Opinion

Saudi Arabia’s anti- corruption crackdown

November 02, 2020

Noor A. AlNaboud

In such a competitive world, corruption is a real problem and must be solved globally. For that governments must deal with it seriously as an acute internal crisis.

Sadly, Saudi Arabia is one among many countries that faces corruption. But luckily our government has a qualified system and strategy to fight it — (Naming and shaming the corrupt institutions, situations, numbers, corrupt tactics and positions).

Saudi Arabia, which is fighting corruption in an organized manner, only last week brought up 123 criminal cases on corrupt people. Under the lead of Crown Prince Muhammad Bin Salman, the anti-graft body is seriously processing cases with no boundaries and, this is a subtle slap in the face of those who are corrupt yet!

SR400,000,000 was the amount that was realized from one of those cases related to a group of projects. This is quite a shocking number indeed. But with each corruption case there is a fool, who has lost the confidence of the people, by being put in the black list.

Fighting corruption is a major government plank in Saudi Arabia and it has a direct impact on the country, community and economy, when needed resources are misused. And we have to draw the line on all corruptions.

How would fighting corruption influence Saudi Arabia’s economy? It is a good question that needs to be asked, Saudi Arabia with its financial clout and judicious corruption-fighting system can plug the wasteful drain of the money that could be used to drive the economy in order to build a sustained developed society.

A growing economy and an investment-friendly destination could easily lead, in the long term, to a cohesive local and outside investors operations, such that they establish their projects in Saudi Arabia in an environment with no risks and fraud.

This can be ensured as we have a developing country’s structure to protect consumers and industries to invest in our country without fear as any doubtful case, proving to be an obstacle in the smooth growth story, would be dealt with immediately.

Admittedly, globally we have many corrupt people, some even presidents and governments. Unfortunately, they all work under the cloak of lack of transparency and no accountability.

However, such people would face a tough time in Saudi Arabia. And there would be no exception, for nowhere in Saudi Arabia will they be able to break the law. Fighting corruption is one challenge our country is facing and overcoming with assurance. And we all need to bolster it by reacting against any immoral corrupt practices, and work together to fulfill our Vision 2030 goals.

We honestly must strive hard to clean up the society. In the process we’ll push down the corruption rate while raising transparency in every act of ours to put our country among the top in the future.

And I am already seeing it happening, as we are among the top nations in all economic and social indicators. I can rightfully claim that the country is on the right track as people see the light and stomp the dark shade of corruption.

— The writer can be reached on Twitter: @moionlynoor


November 02, 2020
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