Watchdog refers health ministry official to prosecution

KUWAIT: Kuwait Anti-Corruption Authority (Nazaha) referred an assistant undersecretary at the Health Ministry to the public prosecution, the watchdog’s official spokesman Dr Mohammad Buzubar said yesterday.

Nazaha received information about an official and another person signing contracts by direct order without going through the usual procedures, that besides not obtaining approvals from the concerned supervisory authorities about the contracts project, which enabled others to take public funds and harming health ministry interests, Buzubar explained.

He further indicated that it became clear from investigations and eye witness statements that a suspected crime to ease taking public funds and deliberate harm to public funds was present. “Those are punishable crimes according to items 10 and 11 of law 1/1993 regarding protection of public funds, article 22 of law 2/2016 to establish Nazaha, and articles 47, 48 of law 16/1960 regarding issuing the penal code,” he noted.

“Nazaha will continue its efforts of examining all claims it receives and appreciates the role of informants who help the authority to obtain necessary information about corruption incidents,” Buzubar said, stressing the authority’s commitment to confidentiality and protecting informants.

Entertainment City

The Municipal Council’s Capital Governorate Committee approved a proposal of developing the Entertainment City, and the Public Authority Roads and Transport’s request to allocate a site for a reservoir to collect rain water with an area of 5,655 square meters in Nahda, in addition to the Social Affairs Ministry’s request to allocate a land to build a cooking gas branch in Girnata. Chairman of the Committee Hassan Kamal said meanwhile that the committee postponed the proposal of Municipal Council Chairman Osama AlOtaibi, Deputy Chairman Abdullah AlMahri and councilmember Meshaal AlHamdhan regarding the study of re-introducing the heritage village project in Sharq.