The legislation governing the public agencies, including the Supreme Systems, provides an environment that enables these institutions to carry out the tasks entrusted to them, as it references between these institutions and between the government entities subject to control, and control results users from the other side. However, standards and principles of the International Organization of Supreme Audit Institutions represent reference for such institutions to carry out its tasks in the best way in the control of public funds. This paper aims to identify and explore the legislative environment of the supreme audit institutions in Arab countries, including the functions; the financial, administrative and functional dependency; the scope of control; and types of reports and the entities they are submitted to. Moreover, this study will evaluate this comparative research in the actual practice with the principles of the international standards issued by International Organization of Supreme Audit Institutions. The research covers Supreme Audit Institutions in Jordan, Syria, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Oman, Bahrain, and Kuwait. The study shows that there are differences in legal rules that govern such institutions. These differences can be shown with respect to financial, administrative and functional independence of these institutions from executive authority; types of control applied; and reports prepared, and the parties to whom reports are submitted. To this end, this article recommends that there is a need to develop legislation that should be consistent and comported with all the modern trends on public property control such as environmental and information technology and not to be limited to financial control.
Business Law Review