KUWAIT CITY, July 15: Kuwait Anti-Corruption Authority (Nazaha) revealed that it had received 542 communications over the past six years, including 64 on suspicion of corruption last year alone, reports Al-Qabas daily. In its third report on Kuwait’s strategy to promote integrity and combat corruption, Nazaha explained that 15 of the complaints received last year were related to waste of public money, 10 for fraud crimes, 4 for facilitation of the appropriation of public money, and one each for financial offense, bribery, tax evasion and damage to public money, profiteering and illegal gain.

Nazaha also received 12 requests last year to provide protection after submitting reports of suspicions of corruption. The total number of protection requests received in the last seven years reached 43.

Regarding the forgery of academic certificates, the report revealed that the total number of forged academic certificates seized, since the issuance of the mechanism to combat forgery in university and professional certificates by the Ministry of Higher Education, amounted to 45 certificates.

Two certificates were recorded last year alone. The highest percentage of forgery cases was recorded in 2019 with a total of 28 fraud cases. Regarding Kuwait’s strategy to enhance integrity and combat corruption, Nazaha indicated that there is a delay in achieving the target completion rates in three out of four main axes related to the initiatives put forward. It highlighted four main challenges that impede the implementation of their provisions.

According to the report, there are 21 initiatives in the strategy that have entered the stage of final implementation and evaluation, and nine that have completed most of their work, along with the continued implementation of 17 other initiatives. The rate of achievement achieved in the first axis related to the public sector amounted to 59 percent, while the second axis related to the private sector reached 66 percent, and the rate in the third axis dedicated to society reached 79 percent.