i n a remarkable precedent, the criminal court has sentenced the fugitive vice-chairman of the central tenders committee (ctc) to 10 years imprisonment for receiving three new mercedes cars from a certain person as a bribe for obtaining a tender.
after the crime was uncovered the issue was referred to the audit bureau and the latter requested the ctc to qualify an agricultural company.
this happened when ‘ms. x’, the committee member, objected to the qualification request, and some members agreed with her. the refusal prompted the agricultural company to file a grievance and after a long explanation, the case file was referred to the anticorruption authority (nazaha).
for some reason, nazaha looked into it, but set it aside and paid more attention to another issue which a member of the ctc, ‘ms. x’ and another colleague had rejected.
it became clear to the anti-corruption authority that the tender committee’s approval of the ministry of health’s request for a direct contract with an ambulance supply company – a contract worth 3.7 million dinars – was suspicious, especially since the request was not urgent. this happened during the era of the honorable minister of health dr. jamal al-harbi.
the anti-corruption authority’s doubts about the issue prompted it to request ‘ms. x’ to testify to know why she had objected to the qualification of the tender. her testimony provided fuel to nazaha’s suspicions and the latter opted to activate the tools at its disposal and asked for documents, records, logbooks of the second accused/convict and discovered that the first suspect/convict had actually received three luxury cars from the company that had obtained the deal. the cars were registered in the name of his wife because there was no evidence to prove he paid for the cars, which was a clear case of bribe.
after the authority referred the case file to the public prosecution ‘ms. x’ was summoned for interrogation, not a member of the tender committee, but this time as minister and that was her second testimony, where she courageously and fluently stated that the approval given by the financial institution and the fatwa and legislation department to the request of the ministry of health to sign a direct contract with the ambulance supply company was not mandatory to the central agency for public tenders, because its approval is limited only to the material aspect and legal form, and the authority concerned with approval of the contracting mechanism is the central tenders committee.
in her testimony, the minister affirmed that the basic principle of contracting is tender, and the exception is direct contracting. we hope that this ruling will be strengthened in the following degrees of litigation, and here we can only thank the honorable deputy rakan al-nisf for his role in urging the concerned minister to open the case file which was collecting dust for more than three years. we also thank nazaha which did not hesitate to activate its tools, storm the bribed company’s offices and uncover corruption.
mr. faisal al-qattan, the state-appointed lawyer for fatwa and legislation deserves our thanks for his defense. the greatest credit in this historical case goes to ‘ms. x’ for her honorable and bold stance, for taking the risk and insisting to give her testimony which was decisive in condemning the accused.
ms. x is dr/ engineer jenan bushehri, whose resignation has created ripples in kuwait’s political history, and the country lost a lot when she left the ministry after the forces of corruption overcame her under the dome of ‘abdullah al-salem’. we greet her person who is in ‘temporary isolation’.