A report by the Central Administration for Control and Auditing revealed numerous shortcomings as for the establishment of technical and vocational institutes.

The project was signed between the Ministry of Technical Education and Vocational Training and the Saudi Fund in June 2002.

According to the report, the ministry wasted the loans and did not work in the proper manner to serve the public or project's interests, mainly because of improper planning and preparation.

The ministry signed the contract for the project on the basis of an old study prepared in 1998, and the Saudi Fund financed the project with $50 million, while the Yemeni government was to provide similar amount of money to the project according to the agreement.

The project aims to prepare and equip vocational and technical institutes as well as developing the skills of the technical cadre who can cover the increasing needs of labor market. The project aims at establishing 31 institutes and four vocational training centers.

Further, the report indicated that the improper planning has caused a financial gap, making the ministry incapable of achieving the intended objectives. The financial gap was represented in not providing the equipments meant for training.

There has been non-sufficiency in allocating the financial resources with reserves mounting from 2.7 percent to 5.4 percent, causing ministry officials to cancel equipment item and to reduce the number of vocational education institutes from 19 to 18, especially under the constant price hikes.

The report as well noted that cancelling the item of equipments and other preparations will cost more money in the future when they are provided separately.

It spoke of corruption as for buying cars for those supervising the project as the ministry imported 19 different cars at a total sum of $386,000, about 2.5 of the contract's total value.

Similarly, supervision contracts have taken up 10.8 of the total value of the loan. Such waste of money comes as the project suffers critical shortages of funds for providing equipments.

In this regard, the report revealed that the project was actually in need of only  eight cars which would of cost $164,880, 4.2 percent of supervision contract value.

Ten cars bought for $221.329 were distributed to some ministry's officials though they were not directly involved in field supervision.

In addition to wasting the public money, observers claim that millions of dollars granted by donors and other agencies are wasted in the same manner and none asks about such sums. 

The report stressed the importance of optimizing the loans and forcing the contractors to implement the project as soon as possible, demanding imposing fines on those who delay the implementation.

Vocational and technical institutes financed by the Saudi Fund have not been implemented as of now and reports indicate that people will not benefit from these institutes before 2015, therefore wasting more opportunities for locals.          

Further, some institutes were not positioned in the right place as is the case with the vocational institute, targeting Mareb, Shabwa and Al-Jawf, which was located in a mountainous and deserted area.

This is made at the complicity of the ministry officials and local council members with the contractors.