With the aim of increasing effectiveness and streamlining support Tamkeen has engaged the Middle East member firm of Protiviti, global business consulting and internal audit firm, to carry out monitoring of private sector support (PSS) programmes over a four-year period.

A contract was signed between Tamkeen and Protiviti member firm, by Tamkeen enterprise and human capital development vice-president Dr Ahmed Abdul Ghani Al Shaikh and Protiviti managing director Robert Brown.

The BD383,000 ($1.02 million) contract, which was awarded to Protiviti member firm entails monitoring of all the stakeholders involved in Tamkeen's PSS programmes.

'Over the past year-and-a-half Tamkeen's PSS work has gathered pace and we have started work on many fronts and engaged stakeholders at many different levels,' said Dr Al Shaikh.

'Therefore, it is imperative that we have a process through which to check performance regularly, monitor quality of deliverables, review the results and have a channel for stakeholder feedback.

'By engaging a world-class team of experts from Protiviti member firm to conduct the monitoring process, we believe that we will enhance the transparency and quality of our PSS work,' Dr Al Shaikh said.

'We will bring global expertise to perform this monitoring process and we are confident that all the stakeholders will benefit from the process,' said Protiviti Bahrain senior manager Arvind Benani.

'We believe that we will add further value by creating new benchmarks and templates that can be used in the future.'

All the PSS programmes combined have benefited more than 8,000 Bahraini enterprises on various business fronts, such as enterprise support, growth assistance and financing schemes.-TradeArabia News Service