What turmoil. The last few months in the life of our parliament were just that, but at last we are seeing some concrete steps taken in fighting corruption, challenging archaic laws which engender nepotism and corruption. They’re now holding wayward ministers to book in full public view.
It started from a comment made in parliament by the head of the pension fund – a member of the ruling family no less – which he intimated that both the General Organisation for Social Insurance (private worker’s fund) and the Pension Fund (public workers fund) are or will go bankrupt very soon.
The parliament immediately created a committee to look into this issue. 5 months after the formation of the committee it presented its report which exploded the myth that both of these organisations are in good hands and there is “no need to worry.†The committee highlighted gross malpractice, corruption and shoddy infrastructure and is in the process, through several extra-ordinary parliamentary sessions, to interrogate 3 ministers who they hold primarily responsible for the state of both funds. Two ministers in particular are in the firing line: the Minister of Finance (Abdulla Saif) and the previous Minister of Labour and social affairs (Abdulnabi Al-Shoala) and have been all but charged with bad management, corruption and nepotism.
The report highlights losses in bad ventures and loss of revenue due to the lowering of the subscription rates over a period of about 20 years both of which accumulate in some estimates at BD 500 million ($1,326m). Some heads will roll.
The chairman of the committee is an MP and respected lawyer Farid Ghazi, seconded by Abdulnabi Salman. They have both come up as the heroes of Bahrain and everyone is looking towards the conclusion of this diabolical episode. The hope is of course is that the ministers responsible will indeed be brought to book, fired from their positions and return the moneys squandered through their reign.
The more important outcome is that every single public and private official now knows that they no longer have a free hand in furthering their own personal aims by corruption. The parliament and the people are watching and are no longer just sweeping it under the carpet. They’re out for blood!
In the mean time, our Islamist friends led by the very worthy Ali Mattar wants Bahrain TV to put in a short- and medium-term strategies to further entrench Islam, create yet another censorship committee to oversee everything which is produced and transmitted through Bahrain TV.
So we see while honest MPs are working hard to eradicate corruption and help the country rise from the ashes, others are diligently trying to further control and restrict thoughts.
Comments
the government responds
It seems the cabinet have felt the fire under their collective seats. They have now promised to return siphoned funds back to the pension funds and restructure both funds completely. However, it appears that the money will be taken from the national budget which means some other project(s) will suffer. So is is a case of taking money out of one pocket and putting it in the other? Sure looks like it.
I am not sure whether this measure is taken in order to allay the possibility of impeaching the involved ministers. This scenario too seems true in this case, but time will tell.
I know that 17 MPs have signed a petition to question the 3 ministers involved, but that will happen only when the parliament reconvenes in March. Will that be too late to do anything as the government would have corrected and acted on the committee’s recommendation by then?