KUWAIT: Thee Audit Bureau announced on Monday that it dealt with 1,128 issues by expressing an opinion on them from April 1 and July 31 worth KD 1.7 billion ($5.5 billion). “About 84 percent of the total number of topics issued during this period were presented by ministries and government departments worth KD 1.6 billion ($5.2 billion),” said Ali Al-Kandari, an auditor at the department of control of social and health affairs.

“Ten percent of the topics presented were from entities with attached budgets worth KD 43 million ($139.8 million), while six percent of them were for entities with independent budgets worth KD 55 million ($178.8 million),” he said. He indicated the bureau issued its opinions ranging from approval, conditional approval or renewal of approval for 586 topics worth KD 848 million ($2.7 billion).

“The bureau issued its opinion not to approve 32 topics worth KD 47 million ($152.8 million) during the abovementioned period and found 13 topics in violation of the provisions of articles 13 and 14 of the law establishing the Audit Bureau worth KD 4 million ($13 million),” Kandari added. He pointed out that the bureau returned 418 topics worth KD 628 million ($2.04 billion) for not providing the bureau with documents for the topics presented and related data and clarifications.—KUNA