KUWAIT CITY, June 5: The Public Anti- Corruption Authority (Nazaha) revealed that it has received 99.5% of the financial disclosure returns for those covered by the executive regulations of the law establishing the authority, from senior officials and supervisors in the country, since the regulation came into force in 2016 until the end of last May, reports Al-Qabas daily. The observer for receiving financial disclosures at Nazaha, Abdulaziz Al-Othman, explained the total percentage of declarations received from those covered by its requirements was 28,289, during the mentioned period, pointing out that among the received declarations, were 15,565 initial declarations regarding assuming the job capacity covered by the provisions of financial disclosure.

Al-Othman indicated that the authority had received 8,730 updates on 3 years old declarations, in addition to 3,994 final declarations as covered by the provisions of financial disclosure. He stressed the importance of financial disclosure and its essential role in preventing financial corruption, protecting public funds and strengthening oversight over everyone who assumes a public position, in addition to immunizing the public employee and establishing the principle of transparency and integrity in state agencies.

Al-Othman pointed out that those who fail to submit statements expose themselves to a number of legal penalties. In the event that the declaration is incomplete or incorrect with knowledge of this, or if someone has not submitted a declaration on behalf of a person who is his guardian, or custodian despite his warning. He stressed the legislator’s keenness to respect the privacy of the information provided by the subject, so the employees of the authority are prohibited from disclosing any data and to consider disclosure statements among the secrets that must be preserved.