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Kuwaiti MP Nasser Al-Sane called Monday for establishing an autonomous body to battle corruption that is annihilating the nation’s wealth
Addressing a two-day forum regarding the role of media outlets in battling corruption, Al-Sane stressed the UN Convention against Corruption that compels member states to establish highly authorized autonomies bodies to eliminate corruption. As such an autonomous body is missing in Kuwait, each side is working individually and randomly, he said. Due to that, he said, members of media outlets play a great role in exposing corruption and its supporters. The forum is organized by the labor syndicate of Kuwait News Agency (KUNA).
As head of the Organization of Arab Parliamentarians Against Corruption (ARPAC), Al-Sane believed there was a gap between his organization’s efforts and media outlets, noting that some media members were confronting corruption but lacked the confrontation’s proper tools. He lauded Transparency International (TI) as a powerful and unbiased organization, adding that TI issues a monthly anti-corruption newsletter and maintains close ties with media outlets. Battling corruption requires unrestricted access to information and this is not applied in Kuwait while it is implemented in other nations, added Al-Sane who said some media outlets have personal interests and want to utilize their resources in a manner that conflicts with anti-corruption. Meanwhile, the media shares a strong relationship with the government, especially in the Arab world, and this compromises credibility, professor of mass communications at Kuwait University Dr Khaled Al-Quhs said.
At the “Arab parliamentarians against corruption” conference organized last night by the Labor Syndicate of Kuwait News Agency, Al-Quhs said there are three types of corruption; ethical, social, and administrative. He said Arab satellite channels have become purely entertainment channels and that they lack serious political programing, and it is evident that such channels have freedom to present social issues but not political matters, and this weakens the desire to fight corruption, he added.
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