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TWO government officials and a contractor accused of being involved in a BD70,000 scam denied a series of charges in court yesterday.
The Public Prosecution accused a civil engineer and an electrical engineer, both aged 50 and working at the Jaffari Waqf (Endowments) Directorate Maintenance and Engineering Department, of using their employment positions to issue false invoices and approve fraudulent documents to benefit the third defendant, a 38-year-old Bahraini businessman, between 2016 and 2017.
Investigators allege the officials forged documents and fraudulently gave the contractor BD68,598.520 for a project that should have cost much less, the court heard.
“The accusations against me aren’t true as I deserve every dinar that I was paid because I have done the work with integrity, with no mistakes and no technical faults,” said the 38-year-old, who failed to appear in court yesterday, to the Public Prosecution.
Victim
He claims he was banned from finishing ‘legitimate projects’ because he had refused to build apartments for the children of a former directorate executive and was now allegedly the victim of a personal vendetta.
“I was contracted for 26 projects after I was approved through the tender process so my entire operation was legitimate,” he claimed. “I have proof of my innocence and so does the Public Prosecution. The corruption must be exposed and stopped.”
The GDN previously reported that Parliament had voted unanimously for an investigation into alleged mismanagement of religious funds and assets.
Court documents revealed that an order had been made on November 16 to freeze the defendants’ accounts and assets to ensure that money is available to pay any fines or compensation should the verdicts go against them.
The GDN previously reported that they could be jailed for up to 10 years if found guilty of embezzlement, theft and forgery.
The case will continue at the High Criminal Court later this month.
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