Almost a third of state offices reviewed in a Tuesday State Comptroller Report have not issued internal audit reports in six years, and many other state institutions such as medical centers suffered from limited internal inquiry capabilities.
Sixty-one government offices were reviewed by the State Comptroller. Of these, 17 offices, or 28%, produced no internal audit reports from 2016-2021.
Despite these 61 ministries being allocated NIS 12.5 billion per year, 32 of these institutions — fifty-two percent — had few or no internal audits. The average was one report per year.
The State Comptroller report found issues in the internal auditing systems of the 22 government medical centers it reviewed as well.
Sheba Tel-HaShomer Medical Center and Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center were found to have no internal auditor or departments.
IDF intelligence unit working on uncovering a Hamas honeypot scam. (credit: IDF SPOKESPERSON UNIT)All of the 13 mental health and geriatric medical centers produced less than one audit report per year on average.
The problems, according to the State Comptroller’s Office, were created by conflict of interest by the auditors and lack of resources.
According to a survey issued by the State Comptroller’s Office, 56% of the internal auditors felt that they were in conflict with the duty to perform audits and their desire to be promoted within the civil service.
“Internal audit departments do not operate under conditions of independence,” said the report, and that there weren’t efforts by the institutions to strengthen their independence.
“Resources allocated to the internal audit departments in the offices are often less than required, and in some cases the departments suffer from a severe lack of resources,” said the State Comptroller.
The report suggested that the civil service check that sufficient resources were being given to auditors.
State Comptroller Matanyahu Englman recommended that all ministries and offices institute multi-year plans for internal audits, and single out the Justice Ministry for the need to establish an internal auditing body.
Comptroller reviewed issues concerning classified unit in IDF intelligence
Meanwhile, Englman also reviewed issues related to a classified unit within military intelligence.
The review included checking the conceptual foundations for when the unit is activated as well as how it contributes to the set mission goals of IDF intelligence, such as collecting intelligence.
In addition, the comptroller analyzed specific tools the unit uses in its operations, how it handles financing these tools and how it handles maintenance of various equipment issues.
Beyond those general statements, the rest of Englman’s report on the military intelligence unit is being kept classified with only the relevant Knesset members getting to review it.
Despite the classification, The Jerusalem Post has reported in the past about IDF intelligence‘s key roles in both analysis and intelligence collection to help achieve advance warning of attacks by Israeli enemies, its role in analyzing the behavior and goals of Israeli adversaries and its role in supporting various Israeli special forces operations.
The Post has also reported on IDF intelligences target bank unit and its cooperative work with the Mossad and the Shin Bet in areas where the various organization’s responsibilities overlap.
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