What is the State Audit Institution? According to Article(1).

An independent authority called the "State Audit Institution" (S.A.I) shall be established and attached to the Federal National Council. The S.A.I. shall audit the funds of the state and other authorities stated in article (4). The S.A.I. shall particularly ensure the safety and legality of managing such funds and the implementation of development projects, all is provided for in this law and its internal regulation. The State Capital shall be the headquarter of the S.A.I. branches for the S.A.I. can be established in the Emirates members of the Union at the decision of the S.A.I. President.

Article (4). Power of the S.A.I.

The S.A.I. shall practice audit over the following bodies:-

1. The ministries and departments of the Federal Government.

2. The Federal National Council.

3. The public corporations and bodies.

4. The companies or bodies, in which capital the State or any public artificial person may have a share not less than 25% or for which the State guarantees a minimum limit of profit or offers a financial subsidy.

5. Any other body of which audit is charged to the S.A.I. by the Federal Supreme Council(F.S.C.), the President of the State or the Cabinet.

Upon a written request from the ruler of any Emirate, the S.A.I. may practice audit over the government departments of such Emirate, as well as the finance of corporations and bodies attached to it and all companies whose capital the Emirate shares no less than 25%, or those for which the Emirate government guarantees a minimum limit of profit offers financial subsidy.

Our scope of work

The State Audit Institution conducts financial audits of public funds. It also ensures the legality and safety of the management of these funds and of the implementation of development projects.

It does this by conducting financial audits of Ministries, Federal Government Departments, Public Corporations, Companies or any bodies in which the state or any public artificial person has a share of no less than 25 percent or for which the state guarantees minimum limit of profit or offers financial subsidy.

Other organizations can come under the audit of the SAI by order of the Federal Supreme Council or the President or the Cabinet, as can local Governments in the Emirates according to a written request of the Ruler of the Emirate.

In addition to these audits, the SAI exercises concomitant audit and inspection during contract and some operations implementation as well as having a full post audit.

The latter includes audit of public expenditures, public revenues, reconciliation accounts loans accounts investments, stores final and appropriation accounts of all authorities audited by the SAI as well as balance sheets, profit and loss accounts, operating trading and appropriations accounts of the economic sectors corporations and companies subject to the SAI audit and documents to identify the exact financial position of these authorities, corporations and companies.

Establishment

The State Audit Institution was established in 1971 as one of the federal authorities issued by the late President of the United Arab Emirates, Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan.

According to this constitution, Federal Law No. 7 was promulgated in 1976 to establish the SAI as a supreme institution.

The 1976 law guarantees its independence functionally organically and financially from the Executive and authorized it to exercise external audit in the state. The SAI is attached to the Federal National Council in its capacity as the legislature in the UAE.

Core aims and values

The state audit institution aims for top level auditing and to achieve the following is done:

1. Ensure the legality and safety of the management of the public funds and of the implementation of development projects.

2. Identify the exact financial position of the economic sector's authorities, corporations and companies.

3. Ensure the soundness of annual inventory operations and studying the reasons resulting accumulation or damage of stored materials, and to propose appropriate means for safe- keeping and maintaining such materials and necessary rules for sound planning to supply the warehouses and stores.

4. Detect incidents of defalcation, negligence and financial contravention's, investigate therein, quest for their motives thereof, study the aspects of deficiency in legislation and the system of internal control which led to their occurrence and propose the means of remedy.