When Legal Authority Is Absent, Governance Weakens

Activities of the Political and National Guidance Commission for the years 2023-2024

·       The audit report on the activities of the Political and National Guidance Commission for the years 2023-2024, included in the State Audit and Administrative Control Bureau (SAACB)'s annual report for 2025, showed that the Commission suffers from material imbalances in its legal, administrative and financial framework, which is reflected in the efficiency of governance and the management of public funds... despite the Commission conducting 5846 lectures, seminars, and meetings during 2023..!

·       There were material observations recorded by the aforementioned report, and among the most prominent of these observations:

1-     Absence of a legal reference..there is no law regulating its establishment or defining its powers or the mechanism for appointing its head..and its organizational structure..is relied upon despite it not being one of the administrative apparatus units whose budgets are included within the general budget...and this organizational structure is inflated compared to the nature of the tasks and there are no job description cards for many of the specialized positions ..

2-     Clear weakness in the internal control system..the Inspection and Control Unit was not activated..why? No one knows..in many administrative units and bodies..an internal control unit is formed..and staff are attached to it..but..such internal control units are not activated or operated..to the extent that one can almost say they are only a name without action..despite there being allocations for them, and despite the existence of a strategic plan..but indicators and performance measurement standards were absent!

3- The financial aspect: The financial aspect at the Authority is weak in many respects, including: preparing its budget not on the basis of actual needs, not settling employees’ balances, and not recording accounting entries in due form... weak control over the use of fuels and vehicles! .. and establishing petty cash funds in the governorates.. and not conducting surprise counts of the funds, or even performing bank reconciliations for certain accounts.. Moreover, there are accumulated debts on the Authority exceeding 299 thousand shekels, payable to telecommunications companies!

4-    Absence of clear criteria for granting social assistance, official work missions, and phone allowances

5-     In the field of human resources, the report revealed a number of practices that conflict with the principles of efficiency and transparency, including the existence of employees without clear job titles, seconding employees to work outside the Commission, continuation of assigning escorts to certain retirees contrary to a presidential decision, direct or reciprocal appointments, contracting with a retired government expert without observing legal controls, in addition to weak oversight of electronic attendance, and failure to fully record clock-in and clock-out times.

6-     Irregularities in the management of supplies and warehouses, manifested in the absence of fixed assets and personal custody registers, not conducting the annual inventory, and weak storage and protection procedures, which led to the deterioration of some assets, in addition to the existence of a procurement committee formed in a manner contrary to the law

7-    In the management of government vehicles, the report indicated the continued existence of vehicles in the custody of former officials!, and the failure to install electronic monitoring systems for consumption, and the failure to organize vehicle movement logs, and the continued use of some government vehicles by employees who at the same time receive transportation allowances!

·       The report concluded with a wide range of recommendations, foremost among them issuing legislation to regulate the Commission's work, rectifying its legal status, activating internal control, enhancing transparency in appointments, reforming the management of public funds, and developing control systems over vehicles, supplies and human resources, to ensure raising performance efficiency and reinforcing the principles of governance and accountability.

·       I note here an observation that appeared at the end of the Commission's audit report: the phrase: "A response was provided by the Political and National Guidance Commission and the response was positive"!! And I believe this phrase is not clear in the terminology of oversight.....from a professional standpoint..since the word "positive" does not clarify to the reader whether the audited entity before the Bureau...had acknowledged the observations, and committed to implementing the recommendations...or presented justifications and objections. Or corrected some of the violations in fact..!

·       And my observation comes in light of the low responsiveness of the entities subject to implementing the State Audit and Administrative Control Bureau (SAACB)'s recommendations, which amounted, according to the Bureau's report (pages 23-24-25) in 37 subject entities, to 52%! .....noting that the Political and National Guidance Commission is a commission that stems from the classification structure of the "security and governance" units, for which the response rate to implementing recommendations among the units classified under "governance and security" reached 58%.....while the non-implemented rate for these units, as explained in the report, was 34% and partially implemented 8%!