“Some people working at municipalities in a short period of time turned into wealthy businessmen,” he said. “Where did that money come from and how would a small-time employee turn into a rich man in such a short period of time?”
Fahd Al-Ghanmi, a resident of Rabigh, said the large numbers of people arrested is a result of Jeddah floods. The supervision authority was active more than before. Part of the reason is that they fear that they might be held responsible if they do not expose corruption cases.
He added: “We heard how the head of Rabigh municipality was investigated for acquiring a piece of land with a fake land document, land that already belongs to the government. Another case of bribery involved a number of municipal officials with a number of businessmen to illegally acquire a piece of land. The case was investigated and the people involved arrested. Other cases of corruption came to surface in Madinah and Jeddah, which shows that the police and supervision authorities are active now more than ever.”
Naser Al-Johani, Yanbu resident, said there are a lot of pieces of lands that were all of a sudden turned into private properties. These properties are in the areas of development projects. Al-Johani said that corruption isn’t isolated to Jeddah. The Jeddah floods came and highlighted the corruption issues and exposed these people.
Khaled Al-Sulami, Yanbu resident, said the Jeddah floods came in time to expose suspicious activities and projects. There are projects that exist on paper only.
“There are drainage projects with no underground pipes. Even lampposts are said to be new when in reality they are old and repainted. There are many projects that, if people evaluated their quality, do not represent what is described on paper,” said Al-Sulami.
Abed Al-Harbi sees the outcome of Jeddah floods as positive. He said that the special committee formed to investigate the floods specified a special phone number to report corruption cases. There were rewards given to the people reporting corruptions if their claims proved to be true.
He said: “Those who want to steal public money will not expose themselves. They will work in the dark and in silence with people in power and that makes it difficult to discover such cases. The only time it is exposed is if these thieves get into disagreements. Then one of them exposes the whole operation.”
All people are urging the government to support the administrative police and supervision authority.
