8- Whether the Steering Committees and the Councils are subject to the supervision of the comptrollers’ chamber?

Finding:

The Steering Committees and the Councils are subject to the supervision of the comptrollers’ chamber, except for the Qatar Public Olympic Committee and the Asyad Committee.

Reasoning:

The Articles (3, 5) of the law No., (4) 1995 with regard to the comptroller chamber as amended, both of the Articles have provided that the legislator has authorized the comptroller chamber with the powers of the financial supervision over the financial aspects which are mentioned in the Article (2) of the law No., (4) 1995 which includes the antecedent or the subsequent supervision over the ministries, governmental agents, institutions, corporations, organizations or companies which the state owns fully or partially its shares. Since the promulgation of the law rule No., (3) 2003 the legislator has excluded all institutions, corporations and companies from the antecedent financial supervision and restricted that to the ministries and other governmental agents.

Whereas the legislator has determined a definition to the concept of the machinery of the government in the Article (5) of the State General Budget Law which has been issued by the law No., (5) 1989 that definition has provided: “in the application of these law rules, whenever the following statements are used, the analogous meaning against each resembles its meaning, except where the context necessitates otherwise”. The machinery of the government means: “Any official institution or body that is not following by necessity or is tied to a certain ministry and its budget is appended to the General Budget”.

According to what has been submitted in the definition of the machinery of the government, for any Council or a Committee as to be considered from the machinery of the government, it must satisfy the following:

1-     This official body should not be tied or an agent of a certain ministry.

2-     Its budget must be appended to the State General Budget.

To ascertain that both these conditions are satisfied, reference must be made to the Memorandum of Association of these committees and councils. If these conditions are satisfied, then it is counted from the machinery of the government and it must be subjected to the antecedent supervision of the comptroller chamber, and if both conditions were not satisfied, then it cannot be one of the machinery of the government and hence it will not be subjected to the antecedent supervision of the comptroller chamber.

In application to what has been submitted, and with reference to the Memorandum of Association of the determined Councils and Committees in the memo which has been filed by the comptroller chamber dated 19/04/2004 the following official bodies, namely:

The Supreme Council for Environment and Nature Preservation.

The Planning Council.

 The Supreme Council for Family Affairs.

The Supreme Council for Education.

The Supreme Council for Economic Affairs and Investment. The National Council for culture, Arts and Heritage.

 The Committee for Qatar Scientific Project Center. and,

The Khalifa City Development Committee).

The entire above mentioned are counted among the machinery of the government for their satisfaction to the two conditions which are mentioned above. They are the official bodies and their budgets are appended to the General budget of the State. Therefore, all are subject to the antecedent supervision of the comptroller chamber. As regards the other institutions such as the Qatar Public Olympic Committee and the Asyad Committee, both of them are not counted among the bodies of the machinery of the government and are not subject to the antecedent financial supervision and auditing by the comptroller chamber because their budgets are independent and are not appended to the General Budget of the State.

The Fatwa and Contract Administration has concluded that the official corporate bodies which are enlisted in the memorandum that has been received from the comptroller chamber for the antecedent supervision, revision and auditing by the comptroller chamber except the Qatar Public Olympic Committee and Asyad Committee 2006.

Please don’t take this statement of advisory opinion for an official statement of the law.

Al – Meezan/ Qatar Legal Portal

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