State, society must first address various components’

KUWAIT CITY, Aug 20: Corruption has become a basic feature of the daily life in Kuwait, reports Al-Qabas daily quoting Dr Bader Musa Al-Saif as saying. He added the numerous cases of corruption coming out to the public in the past few weeks have shaken the Kuwaiti society to the point that discussions about corruption obscure the 30th anniversary of the Iraqi invasion, and this memory is now used as a metaphor to express the condition of the country at present. “Corruption has become an internal invasion threatening the existence of the state and its ability to function,” he explained in an article, indicating it has reached unparalleled proportion with an intricate web of perpetrators involved in its numerous images and forms.

Society
Corruption in Kuwait is not limited to embezzlement and money laundering. It is a five layer system whose components intersect and feed each other; thus, making it difficult to combat. The state and society must first address the various components and elements if they are serious about eradicating corruption. Otherwise, it will spread further, he added.

The first layer of corruption is “wasta,” meaning the use of knowledge and influence to gain favors. Corruption takes various forms, and includes bribes, favoritism, services that violate laws, exemptions from fees, undeserved government compensation and circumvention of laws. It generates infectious behavior that continually causes extreme neglect, inefficiency and substandard performance. Often, the completion of regular transactions require the distribution of “gifts”, whether money or material goods.“

Wasta
Wasta is widespread in the public system to the point that it was stated in a report prepared by the International Monetary Fund that Kuwaitis were mentioned the most in wasta among the people of the Gulf as a precondition for obtaining a job, while they ranked third in this field among the people of the Middle East,” he said.

Favoritism also permeates Kuwait’s vital oil sector, as well as illegal distribution of the state’s agricultural land. Much has been written about wasta, but accepting it as a normal routine has allowed relatively small deviant practices to snowball into major corruption cases.“

The second layer of corruption is based on the abuse of power to carry out fraudulent practices, and it’s a complementary part of the wasta. One of the most notable examples of this practice is the scandal of forged university degrees obtained by officials and academics. Some companies have also been involved in corruption by manipulating their balance sheets while thousands of Kuwaitis deliberately falsify their employment status in private sector to obtain funds from the state, taking advantage of a government policy aimed at encouraging people to leave the bloated public sector.

The aspects of corruption also include claim to some of the things that require government compensation, such as disease, which is another dimension of fraud. The state spent $3.5 billion in the first nine months of 2018 alone on treating its citizens abroad, and in many of these cases it became clear that they had claimed illness by going on tourist trips. A large number of them ended up in American hospitals where fees reaching $677 million were not paid, and prompted the US State Department and Congress to issue statements demanding Kuwait pays its bills.

In addition, allowances provided for the people with special needs are used for people with disabilities claiming to benefit from financial aid. The first and second layers of corruption are mostly invisible, but like the artery that supplies life to corruption. Linking corruption to illicit material gain has led to the revival of a culture based on wasta and fraudulent behavior. This culture is so widespread that a large number of people who normally abide by law find themselves forced to engage with them, or face obstruction in obtaining regular services.

Treating these practices as mundane or petty and simple contributes to the vast expansion of its bad patterns. Forging citizenship and human trafficking are the third layer of corruption in Kuwait. The discriminatory treatment that Bedoun or stateless people receive in Kuwait has prompted some of them to resort to illegal means to meet their needs.

Imbalance
An example is when some people search for solutions to this problem by paying money to obtain another nationality in order to improve their conditions, or by paying money to obtain the identification papers they have been longing for.

The illegal trade in labor, through the imposition of huge sums on foreign workers, is beneficial to influential figures referred to as residence dealers. In part, this has caused a population imbalance and xenophobia. Kuwait has also become an international center accused of money laundering and the international media have highlighted this phenomenon. This fourth layer of corruption raises the interest of a large number of Kuwaitis due to the intrigues surrounding it and the accusation of a high-ranking member of the ruling family who is currently under investigation for a case related to facilitating money laundering.

This issue is related to the sovereign wealth fund “Berhad Malaysia for Development”, with the involvement of a Syrian and an Iranian agents, which constitutes an embarrassment for Kuwait in the international arena. Many social media influencers are also under investigation, accused of charging millions of dollars through suspicious money laundering operations, either knowingly or unintentionally.

The misappropriation of funds attracts the most attention given the identity of the persons involved and the size of amount but this fifth layer of corruption is a tip of the iceberg. Kuwait’s financial integrity has been affected in many institutions and areas that include social security, the Army Fund and Defense Purchases, “Interior Hospitality”, Kuwait Airways, sports, the Ports Authority, municipalities, petrochemical industries, oil, the National Assembly, the Zakat House, and others.

What makes matters worse is that legal cases have not revealed the actual persons involved in the corruption files yet, and this is what drives many Kuwaitis to feel dissatisfied. The reason is not the absence of supervision and monitoring institutions. There are twelve bodies that “fight” corruption, but many of them either lack effectiveness or suffer from impotence.

The fight against corruption is met with obstacles represented in the overlapping of agencies, lack of laws and poor performance based on the absence of a comprehensive vision to combat corruption. While Kuwait’s ranking on corruption indicators continues to decline year after year, the state must reconsider its concept of corruption and the limited tools available to its combat. We should educate society, and in particular the youth, by teaching them the ethics of integrity and transparency in the context of an integrated view of corruption.

Society and civic organizations must expose the evolving infrastructure of corruption in everyday practice, while politicians must redirect their fight against corruption to include all five classes. Finally, the government should integrate its efforts into a central framework under the supervision of honest leaders with powers to fight corruption.