Anti-graft body labels corruption as 'invasion'
Kuwait Times, Monday, October 24, 2005

By B. Izaak

KUWAIT: Kuwait Parliamentarians Against Corruption (KUPAC) yesterday issued a stern warning against widespread corruption in Kuwait, branding it a new invasion and urged honest forces to join hands in the fight against graft. Commenting on a new report by Transparency International that placed Kuwait in the 45th position among 159 countries, KUPAC charged in a statement that corruption here has reached a very serious level. Last year, Kuwait was placed in the 44th position, down from 35 the previous year.
The statement attributed the rise in corruption to a number of factors, mainly the current election law which distributes the country into small electoral districts that are easy to control by political money. This has enabled corrupt people to have members who effectively control the formation of parliamentary panels and abuse monitoring tools and votes on crucial decisions, the statement said.
It is ironical that parliamentary majority has succeeded in electing corrupt members to committees entrusted with economic legislation, protecting public funds and combating corruption, KUPAC said in the statement. "This would not have happened without government votes, which clearly reveals an alliance between corrupt people in the two bodies (government and Assembly) to consolidate the foundation of corruption," the statement said.
It said the corrupt establishment is attempting to exploit the concept of economic reforms like economic liberalisation and seeking assistance of foreign expertise in oil extraction for the benefit of certain people. The absence of protests towards what is going on in Kuwaiti foreign investments, arms deals and the process of awarding state projects are all indications of widespread corruption, it said. This has been accompanied by an unprecedented deterioration in public administration, spread of bribe-taking and influence and breaches of the law, the KUPAC statement added.
"What makes the picture even darker is the attempt by corrupt people to use the judiciary for crippling the tools of supervision and accountability," KUPAC said. "As a result, it was no surprise that Kuwait was placed in the 45th position, but what is surprising is the fact that Kuwait came in as the second worst in the GCC states regarding corruption," it said. "KUPAC urges all the good people of Kuwait to confront this new invasion. We call on all honest lawmakers to shoulder their historical responsibility to stop this aggression," the organisation said.
KUPAC was formed in Kuwait a few months ago as part of the Beirut-based Arab Parliamentarians Against Corruption, which is the regional branch of the Global Organisation of Parliamentarians Against Corruption (GOPAC).