The Role of Financial Oversight in Enhancing the Efficiency of Public Spending in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Abstract

This study aimed to determine the extent of the impact of financial control on the efficiency of public spending in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to regulate corruption, reduce waste of public funds, enhance transparency, and assess the effectiveness of current financial control legislation and agencies, and the procedures included therein, to understand their responsiveness, efficiency, and their impact on diversifying income sources, reducing unemployment rates, and their effect on economic growth through the analysis and study of international and local reports and indicators regarding financial control. Additionally, this study reviews the most distinguished international experiences in financial control and how to benefit from them to enhance the efficiency of control over the implementation of the general budget in the Kingdom. This study adopts the descriptive-analytical approach to reveal the effectiveness of current financial control over the public budget in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and its impact on the efficiency of spending, relying on three important indicators that represent the growth rate, unemployment rate, and diversification of income sources, through the review and analysis of international and local reports and indicators during the period covered by the Open Budget Index in the Kingdom, starting from 2008 to 2023. The study revealed the necessity of financially and administratively independent financial control agencies, granting them the necessary powers to carry out their tasks, making all administrative levels accountable, with the need for continuous updating of financial control legislation and laws in the Kingdom, activating what has recently been introduced of systems, working on integrating control agencies, in addition to the importance of exercising preventive control before preparing the budget to avoid budget deficit crises and preserve public funds. The researcher believes, through what has been discussed, that this study provides a valuable contribution to the development of financial control policies in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.