Anti-corruption agency asks govt to supply coverup data

JEDDAH: The National Anti-Corruption Commission, Nazaha, requested the Ministry of Commerce and Industry to supply details of business cover up violations it had detected.
The ministry’s cell combating coverup detected 920 cases of commercial coverup in the first half of 2012.
Commercial coverup is one of the major economic evils the government has to grapple with. It means an expatriate illegally runs a business under the name of a Saudi citizen. While the Saudi is paid a paltry sum for his collusion in the venture, the illegal expatriate businessman remits huge amounts to his bank account abroad.
Nazaha wanted information on these violations, based on Article 5 of the National Regulations for Anti-corruption, which stipulated that all monitoring departments in the country should supply Nazaha with any information, document or statement regarding irregularities they detected in financial or administrative matters. Nazaha made this request in a letter to Minister of Commerce Tawfiq Al-Rabiah, Al-Madinah daily reported yesterday.
Most of the violations the ministry discovered were in construction and consumer goods fields, an official of the ministry’s anti-coverup cell said.
The cell inspected 2,228 establishments in 2012. The ministry handed over 200 cases to the Bureau of Investigation and Prosecution (BIP). Those cases were not supported by sufficient evidence. The ministry and the BIP have some reservations about 264 cases while 456 cases are being studied.
In 72 percent of cases, Arab expatriates committed the coverup violations. Yemenis accounted for 31 percent of them, Syrian expatriates followed with 19 percent, Egyptians at 14 percent, and Jordanians at 8 percent. The remaining 28 percent were distributed among Pakistanis, Indians, Bangladeshis, Americans, Indonesians, Chinese and Afghans, the report said.