JEDDAH: The Court of Grievances in Jeddah has postponed to Dec. 23 the hearing on Taif’s largest bribery case involving 26 government officials and businessmen.
The court has been looking into the case for the last two years after the Control and Investigation Commission handed over the suspects for trial after completing investigations.
One of the suspects, a municipality employee, had confessed to taking SR180,000 in bribes for giving a license to a building that had not fulfilled the stipulated conditions.
The man had taken SR7,500 from an expatriate worker for awarding a contract to the company where he worked. He had also demanded SR50,000 for licensing a firm for collecting scrap iron.
The employee, who was facing 12 charges, has been fired from his job. However, some employees found guilty of taking bribes still work with the municipality.
The second defendant is a university student who helped citizens get prime locations during distribution of public land. He assisted six women and a child to get compensation after taking SR20,000 bribe along with a municipality lawyer.
Other defendants were an architectural engineer, a computer department employee at the municipality, a teacher at the College of Technology, an expatriate project manager of a big company and low-level employees at the municipality.
The prosecution said a Saudi trader had offered a bribe of SR30,000 to a municipality employee to get its printing works for his company.
One defender, a businessman, had offered a bribe of SR100,000 to an engineer to convince the municipality’s lawyer to accept the court verdict in his favor without the municipality contesting it. He had given SR10,000 to the lawyer.
The prosecutor said some surveyors at the municipality had taken bribes of up to SR35,000 to provide electricity connections to buildings. “Defendant No. 23, who is a trader, gave SR180,000 as bribe to a municipal officer to help him renew the license of his building after adding two more floors,” he added.
