Many faces of corruption
F ormer MP Musallam Al-Barrak says he did not receive any commission when he was member of the National Assembly, was not involved in money laundering, did not benefit from the arms deals, and was never keen to see reports from the Audit Bureau related to suspicions of corruption because he was confident of his reputation and work, and he was not afraid from the possibility of his name being mentioned in the report, because he works openly and transparently.
I have no doubts about the truthfulness of everything that the former deputy ‘Abu Hammoud’ has said, and that neither his hand nor his hearing were ever contaminated with the state’s forbidden money, and this is correct according to the usual or classic definition of theft.
Theft is not represented by misappropriating the money of others or the state’s money, and taking commissions and money laundering but it includes many other methods that are more severe and harmful.
We will assume good intentions of Abu Hammoud, the uncrowned leader of the opposition, and that he knows nothing about indirect thefts, which are much bigger, more dangerous and more harmful than direct thefts.
The thieves of public money in the Public Institution for Social Security, the Kuwait Oil Tankers Company and other thieves of sand and funds might one day be held accountable for the sins they have committed, and some of them may be imprisoned, and some or all of what they stole from the nation’s money may be recovered, but there are huge thefts and in billions but not visible that MPs participated in, knowingly or unknowingly, whose harm is unlimited because of the huge size, including, for example, but not limited to, hundreds of state employees whom these government representatives sought to appoint in government jobs just because they were members of the tribe or sect, despite the fact that most of them do not meet the simplest conditions for appointment, in a clear violation of the rights of other citizens who may be more qualified and experienced than them.
The appointment of these ignorant people also resulted in great moral and social damage, and hurt the feeling of so many individuals. It is crystal clear so many inappropriate decisions were taken by these people which caused frightening administrative and engineering, civil, electrical and transportation disasters that have cost and continues to cost the Public Treasury billions. This represents a real theft, it is not possible to prosecute or hold accountable those who committed this theft.
Representatives also sought to appoint members of their tribe or sect to specific jobs in the bureaus, investment authorities, development funds, the National Assembly, and the oil sector in large numbers, not because of their efficiency, but because the salaries in these agencies are very high, and a majority do not work, because their employment was built on the means of nepotism and not because there are specific jobs that require their employment.
The indirect thefts of the spirit of the state, its laws, and the principles of justice and equality were also represented in the deputies’ relentless endeavor to transfer the votes of large tribal and sectarian groups from one region to another in order to deprive the people of the region, to whom the votes were transferred from winning the elections, and this is a harmful and costly economic corruption.
Among the manifestations of corruption is the failure of the representatives to interrogate and refuse even to timidly participate in the questioning of the corrupt minister, whenever he is affiliated with the representative’s tribe or sect despite the huge losses caused by the minister or official concerned.
There are also many other evils that cannot be mentioned, such as the overcrowding of jobs in many of our embassies, so do not forget them Abu Hammoud.
We remind you of the fact that theft is not just money taken, or just swearing of a clean hand, rather, it has many other forms and its two sides are representatives and the government.
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