RIYADH, 4 May 2004 — The Shoura Council has proposed a strategy to fight corruption by cutting red tape and ensuring transparency in the public sector.
Dr. Hamoud Al-Badr, the Shoura’s secretary-general, said the council listened to a working committee investigating the problem but took the views of all council members into account before submitting the strategy for Cabinet approval.
Among the reasons for widespread corruption the committee established were administrative inefficiency and the lack of transparency in the auditing process. The complicated and often opaque way the bureaucracy operates made it difficult for many to go through the proper channels, the committee said, prompting them to look for unconventional ways through the administrative maze.
Regulations also provided for a catalogue of exceptions that are often badly explained.
Lack of public awareness of standards of integrity, as well as the low level of education and ignorance of the law on the part of some officials were other reasons cited by the committee.
The committee also noted that people are slow to inform the authorities when they encounter corruption, afraid such complaints could backfire. Punishment is rarely serious, it added.
Al-Badr said among the most important factors in fighting corruption in any country was transparency in the workings of the public sector. That meant media access to information and freedom to publish it.
An independent judiciary, public participation in uncovering corruption and the plugging of administrative loopholes were also at the top of the list, Al-Badr said. He said authorities must understand that uncovering corruption in their sectors is not criticism of their performance so much as an effort to make their task easier.
Al-Badr said the committee reviewed government projects sector by sector and found many areas where the groundwork for the fight against corruption had already been laid.
But the council also said that more must be done, including setting up internal auditing procedures, monitoring of departmental performance, and public participation through suggestion and complaint boxes.
The council stressed the need to get rid of red tape to make government offices accessible to everyone.
It also wants job and project descriptions to be more specific and establish clear penalties for corrupt officials. Al-Badr added the council also looked at appropriation of public funds.
