Expenses push Shura into red

MANAMA
Bahrain's Shura Council has been pushed into the red

- by its members' expenses.

They exceeded their annual budget for salaries and

expenses by BD142,000, taking the cost last year to

BD1,684,000, the 40-member council heard at its

meeting yesterday.

This put the council BD28,000 in the red for last

year, despite savings on staff salaries and

services, financial and economical affairs committee

secretary Mohammed Al Shroogi told members.

He said the council managed to save BD105,000 from

its general expenditure.

"Spending on equipment increased by BD33,000 and by

BD8,000 on maintenance," he said.

"New computers and software were bought for each

employee.

"Maintenance was carried on buildings, cars and

electronics, in addition to the council buying a

number of buildings to be used by 12 employees as

offices."

Mr Al Shroogi said that this expenditure were

necessary for the council's operations and was

balanced by savings elsewhere.

"Around BD23,000 was saved from employees salaries,

BD112,000 from services and BD11,000 from goods," he

said.

But members' expenditure exceeded their allocated

BD1.542 million budget by BD142,000.

"We have spent BD1.684m and this is due repayments

to members for them using rented offices and their

own cars for November and December of 2002, which

was not in the budget for 2003," he said.

The council accounts will be audited by the

Financial Monitoring Bureau.