Nazaha: A dissipation of resources

By Talal Al-Asheikh FINANCIAL and administrative corruption continues to remain a virus that eats up the development efforts and future plans that the governments of any country make to boost economic growth and confront the global challenges they face. These challenges and other reasons have driven the Saudi leadership to come up with the Saudi 2030 Vision, which the citizens are banking on to push the wheel of development with unprecedented efficiency and speed. The routine and bureaucratic procedures of the bodies assigned to combat corruption constitute an enigmatic obstacle to reduce or stop corruption in government departments. All that we read or hear about the activities of the National Anti-Corruption Commission (Nazaha) fall short to our expectations. The activities that Nazaha has been undertaking since its inception have not been up to the aspirations of the citizens. Of course, there are some minor achievements that the officials of the commission tell us about from time to time. Nobody can deny the mushrooming of corruption and the corrupt people in all sectors. The important question here is: What has Nazaha done toward the sharks that walk freely without anyone hindering them? There are lots of gigantic projects in various parts of the Kingdom, which the government has adopted and spent huge sums of money on but Nazaha, which is supposed to fight corruption, has kept a blind eye on the corrupt people who have crept into these projects. There are many faltering projects but projects with which contractors have made foul play in their execution number more. It is only Almighty Allah who revealed to us the substandard implementation of a number of giant road projects in various regions. The rains, though little and not lasting long, have bared these roads turning them into ditches and canals. What will be our situation if the rains continued for a whole season or a year like in some other countries? The fact that the officials of Nazaha should be aware of is that there is a big shortcoming in the mechanism of the work of the commission. On top of these shortcomings is the fact that the commission does not have the authority for defamation or for the settlement of corruption cases, which should be included in its very statute like in other countries of the world. The continuation of Nazaha as it is today is just a dissipation of the country's financial resources. By being impotent as it is for many years, the commission has granted the corrupt the green light to continue what they are doing without any fear of accountability. The concerned authorities should give Nazaha complete authority to undertake its role in supervising and monitoring corruption anywhere to curb it. We have many examples in which Nazaha stood its hands tied. The latest of these is the case of the minister who appointed his son in a job in naked violation of the rules and regulations. With the passage of time, the case started to melt in the sea of procedures until it will finally dissolve in thin air. The routine and bureaucratic procedures of the commission do not tally with the ugly face of corruption. But how can we ask Nazaha to be transparent when it refused to publish its own annual report?