Muscat – The Command of the Sultan’s Armed Forces (COSAF) organised a national symposium on governance and its role in improving performance, enhancing transparency and improving financial and administrative auditing, under the auspices of H H Sayyid Shihab bin Tarik al Said, Deputy Prime Minister for Defence Affairs, on Wednesday.

Among a host of recommendations, the symposium initiated the introduction of a governance award named ‘Sultan Haitham Award for Governance’.

The symposium aimed to introduce governance and its importance as a development tool which supports all sectors in the sultanate. It also reviewed the regional and international best practices in governance, mechanisms of implementing these in the administrative apparatus, as well as theories and studies of utilising governance in developing the performance of military and security departments.

The event saw the participation of officials from the Ministry of Defence, Sultan’s Armed Forces (SAF), Ministry of Economy, Ministry of Labour, Ministry of Transport, Communications and Information Technology, Capital Market Authority, State Audit Institution (SAI), Oman Centre for Governance and Sustainability (OCGS), Oman Vision 2040 Implementation Follow-up Unit, Oman Investment Authority, Sultan Qaboos University and Injaz Development.

Three sessions of the symposium included several presentations and working papers covering various topics related to governance, namely governance as a development tool, governance in Oman’s legislation and Oman Vision 2040, among other papers.

The symposium came up with a number of recommendations, including activating and speeding up implementation of Oman Vision 2040 enablers, and improving financial and administrative auditing.

The symposium also recommended granting OCGS the power to apply governance in the public sector, and proposed publishing an annual summary of the major works of SAI, among other recommendations.

The symposium was attended by members of the royal family, several ministers, chairmen of State Council and Majlis A’Shura, SAF Chief of Staff, commanders of other military and security departments, a number of undersecretaries, senior SAF officers, academics and other military and civil guests.