Rail contracts to be probed for violations

The National Anti-Corruption Commission (Nazaha) detected corruption practices at the Saudi Railways Organization in relation to three contracts worth more than a half billion riyals.
The case has been referred to the Saudi Control and Investigation Board for further investigation, a local newspaper reported. Once the investigations have been completed, action will be taken against the offenders.  The aforementioned contracts involve safety systems for the railway network, which have yet not been installed. This resulted in a number of accidents on trains, with tens of casualties during the past few years. 
Hamad Abdel Qader, deputy chief of operations at the Saudi Railways Organization, said that his organization will respond to Nazaha soon.
“We will respond back to these allegations in full detail,” he said. 
On the other hand, a source at Nazaha said that the commission has assigned the task of investigating the reasons behind the delays to experts. 
“The mentioned organization was awarded the project at a cost of SR 429 million on 6/11/2005 and was given a timeframe of 24 months to complete the job,” revealed the source.  
According to Nazaha, the organization signed another contract to update the communication and sign systems at a price pegged at SR 59 million, even though the first contract has not yet been implemented. 
“The communication and sign systems were not executed in the first place, even after the investigation commenced and after five years of signing the contract,” an official from Nazaha said. 
Nazaha has charged the organization with negligence in executing the two contracts, which involves financial and administrative corruption and indicted them with abuse of public funds and resources.
“A number of accidents, as well as huge losses were incurred by the organization and no specified regulatory conditions for signing the second contract were observed,” added the source.