Last week the Jeddah summary court suspended procedures against the former official after he pleaded that the case be referred to the administrative court, which usually tries government officials accused of committing crimes related to their duties.

The board also passed to the court the files of three engineers who worked for contracting companies and were responsible for supervising municipality projects, bringing the total number of officials transferred to the court to 47 for their involvement in causing the Jeddah floods in November 2009 and January 2011.

The individuals being charged include former and present officials of the municipality, water department and notary office, as well as contractors and engineers.

A number of expatriate workers of Syrian, Jordanian and Egyptian nationalities have also been charged with taking or paying bribes and included among those who have caused the floods.

Meanwhile, an engineer in charge of flood drainage projects who had worked as a manager of a municipality department appeared before the Court of Grievances on Sunday to reply to the charges.

He requested the court to give him some more time to answer the charges and the next hearing will be held early next month.

The prosecutor has accused the man of taking SR6 million in bribes and approving rainwater and flood drainage systems in east Jeddah even after knowing the work was not done properly. A number of other charges such as forgery, misuse of power and misappropriation of public money was made against the engineer.

The public prosecutor has demanded to impose fines on the man and jail him for 10 years and seize the money he possessed as bribes. The engineer is also accused of taking bribes for various projects including transferring a project from one contractor to another and not withdrawing a project from a contractor who had delayed the work. The engineer is also accused of ignoring the shortcomings in maintenance works for sewage pipes in north Jeddah on the basis of a deal with an expatriate, who has left the Kingdom.

He had also set up a company in the name of his father to carry out various commercial, contacting and engineering consultancy projects. Investigators came to know that most of these projects were linked with his municipality work.