Ministry of Higher Education and Hebron University in Palestine, 2020

When a Palestinian citizen, or any other reader, reviews the observations given below in the report of the State Audit and Administrative Control Bureau (SAACB) about Hebron University, for example, during the year 2017, he wonders in astonishment that some centers of responsibility in public service and service work, such as education (Ministry of Higher Education), do not conform acceptably to some correct standards of public work, while one may find in some cases those who brag and say: that they "started where others ended," as evidence of modernity, mastery and excellence, and one is surprised by many violations, deficiencies and shortcomings in performance across different fields of public work, and thus sometimes concludes that we have in fact started from where others began, nothing more; ornate literary rhetoric does not erase, nor in any way obscure, the fact that we, on many occasions, do not speak about the facts of reality when evaluating some of our activities in public work.!!

In this context, the State Audit and Administrative Control Bureau (SAACB) audited "Hebron University" for the fiscal year 2017; we summarize below part of those observations to which it concluded:

Decisions were made exclusively by the Board of Trustees as a result of the absence of supervision and follow-up by the competent authorities regarding the approval of internal regulations, budgets, and appropriations.

There is no organized financial system or instructions for cash receipt and deposit procedures, in addition to the absence of reconciliations between actual cash balances in the funds and the ledger balances, and there is no cash inventory at the end of the fiscal year.!

There is no clear policy for selecting and forming the University's Board of Trustees linked to a defined time period, and the Chairman of the University's Board of Trustees exercising the responsibility of appointing and dismissing members of the Board of Trustees prevents neutrality and transparency of selection and of the decisions issued by the Board of Trustees.

There is no central archive at the University, amid weakness in the preservation and classification of documents and records on paper, and the absence of electronic archiving.

Some employees continued to work at the University after reaching the legal retirement age, contrary to the teaching cadre instructions for Palestinian universities applied at the University.

The University deducted the retirement contribution from the employee’s share at a rate of 10% instead of 7% of the total salary, which led to charging university employees additional amounts totalling 100,294 dinars during the year 2017.

There is no internal control unit, nor alternative control mechanisms.

There is no separate bank account specifically for employees’ savings entitlements, and the University does not carry out disclosure of the monthly deduction amount from the employee’s salary related to savings.

The University does not keep a register showing all the lands it owns, and the value of lands was increased by an amount of 375,000 dinars during the year 2017, despite the University’s possession of those lands in 2015.

The student activities building was incorrectly recognized among the buildings (assets) at a value of 166,562 dinars, despite its demolition in an earlier period..!

The University invested an amount of 1,484,270 dinars in a for-profit company owned by the Chairman of the Board of Trustees and one of the members of the Board of Trustees, without achieving any return from that investment for the benefit of the University, and without an investment certificate or agreement proving the University’s right to the invested amounts...!

Required supporting documents are not attached when recording revenue entries.

Employee receivables in the form of advances amounted to 45% of the debit balances account during the year 2017, where the accounts receivable for the University rose by 2,121,798 dinars, and the administration did not provide a statement of employee advances or study them.

The University’s failure to comply with the laws and regulations regarding opening a tax register for the University’s investment activities indicates the presence of tax evasion and, consequently, the loss of funds due to the State Treasury.!!

Although the University does not provide a transportation allowance to its employees, since the University’s Financial Department treated a transportation allowance for employees as taxable income in the amount of 1,465,404 shekels during the year 2017, contrary to the provisions of Article No. 12 of Decree-Law No. 8 of 2011 and its amendments concerning income tax, which resulted in the loss of financial amounts to the State Treasury in the amount of 73,270 shekels..!

· The entity’s (the University’s) response to the report: "The response was positive to the majority of the observations contained in the report, and a number of these observations were amended based on the University’s response and the Ministry of Higher Education was addressed with the report for follow-up - according to the Bureau -"