A total of 289 government employees who were charged with embezzlement of government funds last year have been forced to return the public money they looted, a Ministry of Justice official said.

The official said 289 lawsuits were filed against these people for recovery of the money, with Riyadh accounting for 151 such cases followed by Makkah with 55 and the Eastern Province with 34.

All the accused employees were referred to the general courts for authentication of the lawsuits filed against them to recover the money they looted.

“The government employees were forced to return the money they took. The supervisory bodies handled their cases following the lawsuits filed against them by the senior management of their respective departments,” the source said.

He explained that investigations indicated they were managing suspicious and illegal operations and that large sums of money were found missing from the budgets of the departments they ran or supervised.

The Control and Investigation Board submitted a paper during a seminar held recently by the Public Administration Institute, lamenting the reality of administrative corruption in the Kingdom. It said that a number of government bodies are unable to accomplish the supervisory role entrusted to them.

The paper also indicated that a number of employees convicted of embezzlement were spared the charges without any reasonable ground and as a result, public funds were wasted.

The paper warned against the large number of committees entrusted with the task of arbitrating corruption cases, and the fact that they are independent of executive bodies. This urgently calls for establishing special courts to look into such cases.

The paper said that cooperation of citizens in reporting cases of corruption was also unsatisfactory. It attributed this to their fear of the complex procedures that they might face or action taken against them if they report such cases.

It is of utmost importance that the regulations for combating corruption be developed and revised regularly in view of the low level of internal control and supervision and the poor coordination between government bodies in terms of exchange of information, the paper pointed out.