‘Millions state money stolen’ ‘Wolves in man’s garb’
when i was working for a bank a client told me that he know a very influential person, whose brother was involved in a ‘famous oil case’. this was in the early 1970s. the client made an offer to enter into a deal to exploit a big plot of land that was given to the influential person to store construction material, after winning a huge tender.
he said the storing area was much bigger than needed for the project – for cement mixers, paving equipment, storage of building materials, etc., but i gladly rejected the offer sensing its illegality.
after some time, the client came and told me he made a profit from the project and that i lost a lot. he also told me he had entered into a partnership with the influential person and they had converted the storage area for other uses, other than what it was allotted for.
they first leased part of the plot for others. they built a kind of zero-rate make-shift hotel to accommodate the project workers and other nearby project workers. they opened a restaurant to serve the project workers and the projects nearby.
they also opened a garage to repair vehicles and machines, and turned the old transport cars that do not work into project groceries, one of them the size of a small supermarket. they also built a factory for manufacturing bricks and put the rest of the land to different uses.
the client also said they connected power and water supply to all these activities from state sources free of charge, and they did not pay a penny for the use of the land, because of its status as a storage land, thus all activities were carried out without commercial or health licenses, and without medical examinations for workers.
the misuse of some of the storage areas licensed by the municipality to big entrepreneurs is an old and deeprooted problem and i think this process is endless.
however, i was surprised a few days ago when i read a municipality report upon direct order of its director-general eng. ahmad almanfouhi, in his efforts to protect the public money and unearth the biggest corruption fi les and acquisition of state land to take strict measures against the abusers of the fi le of storage lands.
instructions were also given to refer some of the municipality supervisors for investigation, perhaps for their negligence and failure – for known reasons – to report such serious violations. we wish early disclosure of who is behind the allocation of these lands to conduct investigations and referring those involved to the legal authorities.
these public thefts were revealed after engineer ahmad al-manfouhi issued a decision to remove all buildings constructed on state property outside the organizational line, and here we clearly see the huge volume of violations.
the issue is very complex, the list of names of people involved is big, the number of violations is close to 200, theft of state money runs into millions of dinars and there are strong doubts of the involvement of some in the theft of groundwater.
after all this, will we be blamed if we request that al-manfouhi remain in his post as director-general of the municipality, and not be made minister? his presence in his position is more important and more useful to the homeland which has been devoured by wolves in man’s clothing.
