Article 26 of the Saudi Privatization Law

Moving the delivery of a service to the private sector does not mean the government is absent. This article guarantees the contracting authority's right of oversight and places two obligations on the private party:

1. Providing information: all information, documents and reports that enable the contracting authority to exercise its oversight over the performance of the contract or subsidiary contract.
2. Enabling representatives: enabling the authorized representatives of the contracting authority to carry out the tasks that monitoring the contract requires.

The contract or subsidiary contract sets the controls and conditions for this, such as the type of reports, their dates and the way visits are conducted. The text does not detail these matters; they are left to the contract.

In practice, the private party cannot rely on the confidentiality of its business to refuse to provide what the contracting authority needs to oversee the contract, as long as the request is within what the contract specifies. The obligation to enable access concerns the contracting authority's authorized representatives.

This oversight links to the powers that Article 27 gives the contracting authority when the private party breaches, since oversight reveals the level of performance. Anyone who needs to draft oversight clauses in a contract should consult a lawyer who specializes in commercial matters.