General Administration of Crossings and Borders - Palestine

-        The State Audit and Administrative Control Bureau (SAACB) report on the General Administration of Crossings and Borders - Palestine... showed that no law has been issued regulating the work of the General Administration of Crossings and Borders since the issuance of Presidential Decree No. 16 of 2006 concerning the General Administration of Crossings and Borders.

-        The report added that the internal audit unit in the General Administration of Crossings has not performed its role in activating its function, in addition to the fact that the head of the department was assigned the revenue duties in the General Administration of Crossings and Borders...!

-        As for the accounting policies of the General Administration of Crossings, it appeared that there is no computerized accounting program specific to revenues in the General Administration of Crossings and Borders..and revenues are not supervised by the financial controller..!

-        As a result of the SAACB audit team’s review, it was observed that there are weak control measures over revenues, where handover and receipt reports and the recording of receipt booklets are not prepared in accordance with procedures, and no master registers are kept recording the numbers of receipt booklets and vouchers in addition to the fact that receipt booklets, licenses and used vouchers are not inventoried at the end of each year and approved by the responsible accountant before being sent to the General Accountant, accompanied by an official letter to remove them from the custody of the General Administration of Crossings and Borders.!

-        As for the legal framework for collecting revenues at the crossings and borders, it became clear that there is no legal text regulating the collection of some revenues such as the departure tax from citizens leaving the Palestinian territories, revenues from vehicle parking, and revenues from parking of local and international taxis.!

-        As for the Palestinian side’s share of departure fees: the SAACB audit team found that the Palestinian side does not know its share of the departure fees, and is unable to determine the amount due from these fees to the Authority’s treasury from the Israeli side, since transfers from the Israeli side are made through clearance..!!

-        As for surpluses in the revenue account, it appeared that there is no special register for surpluses in the departure fund, nor have any surpluses been deposited in the revenue account as a result, but rather they remain as trust...in the custody of the employee responsible for the departure tax, where the audit team of the Bureau was not provided by the Personnel Office with a statement of those amounts...!!

-        As for liens on some properties, the SAACB report showed the existence of cases of direct liens on some properties at the General Administration of Crossings and Borders without conducting announcements and competitive tenders..!

-        Regarding the incentive allowance in the General Administration of Crossings, the SAACB report showed that allowances are paid to military employees affiliated with various security agencies, customs employees affiliated with the Ministry of Finance, postal employees affiliated with the Ministry of Telecommunications and Information Technology...and Ministry of Interior employees working in the General Administration of Crossings and Borders...on the non-staff allowances item monthly, without a legal basis, based on an unapproved disbursement system!!

-        The SAACB report stated, regarding appointments in the General Administration of Crossings, that there was an alteration to the scoring sheets of some members of the interview committees..and 19 new employees were appointed on temporary contract items from outside the staffing structures and without announcement and competition..!

-        Under the item "fixed transportation allowance," the SAACB annual report for 2020 showed that a number of employees are seconded to non-governmental institutions, and continue to receive a fixed travel allowance from their previous workplace....!!!

-        The report also added that some supplies obtained through a grant provided by the European Union were not recorded at the Department of Supplies..!

-        As for the matter of lost property at Karama Crossing, it appeared that there is no system or procedural manual for dealing with lost property deposited in the Karama Crossing warehouse, or the bags received from the Israeli side, and the General Administration of Crossings and Borders does not announce the existence of lost property via its website and local newspapers.!!..and no official report is made by the committee formed to receive bags and lost property from the Israeli side..!...We hope that those responsible for following up the observations of the State Audit and Administrative Control Bureau...in its annual reports and most recently this report, which I am excerpting some of the Bureau’s observations of violations from..which, in my view, are serious...and affect our capacity to carry out public responsibility with absolute credibility and transparency.....Unfortunately even the internal audit unit was dismantled..what is this??

-        Date 3-9-2021