Exclusive: Addressing Shakshak, Deputy Head of the Audit Bureau: “The Bureau Must Never Become a Bargainer and Price Enforcer”

Our source has exclusively obtained a letter from the Deputy Head of the Libyan Audit Bureau, Atiyat-Allah Abdulkarim, to the Bureau’s President, criticizing a news post on the Bureau’s page that claimed an achievement of saving 2 billion dinars through the prior review of nearly 700 contracts. He described this claim as a deceptive achievement.

In his letter, he stated:
“We were neither consulted in drafting the news nor informed of its details. We have facts that prove this news to be false and misleading to public opinion, requiring repudiation.”

He added:
“The reported savings mainly resulted from reductions in contract prices due to the Bureau pressuring contracted companies regarding pricing. This approach constitutes a legal and professional disaster, as the Bureau’s role, as defined by law, is to conduct prior contract oversight within a framework that leads to only three possible decisions: approval, conditional approval, or refusal of approval.”

He continued:
“Under no circumstances should the Bureau turn into a bargainer and price enforcer. If that happens, it essentially assumes the role of the project owner. The real issue behind price inflation is the lack of genuine bidding processes, which should lead the Bureau to reject approval and request a proper tendering process to achieve the best prices and specifications. Furthermore, when the Bureau pressured contracted companies, it relied on unrealistic estimated prices, rather than official benchmark prices set by the state. This resulted in legitimizing an unfair and highly inflated contractual price. The companies accepted the reductions only to secure the contracts, as the revised prices remained significantly above the standard rates.”

He went on:
“It is baffling to announce cost savings after reviewing 700 contracts, when these contracts actually represent a limited number of projects. Reviewing the projects the Bureau oversaw throughout the year reveals that they do not exceed three projects in total. How can the Bureau’s President and the concerned department boast about achieving savings while neglecting the most crucial aspect of contracting—execution monitoring? Companies might manipulate specifications and implementation.”

He concluded:
“While you pride yourselves on savings achieved by pressuring companies on contract prices, you assigned the completion of the Bureau’s new headquarters to the Administrative Centers Development and Planning Authority—only for finishing work—at an exorbitant price of over 11,000 dinars per square meter. The Bureau should have applied the same price-pressure approach here to secure better rates. Moreover, the Bureau adopted a new flawed practice of approving contracts with reservations, even when the reservations were fundamental issues. Instead, the approval should have been outright denied.”