Some PADA employees referred to Public Prosecution

Probe on unlawful disbursement of money

KUWAIT CITY, Jan 24: The official spokesperson of the Public Authority for Disabled Affairs (PADA) and the Director of the Legal Affairs Department Mubarak Al-Baddah says the authority has referred some employees to the Public Prosecution Office for investigation regarding unlawful disbursement of money, reports Aljarida daily.

Clarifying that these sums were disbursed to rehabilitative and educational bodies in violation of the law and without implementing the regulations issued in this regard, he said some Kuwaiti and expatriate employees of the authority have been referred for investigation, after their involvement in the incident was proven.

Al-Baddah said the referral came after it became clear to the Legal Affairs Department that the incident may constitute a suspicion of facilitating the seizure of public funds, stressing that this step comes in implementation of the state’s laws aimed at preserving public funds and confronting attempts to waste it.

In addition, he affirmed the readiness of PADA, particularly the Legal Affairs Department, to provide the Public Prosecution with any papers, files or documents that it requests regarding the aforementioned facts.

Al-Baddah indicated that the authority is in the process of counting these sums and working to recover them by legal means, especially since they are public funds and have their sanctity.

He highlighted that PADA’s committee, which is chaired by the director of legal and special affairs sector for collecting PADA’s debts, has succeeded over the past years in collecting nearly KD 600,000 which were disbursed to some educational institutions and schools without any right, among the financial payments of these bodies.

Meanwhile, the authority, in response to the reports published on social media about imprisonment of Egyptian employees in PADA for a period of seven years to be followed by their deportation for allegedly forging disability certificates and charging money for them, announced that it was the one that exposed the fraud and tampering with testimonies, and took the initiative to refer the incident to the Public Prosecution in January 2019.

It indicated that the case is still pending in the courts.