JEDDAH, 21 February 2008 — Over the past year, the Investigation and Prosecution Board — the Saudi equivalent of an attorney general’s office — has monitored 6,821 criminal cases related to the civil service corruption, forgery, embezzlement and abuse of power.
According to the director of the Department of Research and Information in Dammam, Abdulaziz Al-Kaib, most of the cases involve fraud. The rest include bribery (848 cases), embezzlement (46), abuse of power (101) and counterfeiting (179).
Al-Kaib said that the board examined and completed 1,169 other cases involving financial and administrative irregularities in the performance of government agencies.
According to statistics released by the Interior Ministry, bribery cases involving government employees rose by 15 percent in 1427 AH (2005/2006) from the previous year, the daily Al-Watan reported recently. According to the ministry, these crimes involve Saudis and foreigners alike.
Ahmed Lutfi, criminal law professor at King Saud University, said that corruption in Saudi Arabia takes many forms, including bribing of public servants and employees of contracted firms.
Lutfi described the utilization of personal contacts to facilitate administrative procedures (commonly referred to as “wasta”) as another form of corruption.
“Mediation and recommendations are forms of corruption,” he added.
The Kingdom’s anti-corruption system can sentence those found guilty of bribery to 10 years in prison and fines of up to SR1 million, in addition to being removed from positions and having the bribes confiscated.
Lutfi said one of the reasons for bribery persisting in Saudi society is that some people confuse it with the Islamic concept of intercession.
Some call bribery “gifts” or “gratuities.” Also, economic reasons such as bureaucracy and poverty lead to bribery. The emergence of modern patterns of bribery in affluent societies is due to corruption and the deterioration of social values.
