IN ONE word, the miser now is our last ‘wise’ government, but it was tightfisted towards the people.
I and all others who have been observing the general conditions are sure that what has not been discovered in terms of theft or looting is many times more than what has been discovered so far.
The oversight side represented by the State Audit Bureau, Civil Service Commission, Integrity Commission and others do their work like a turtle.
Millions of public funds are being spent on certain organizations and institutions. The rational woman, represented by the Ministry of Finance, tells them: “Ask and your requests will be granted.”
There are bodies and institutions established by laws and by virtue of international treaties to which Kuwait has acceded. Therefore, they must abide by the contents of these agreements. However, the accession appears to be based on a category; that is, according to the rationale behind the dealings of these entities.
What I mean here, and I could testify to that, are Al-Rasheeda’s dealings with the National Bureau of Human Rights, which was established through a law approved by the National Assembly and HH the late Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah -- may God grant rest to his soul. A budget of less than one million dinars has been allocated for a bureau that needs dozens of employees, communication devices, headquarters and others. The aforementioned amount is not even enough for the salaries of members!
I laughed sadly when the newspapers published reports on the KD2 million embezzled by an employee in the General Fire Department for a period of two years; and increased his salary from KD2,000 to KD42,000 -- equivalent to half a million dinars annually.
I would not have spoken had it not been for one of his colleagues who discovered that the thief who stole KD2 million issued himself a salary certificate for KD42,000 although his salary does not exceed KD2,000!
A firefighting employee stole KD2 million and a shop was opened for him in Mubarakiya to sell ‘masjids’ to cover up the stolen money which he took from the budget of the Firefighting General Department without anyone discovering it for two years!
Every day, we see grants and gifts handed out to friendly countries and those that stood against us when we erased the tomb of Saddam from the map. These grants are given by the Philosophy Fund or Kuwait Development Fund.
We see senior officials with a smile on their gloomy faces as they sign agreements for philosophical grants to foreign countries to reconstruct their old cities; while their country, Kuwait, groans about the destruction of its infrastructure and slow construction under the pretext of the deficit that the rational budget is suffering these days.
By Ali Ahmed Al-Baghli
Former Minister of Oil
