Govt depts ignore Nazaha queries

Several government departments have failed to respond to inquiries made by the National Anti-Corruption Commission (Nazaha).
Failure to cooperate with Nazaha-led investigation violates Article 5 of the commission’s regulations and royal decrees that stress the government departments’ commitment to this article.
The Human Rights Committee (HRC) in the Shoura Council said: “The commission should exert more effort to follow up on reports and cases to meet the aspirations of citizens. It should direct its anti-corruption policies and integrity promotion to cases and issues that infringe on public money and follow up on implementing orders and operations related to public matters.”
The committee said Nazaha referred notifications directly to the authority in question and to other supervisory or investigative entities.
The HRC contacted the commission about its standard procedure, which stated that it was contingent upon the degree of financial and administrative corruption.
It added that this criterion could not be reliable unless the commission used clear and accurate standards. Estimating the strength or weakness of evidence is purely a technical matter that has its specialized authorities.
It called on the Anti-Corruption Commission to review the methods and working procedures of entities to determine loopholes that could lead to corruption.
The commission has drowned itself in the details of small projects, moving away from big enterprises estimated at billions of riyals, it said.