Bahrain court jails three for seven years, imposes hefty fines for embezzlement of public funds

TDT | Manama

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com

A Bahraini court awarded two employees of Jaffaria Endowments and a contractor seven years in jail each and slapped them with a fine of BD68,598 on charges of misappropriation of public money.

The Fourth High Criminal Court also ordered the defendants to return the BD68,598 they embezzled from the Endowment’s funds.

The misconduct of the duo, serving at the engineering and maintenance department of the Jaffari Endowments, were reported in the National Audit Office report for 2019-2020.

According to court files, the pair, responsible for reporting the progress of several construction sites, faked reports in favour of the contractor.

Court files say the endowments had a contract with the third suspect to demolish 26 of their projects; renovate mosques and other works.

After completing the first three works, and without verifying the quality of the works, the contractor, with the help of two employees, managed to pass an audit report and receive money exceeding the original values of the works undertaken.

The first suspect was the man in charge of verifying the completed works, and the other person was in charge of verifying, approving and referring it to the accounts for payment.

The NAO report had highlighted their wrongdoing, based on which the Public Prosecution summoned them for questioning.

The Prosecution questioned the person who spotted the wrongdoing and formed an expert committee to verify the charges levelled against them.

Public Prosecution, following an investigation, also found that the Endowments was not conducting a prior audit of suppliers and contractors to verify their financial and technical capabilities.

“This allowed unqualified institutions that had no previous experience to obtain contracts,” said a statement.

The Prosecution further found that the completion rates in the first and second projects didn’t exceed 17%, for which the defendant showed spend BD63,000, instead of the required BD14,000.

The Prosecution had found nine correspondents between the Endowments and the Contracting agency regarding termination of contracts and claims for owned amounts.

However, the person concerned with verifying technical reports on projects, and requesting bids, agreed to pass the payments for the company