The National Anti-Corruption Commission (Nazaha) has finally been taken to task by none other than members of the Shoura Council. This was the culmination of growing discontent with the performance and effectiveness of the commission in achieving its mission objective, which is to combat corruption and punish the wrongdoers. One of the members of the Shoura Council was very direct in assessing the commission's performance. He charged that "the commission's performance is substandard and its integrity is doubtful," and he called on the consultative body to review the commission's activities with the intent of restructuring and redefining its role and objectives. Another Council member expressed his disappointment at the inadequate performance of the commission when compared to its annual budget of SR226 million. With such a generous budget, the commission was expected to do much more in the fight against rising corruption, but, in his judgment, that has not been the case. Corruption is a significant threat to any country's overall well-being and development. The abuse of public office for private gain has risen in media reports in Saudi Arabia, with cases of public and private sector fraud reported almost daily. The following are some recent cases that have been reported. As in the case of an iceberg, I suspect that what is not seen and reported is far more than that which comes to the surface. In one city, 30 private schools were found to be directly or indirectly involved in fabricating false statistics on Saudization employment ratios. The records indicated that the schools employed over 2,000 Saudi teachers, but these "teachers" were not actually working for them. The average monthly salary the schools paid these non-teachers was SR2,000 while the schools received SR2,500 in assistance from the Human Resources Development Fund for each Saudi teacher employed. Two government agencies have started investigations into these cases. A few days ago, a newspaper broke the story that there were more than 800 so-called engineers in the Kingdom working with bogus university degrees. It also said there were hundreds of PhD degree holders in the Kingdom from bogus universities. There were also thousands of supposedly skilled expatriate workers who arrived with fake diplomas and experience certificates. The report concluded that "a driver may turn out to be a guard while a barber may be a plumber who was actually only a porter. We may discover that the foreigner whom we have contracted as a medical doctor is, in fact, a gravedigger!" In another city, an official committee was quickly formed to closely monitor the bank accounts of 12 senior government officials. The accounts were put under scrutiny after sharp increases in deposits over a short span of time were detected. It was reported that some of the officials had more than SR35 million in their bank accounts, with no means of income other than their government salary. The committee also discovered that the officials had illegally forged in their names deeds for large plots of land with areas estimated to be over 10,000 sq. meters. The Ministry of Commerce announced last week that its inspectors had confiscated a trailer full of adulterated rice with different labels of popular brands being sold in the Kingdom. Inspecting teams had followed a vehicle to a warehouse in the southern suburbs of Riyadh, the main hub for the distribution of substandard quality rice to various shops. “The substandard rice is repackaged and carries labels of popular brands,” the ministry said. More than 40 tons of rice was seized at the warehouse which was being run by Arab nationals. Needless to say, the owner is now a fugitive from the law. The Saudi Food and Drug Authority (SFDA) recently warned the public against drinking water manufactured by a company with 14 factories in the country because the water contained a high ratio of bromate, a source of highly carcinogenic substances. The company was violating many safety standards in the bottling of this water. Now most of these acts of cheating and fraud were not brought up by the commission and that perhaps explains the dissatisfaction of the Shoura Council along with the public with regard to this body's performance. They suspect that the commission has evolved into another bloated bureaucracy with a rising annual budget and with very little bang for its bucks. Some feel that the commission is content in releasing small pamphlets every now and then highlighting the dangers of corruption. They demand more, such as an intense investigation into all corrupt acts that affect the general public and the public naming and shaming of those caught doing dirty deeds, along with the seizure of all their assets including jail terms. This should serve as a deterrent for those considering sneaking their hands into the till. In the 2013 global Corruption Perceptions Index, Saudi Arabia ranked 63rd and trailed well behind its GCC neighbors. The National Anti-Corruption Commission must re-engineer its mission objectives to fight the growing menace. — The author can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @talmaeena
