Kuwait: Bid to remove secrecy on bank accounts of 13 people
Move comes at request of anti-corruption watchdog
Cairo: Kuwait’s public prosecution has asked the central bank to remove secrecy on local bank accounts of 13 people in response to a request from the state anti-graft watchdog as part of a crackdown on corruption, a local newspaper said.
The list includes a son of an ex-senior state official and four former undersecretaries at the Health Ministry, Al Qabas added.
In response, the central bank has addressed local banks to provide the Anti-Corruption Authority, officially known as Nazaha, with all data on accounts and deposits of the listed 13 since February 1, 2016, according to the report.
The paper quoted what it termed as well-informed sources as saying that the anti-corruption agency has received 49 alerts against the Health Ministry since 2016 until last October.
In recent years, Kuwait has stepped up its efforts to fight corruption.
In 2019, the country’s top court sentenced a Kuwaiti ambassador to six years in prison and ordered his removal from the post after convicting him in a case involving state money embezzlement.