Bahrain MPs demand strong action against corruption

 Manama : “Health Ministry is full of violations that should be immediately addressed”, claimed a Bahraini lawmaker today.

“Close to BD4 million is the total cost of expired medicines that are stored in Health Ministry’s warehouses. Some narcotics are missing from the ministry’s pharmacies and no actions were taken,” MP Abdulhameed Al Najjar said, while discussing a report tackling the violations detected in government authorities by the National Audit Office (NAO).

Al Najjar also mentioned that “some medical staff, with the rank of consultants, have signed and were paid for working over 150 hours of overtime, while they actually worked for less than 30 minutes”.

The discussion, which highlighted violations detected in government authorities in the fiscal year 2014 – 2015, involved many MPs who spoke about violations of ministries, public authorities and government-owned companies.

The council’s Foreign Affairs, Defence and National Security Committee Deputy Chairman Mohammed Al Jowder said, “Since 14 years and these violations are annually being repeated. We must take deterrent actions and combat this corruption. Violators should be held accountable whether they steal something as small as a cup or big amounts from public money. We need a strong will to fight and eradicate corruption.”

Meanwhile, Interior Ministry said in a separate, yet a parallel statement, that it arrested a public employee for embezzlement and forging official documents.

The ministry confirmed that the employee was arrested after the investigations of Anti-corruption and Economic and Electronic Security led to him.