MANAMA, 10 October 2007 — Bahrain has launched a campaign to stamp out corruption with a series of arrests of business executives in the country.
Two marketing directors at Aluminum Bahrain, a pillar of the country’s fledgling industries, have been referred to the public prosecution on charges of pocketing commissions on aluminum sales.
A foreign executive and eight employees of the national carrier Gulf Air, which is facing serious financial problems, have been questioned on suspicion of misappropriation of funds.
An executive of the Arab Shipbuilding and Repair Yard Co., a Bahrain-based Arab firm in which the government has an 18 percent stake, has also been accused of misappropriation of funds and abuse of power, newspapers reported.
Mahmud Kawhaji, deputy executive president of Bahrain Mumtalakat Holding Co., a state firm overseeing the campaign, said the fight against corruption was a priority for Crown Prince Sheikh Salman ibn Hamad Al-Khalifa.
“The Bahraini leadership is pressing ahead with reforms ... and we will not spare any minister implicated in corruption,” the crown prince was quoted by the local press as saying.
Charges of corruption against officials have previously been rarely made public in Bahrain, as in most other Gulf states.
“The accused are not mere employees ... but commercial directors who handle transactions involving big sums of money,” Kawhaji said.
Established in 2006 with a capital of two billion dinars ($5.3 billion), Mumtalakat handles the state’s shareholdings in 33 companies, whose total value is estimated at 900 million dinars ($2.3 billion).
Stamping out corruption in the public sector has been a major opposition demand in Bahrain, reflecting the sentiments of a public angered by the erosion of its purchasing power.
Earlier this month, the government approved a 15 percent hike in the wages of civil servants and military personnel.
The move followed demands in Parliament and by the labor union for a salary boost to match the rising cost of living in Bahrain, the only Gulf state which does not export crude oil and whose economy relies heavily on banking and other services.
The average salary of a civil servant is around 300 dinars ($800) a month. An ordinary soldier would earn roughly the same with allowances, while an officer would average around 600 dinars ($1,600) monthly.
The anti-corruption campaign has been generally welcomed in the country, although some have voiced doubts it will reach those at the top of the ladder.
“This campaign is very important,” but it should be “transparent” and introduce safeguards against future graft, said Abdul Aziz Abel, an independent lawmaker who chairs Parliament’s financial committee.
The campaign has so far targeted only junior employees, but has not touched senior officials, Abel said.
“I hope that no minister who is proven to be involved in corruption will be spared so that the campaign will have credibility,” said MP Jassem Hussein.
Hussein, a member of the parliamentary bloc of the Islamic National Accord Association, said he believed the crown prince was sincere about fighting corruption.
“I support him, because corruption is one of the main causes of the deterioration of living standards in Bahrain,” he said.
In its annual Corruption Perceptions Index released last week, the graft watchdog Transparency International ranked Bahrain as fourth least corrupt on a scale of 14 countries surveyed in the Middle East.
In Kuwaiti, meanwhile, a watchdog yesterday criticized the country which dropped 14 places in the index and called for immediate practical measures to fight graft.
Transparency International ranked Kuwait in 60th place among 179 countries, down from 46th place last year. Kuwait has been downgraded on the TI corruption index in each of the past five years.
“We call for immediate practical and effective measures to eliminate corruption at the administrative and political levels,” said the Kuwait chapter of the Global Organization of Parliamentarians Against Corruption (GOPAC).
GOPAC, launched two years ago, also called in a statement for approving a law for access to information and for ratifying the UN anti-corruption convention.
“Corruption (in Kuwait) threatens the stability of society, fair distribution of resources and human rights, and obstructs economic and social development,” it said.
GOPAC, which groups serving and former MPs, blamed both the government and the elected Parliament for Kuwait’s slide on the corruption index.
There were allegations of wide-ranging corruption in the country by the opposition during last year’s general elections.
A Kuwaiti court last month sentenced former Defense Ministry undersecretary for life and fined him $72 million after convicting him of corruption charges.
