Education Ministry speeds up salary control to tackle excessive spending

KUWAIT, Aug 25: The Ministry of Education’s Financial Affairs Sector has asked the salary departments of educational districts to “quickly complete the procedures related to salary deduction and suspension of salary payment to avoid observations from the supervisory authorities,” Al-Rai daily reports. In a letter addressed to the heads of salary departments, the sector’s budget and accounts controller, Youssef Dakhil Allah, stressed the need to instruct the employees involved to fully comply with this directive; along with the strict implementation of the systems and regulations regarding the delivery and receipt of transactions through registered mail, not by hand, to avoid losses or delays.

The State Audit Bureau (SAB) recorded an observation that the ministry lacks control over the salary disbursement mechanism; considering that it disbursed around KD191,895,000 salaries from October 2023 to March 2024 without settling them at the end of the 2023/2024 fiscal year, which is considered as overspending in the budget and implies that the ministry’s financial statements are inaccurate. SAB also recorded the unjustified disbursement of some amounts in previous fiscal years and subsequent deduction from employees’ salaries – around KD4,838,000 recorded in the recovered revenue and expenditure account in the budget for the 2023/2024 fiscal year. The office stressed the need for the ministry to “tighten control over the disbursement of salaries to avoid unfair payments, which inflate the revenue of the fiscal year under review; leading to an increase in expenditures from previous fiscal years.”

The office revealed that weak internal control procedures in all departments in charge of financial and employee affairs, and the failure to activate the automated link between education districts and the ministry’s central office resulted in the illegal disbursement of salaries amounting to KD972,000 during the mentioned fiscal year. It stated that the illegally disbursed salaries and allowances are recorded as debts; hence the need to strengthen control over salaries and activate the automated link to protect public funds.