Minister of communications and transport may be appointed

A portfolio for Communications and Transport is expected to be created and a Cabinet rank minister may be appointed to head it soon, says a report in the local Arabic daily Al-Arab quoting reliable sources. The need for such a post has become inevitable in light of the international organisations for communications and transport’s preference to deal with a minister rank official whenever they have ministerial level conferences. Qatar’s Ministry for Communications and Transport was abolished in 2001 and its portfolios were transferred to the Civil Aviation Authority, the Customs and Ports Authority and the Qatar Postal Authority. Merging of the government Audit Bureau with the recently created Administrative control and Transparency Authority is also being considered, says the report. This is to avoid overlapping of jurisdiction irrespective of the fact that the two bodies have clearly defined terms of reference. The Audit bureau was established in 1973 to monitor the functioning of the public exchequer while the latter body was established only in November last year to achieve transparency, public integrity and better control on the functioning of all government bodies in order to check corruption and malpractices.