social and cultural services sector: it has 45 entities, the share of reports directed to this sector 19%.

3-     Local governance sector: it has 450 entities, with the share of reports directed reaching 16%!(Considered a low percentage)

4-     Infrastructure sector: it has 67 entities, with the share of reports directed reaching 22%.

5-     Governance (civil and security) sector: it has 58 entities, with the share of reports reaching 12%!(Considered a low percentage)

6-     As for the NGOs sector NGOs it has 4,010 entities..with the share of reports reaching 11%!(Considered a low percentage)

●       The Bureau also issued 50 reports to follow up recommendations in 2024 — the local governance sector received 25 follow-up reports, the economic sector 4 follow-up reports, the governance (civil and security) sector 7 follow-up reports, the NGOs sector 5 follow-up reports..etc!

●       It was noted in the above that the response rate to the Bureau’s recommendations was 63% during the legal period allowed for response, and this low response rate has repeatedly occurred in the Bureau’s previous annual reports, which raises concern about a lack of attention in some entities subject to the Bureau in responding to the Bureau’s recommendations and reservations!

●       The number of complaints received by the Bureau reached 378 complaints; the report classified the complaints received in 2024 in terms of their validity or not..that only 233 of them were valid,..etc..and it was stated that the complaints received by the Bureau during 2024 came from several sources including: from citizens 116 complaints, while complaints from employees of public institutions were 59 complaints, and complaints from the Anti-Corruption Commission amounted to 11 complaints, and 3 complaints from non-governmental organizations..The number of complaints from individuals throughout 2024 does not seem sufficient or appropriate..as it appears that the level of citizen engagement in monitoring and evaluating public function and the use of public money is not encouraging..!

●       In subsequent articles, I will begin to give readers a brief overview of the audit reports for some entities subject to the Bureau in some of the sectors, and some of the Bureau’s recurring reservations regarding some of the entities under its oversight, indicating cases of indifference and lack of care in public work, such as some items in the state’s current account for 2023, the Bureau’s observations on the notes attached to the Ministry of Finance’s statements for 2023...and reservations about the performance of some centers of responsibility such as the Ministry of Health, and the Ministry of Finance on a matter repeated for several years, regarding not holding Israeli entities accountable in the matter of monthly deductions from the clearance revenues concerning medical treatment invoices referred to Israel. For example...a total amount of an invoice is deducted from the clearance revenues by the Israelis.!(Thus and without any Palestinian-side accounting or discussion with the Israeli side)..for many long previous years, and still!....and other matters related to public funds!