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The Audit Bureau Law No. 28 for the year 1952 was issued according to article 119 of the Constitution of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan which state: -
"An Audit Office shall be established by law for auditing the public revenues, expenditures and the way of their expending: -
A- The Audit Office shall submit to the Parliament at the beginning of each ordinary session, or whenever the Parliament demands, a general report reviewing its observations and views and indicating any violations committed and responsibility arising therefrom.
B- The Law shall proved for the immunity of the Head of the Audit Office".
Article 3 Of this law state "The Audit Bureau shall be responsible for the following tasks: -
A- Auditing the government revenues, expenditures, deposits, advances, loans, settlements, and warehouses accounts, as shown in the articles of this law.
B- Providing advice for official departments subject to audit by the Audit Bureau".
Article 4 Of this law identifies the government entities to be within its scope of audit and states "The supervision of the Audit Bureau shall include Government Ministries, Public Departments, Public Official Establishments and Municipal and Rural Councils".
Article 8 Audit bureau’s mandate has been limited to auditing the revenues and expenditures of the state as stipulated in article 8,9 of the law.
"In respect of revenues, the Audit Bureau shall be responsible for:
A- Auditing the assessments of taxes, fees and other income to ensure that estimation and assessments were performed in compliance with laws and regulations in effect.
B- Auditing the transactions of the Estate lands and property sale entrusts and rent.
C- Auditing the collections of different revenues to ascertain Whether (1) they were made on the determined time in accordance with the pertaining laws and regulations (2) the " Law of Collecting Government Funds " has been applied on the taxpayers who have failed to pay their liabilities and (3) funds collected were paid to the Treasury and posted to the proper headings and items of the general Budget.
D- Auditing the transactions of write offs and exemptions to ensure that they were only made in compliance with laws and regulations in effect".
Article 9:- "With respect to expenditure, the Audit Bureau shall be responsible for:
1st Auditing expenditures to ensure that funds expended have been applied to the purpose or purposes for which allocations were intended to provide, and that payments were made in accordance with the effective laws and regulations.
2nd Auditing vouchers and the supporting documents to ascertain that they were valid and accurately posted.
3rd Ascertaining that payment orders were properly issued by the concerned authorities.
4th Ensuring that expenditures were charged to the proper headings and sub-headings of the general budget.
5th Ascertaining that no excesses over allocations has occurred without authority.
6th Questioning the reasons for not expending the allocations of new works, wholly or partly.
7th Seeing that the law of the general budget is observed, and that the financial warrants are properly issued".
Article 10 Stipulates that the Audit Bureau shall be responsible for auditing deposits advances, loans and settlements "It is the duty of the audit bureau with respect to deposits, advance, loans and settlements to audit their accounts and see that the transactions relaxing to them are correct and the posting are accurate, and to see that they are supported with the necessary vouchers and documents, and that loans and advances were repaid punctually together with the interests due to the Treasury" .
Article 16 Of the law states that the auditee shall response to the audit bureau’s queries within a fixed time period "All entities subject to the Audit Bureau's supervision should reply to any query addressed to them by the Bureau within a period not exceeding 30 days within the Kingdom and sixty days abroad".
Article 21 Of the law identifies the authorities, which the Audit Bureau shall submit his report to
1- "At the beginning of the ordinary session of the Parliament, or whenever the Parliament demands, the Head of the Audit Bureau shall submit to the Parliament an annual report reviewing his observations on the closing account of every fiscal year, and shall furnish the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance with copies of the report. He shall include in his report his observations on the departments and institutions under audit in accordance with article (4) of this law. He also shall indicate therein description of violations committed and the consequent responsibility there on.
2- Head of the Audit Bureau may submit special reports to the Parliament at any time to draw his attention to dangerous and important matters that need urgent consideration and action.
3- The Ministry of Finance shall submit a closing Account to the Audit Bureau about the accounts of each fiscal year to be observed commencing from the fiscal year 1962-1963 within a period not exceeding twelve months from the date of the termination of the fiscal year".
Article 22 States that cabinet shall make his decision regarding any dispute that may arise between the Audit Bureau and any public entity "Any dispute that may arise between the Audit Bureau and any Ministry or department shall be presented to the Council of Ministers for final decision. The Head of the Bureau has to include in his report to the Parliament all matters that have been under dispute".
The Bureau in preparing its Report follows an analytical approach to analyze all data collected from the following resources:
=> The final Account issued by the Ministry of Finance for the past fiscal year.
=> The General budget report for the year and the following year.
=> Enterprises balance sheets for the same fiscal year and for the following year.
=> Queries issued by the Audit Bureau for the year of the report.
=> Letters addressed to ministries, departments, and official public enterprises under audit.
=> Capital projects reports.
=> Audit observation on capital projects raised by the Bureau's audit teams.
=> Follow up of previous annual reports issued and subsequent action taken by the relevant ministries and departments.
=> Credits requested from different individuals, establishments and foundations, amounts of money saved by the Bureau according to pre-audit of expenditures, amounts of money incurred on taxpayers, custom and license fees due that were realized by the Bureau's audit teams.
=> Performance Auditing Studies conducted by PCSD.
=> Statistics issued by the Central Bank, Amman Financial Market, and Ministry of Commerce.
=> Annual Reports issued by government entities subject to audit.
=> Studies and researches conducted by the Bureau.
=> Ministry of Finance Records.
=> Ministry of Justice Records.
By analyzing the said data, the most important irregularities committed by the state ministries, departments and public official enterprises and the consequent responsibilities will be ascertained. In this regard, recommendations will be proposed to remedy such irregularities in light of effective laws, regulations and instructions issued for such manner. Performance analysis of ministries and departments will be studied to measure achievement rate, delays and variation orders. In addition, closing accounts of some entities will be analyzed to evaluate their performance and efficiency in achieving prescribed goals.
The Annual Report may contain chapters on: the most important recommendations concluded by the Bureau, samples of auditing in which quires, credits requested from different individuals, establishments and foundations, amounts of money saved by the Bureau according to pre-audit of expenditures, amounts of money incurred on taxpayers, custom and license fees due are presented, in addition to pending issues, auditing and investigation committees, government actions, and procedural case actions, and issues of embezzlement, forgery, and manipulation of public funds .
Upon completion of the Report, the Financial Committee of Parliament reviews audit findings and recommendations and discuss them with the Audit Bureau in presence of concerned government entities. Recommendation to promote the Bureau's findings are submitted to Parliament for approval as to ensure that actions are taken to correct violations, irregularities and malpractice.
As seen, the Annual report is considered as a reflection of the Bureau' s performance in areas that are probed by the Bureau.
In carrying out its functions, the President of the Audit Bureau shall be administeraly attached to prime minister.
The Audit Bureau’s Annual Report shall be submitted to the parliament while copies of it shall be submitted to the Prime Minister.
It is also worth mentioning that the audit bureau in its performing to the audit functions does not aim to follow up on errors and faults, but it aims at ensuring the soundness and legality of management and utilization of public funds.
To achieve this goal, the audit bureau shall maintain a good cooperation with the legislative authority and executive authority by providing them with transparent, fair and objective reports, which presents its recommendations for correcting any deficiencies he might discover through his audits. This can be achieved also through the performance audit, which is carried out by the bureau.
