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.