Saudi Gazette report

RIYADH — Saudi Arabia’s Oversight and Anti-Corruption Authority (Nazaha) have arrested several government employees including a judge, for alleged involvement in corruption, an official source at the authority said.

The source highlighted 9 prominent cases and provided details on each case which are as follows:

First case: In cooperation with the Ministry of Interior, the Public Prosecution, the Presidency of State Security, and the Saudi Central Bank, 3 bank employees (operations manager, tellers) and 11 residents, were arrested for establishing commercial entities in the names of their relatives, opening bank accounts managed by the residents and depositing illegal money amounting to (SR505,725,336), and transferred them outside the Kingdom while obtaining a percentage of those amounts in exchange for facilitating the deposit procedures.

The residents also admitted to using bank accounts of more than 40 commercial entities in depositing sums of money and transferring them abroad; specifying those entities is under way in order to take necessary measures against their owners in accordance with the laws and regulations.

Second case: the arrest of two employees who work in the Ministry of Municipal, Rural Affairs and Housing, and a citizen, for participating in the establishment of a commercial entity and obtaining sub-projects from foreign companies in contract with the Ministry. The total value of the contracts they obtained amounted to SR10 million.

Third case: the arrest of a judge who works as (head of a division in a commercial court in one of the regions), caught red handed, for obtaining an amount of (SR19,500), from an employee of an engineering consultancy office, in exchange to rule in their favor in an arbitration case in a commercial dispute between two companies, and for also obtaining, previously, from other consultancy engineering offices an amount of (SR22,000) in exchange for awarding arbitration cases.

Fourth case: the arrest of a member of the Public Prosecution, caught red handed, for obtaining an amount of (SR30,000) in exchange for keeping a case pending, and delaying taking a decision on it for (7) months in order to pressure one of its parties to obtain a sum of money.

Fifth case: the arrest of a notary public and a faculty member in a university, where the first obtained an amount of (SR20,000) in exchange for completing the procedures of transferring the ownership of a land to the second in an irregular manner.

Sixth case: the arrest of an employee who holds two positions (the manager of the Qur’an Memorization complex and a high school director in the Ministry of Education in one of the regions); for stealing (SR153,942) from the money submitted to her by the ministry that was allocated for the complex expenditure.

Seventh case: the arrest of an employee who works as the head of the Social Security Unit at the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development in one of the governorates for registering a number of his acquaintances as beneficiaries using forged medical reports, and disbursing the subsidies according to those reports. The total amounted to (SR500,000).

Eighth case: the arrest of an employee who works as an inspector at the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development and (6) residents — all caught red handed; for the employee's involvement in notifying the residents of inspection visits beforehand, to request money from the sites to be visited in exchange for not fining them for their violations. The aforementioned were arrested after obtaining (SR10,000) from one of the sites and handed it over to the employee.

Ninth case: the arrest of an employee who works in the Ministry of Health for obtaining sums of money from citizens in exchange for recruiting them in the Ministry. He obtained a total amount of (SR40,000).

The Authority affirms on the continuation to pursue anyone who exploits the public office to achieve personal gain or harm the public interest in any way possible, and that the accountability extends far beyond the retirement of any individual, as the crimes of financial and administrative corruption have no statute of limitations, and that it will apply what the law rules against the violators with zero tolerance.