MAKKAH – The General Directorate of Investigations (GDI), in coordination with the National Anti-Corruption Commission (Nazaha), has detained officials at Makkah Municipality on charges of corruption. Monitoring bodies received information from citizens that financial and administrative corruption was taking place at a major municipality branch and detained its head and the head of the lands department. The allegations include involvement in cases of financial corruption and receiving bribes from land brokers to facilitate the sale of huge plots of unclaimed land. Nazaha has monitored the activities of land brokers who were frequenting the municipality branch and coordinated with concerned bodies to catch the involved officials red handed. A Nazaha employee pretended to be the owner of a large unclaimed area of land and offered bribes to the municipality branch head. Sources said these officials had direct dealings with land brokers and neglected to properly implement infrastructure projects according to regulations. The source pointed out that Nazaha was surprised some municipality employees were driving very expensive cars despite not earning that much and said suspect land brokers are also under scrutiny and will be detained after the completion of preliminary investigations with municipality officials. Residents of the municipality branch area have set up a hashtag on Twitter to expose any official who is believed to be corrupt.
