Anti-graft body receives 11,315 disclosures as of June 25, 2018
‘Committees in charge find some errors’
KUWAIT CITY, July 10: The official in charge of receiving disclosures and monitoring database in Kuwait Anti-Corruption Authority (NAZAHA), Maitha Muhammad Al-Dahhan, stated that the number of disclosures received as of June 25, 2018 reached 11,315 – 10,632 initial and 683 final disclosures, reports Al-Rai daily.
In her interview with the daily, Al-Dahhan disclosed the committees in charge of examining disclosures perused through some of them and found some errors which are expected to occur due to novelty of the financial disclosure system.
According to Article 24 of the executive regulations of Law No. 2/2016 on establishing the authority and provisions about financial disclosure, three committees have been tasked to examine financial disclosures. Every committee examines a certain class of government officials.
Errors
Regarding errors found in the disclosures, most of them are due to failure to follow basic instructions on how to fill the financial disclosure form as indicated in the filling guidelines, and that is sorted by informing the concerned person to rectify the error and resubmit the form.
However, if the examining committee gets suspicious about the information contained in the disclosure, there are several procedures it has to follow such as summoning the person for clarification or requesting assistance from experts to prove any racketeering suspicion, and then the committee refers the report to the authority for action.
Al-Dahhan emphasized that the anti-corruption agency facilitated every available capacity to set up an integrated system which guarantees confidentiality and privacy of submitted disclosures, as it has designed envelopes and security stamps which will seal the disclosures properly and prevent any attempt to open them by unauthorized people.
Track
It has also provided envelopes with electronic chip to track them, in addition to installing high-resolution alarm system and security cameras in the storage compartment of the disclosures to monitor any attempt to divert it away from the exact route.
Regarding the report which went viral on social media concerning dismissal of cases of those who failed to submit their declaration on time due to procedural errors, Al-Dahhan explained the agency followed up the claims and reviewed the procedures which were taken and it was found that there were no errors in the process.
Instead, the decision to dismiss the cases was due to the fact that those who failed to submit their declarations on time managed to submit them afterwards.
According to regulations, failure to submit initial disclosure within the 60 days warrants a fine of KD 500, failure to submit its amendments within another 60 days warrants a fine of KD 1,000 and failure to submit the final disclosure report within another 90 days warrants a fine of KD 30,000.