WE have spoken so as many others writing in newspapers and social media platforms about corruption that stares at us in every direction in our society where the majority of citizens are characterized by honor and trust except a few identified by individual members of the society whom they look upon with disdain!!

Now, everything is in disarray due to the multitude of stories about corruption and the corrupt mixing up with the rest of the honorable citizens to the point that the actors are no longer identified! The unfortunate or sad aspect of the situation is that corruption has eaten deep into the fabric of our society with stealing of public and private funds through citizenship forgery and defrauding of citizens.

The National Assembly Speaker Marzouq Al-Ghanim spoke passionately about this issue. It is equally scary, as we have also discussed the file over which the executive and legislative authorities are silent for reasons known to themselves! The issue is about dual citizenship holders who are known to have been fed with double breasts, an act the Constitution frowns upon. However, the deed is already done!

The funny and sad aspect of the situation is that corruption has reached the level of religious people who should have been guided by their religious practice to be virtuous, as we have been accustomed, in line with the usual expected attribute. We have seen many members of the religious groups who regard themselves as pious, and are equally considered as such in society, drowning in corruption through tenders and embezzling millions of public funds, and woefully failing to execute technical works.

We also see members of a particular religious group in a ministry designated by successive governments who are neck deep in corruption. This is a confirmed case of corruption based on correct-unbiased reports but none of them has been penalized, because reports are either referred to committees whose members belong to the same groups or they have been forgotten. More serious cases are floating on the surface and the society forgets the stories concerning corrupt religious persons!

We will relate to those religious persons and their followers what happened to their Jewish counterparts in Israel; those we abuse day and night for the past 70 years but unable to capture an inch.

Tel Aviv newspapers reported the “new corruption case against the fourth Israeli minister and six religious leaders”!! The Israeli police have arrested six prominent Jewish religious leaders for investigation over criminal suspicions related to several corruption issues said to have commenced over ten months ago. The news revealed that Israeli police in West Jerusalem arrested a high-ranking Rabbi, Eliezer Pearland, his wife and five disciples over suspicions of exploiting people for services such as treatment and spiritual blessing, in addition to tax evasion.

The police disclosed that 200 citizens have been rounded up as witnesses as they are aware of the practices of Pearland and his disciples who demanded huge sums to heal and protect them against diseases. He was giving them tablets as if they were medicine, while in actual fact, they were mere sweets and sugar “mentos”.

We pity the situation of Rabbi Eliezer Pearland and wish to tell him this: “If you were in Kuwait to gather millions from philanthropists and ended up spending it on yourself or you were a low cadre government employee who misappropriated millions by showering it on religious colleagues, what is happening to you in the Jewish state now wouldn’t have happened here, because we in Kuwait – represented by our government, security apparatus and Parliament believe to the bone marrow in the saying: “Be religious and live happily”.

By Ali Ahmed Al-Baghli

Former Minister of Oil