BEIRUT: Fifty-five civil servants are being investigated for corruption as part of a widespread crackdown on dishonest real estate dealings, including the theft of public property and embezzlement, Finance Minister Ali Hasan Khalil said Monday.
“There is an increasing number of cases related to bribes and embezzlement by clerics in real estate departments as many citizens now have to pay more to finish their paperwork and forcing the government to lose millions of dollars throughout the years,” Khalil said in a televised news conference at his ministry.
"After the rise of complaints and as a result of investigation into reported violations, we now have dozens of documents that prove the involvement of employees in these departments in corruption.”
He said he referred “55 employees in real estate departments including topography officials to investigation,” including several high-ranking officials, stressing that finance ministry employees no longer enjoy any form of immunity.
He also spoke about many cases in which public money assigned to the implementation of public projects approved by the government illegally referred to the personal accounts of employees.
Khalil’s crackdown tackles almost taken-for-granted practices of public sector employees primarily topography officials who receive bribes to speed up the process of paperwork and estimate property at a lower price or at a larger size, which at times extends to public property.
“One topography official’s house cost $6 million. How is that possible?” Khalil asked, saying the state has lost many properties to such illegal practices.
"Millions of meters belonging to the state are now the private property of either people or suspicious companies,” he said.
Khalil said that many citizens took advantage of the 2006 war in Lebanon to identify and register property in their names, most of which were state-owned.
"How can a grandfather inherent from his son? Or his grandchildren?”
In order to address these concerns, Khalil said he issued a decision in the ministry to stop all ongoing paperwork in the real estate departments for a three-month period for citizens to resubmit their files.
“I have also spoken to the justice ministry to follow up on these documents,” he said, adding that an additional 29 files were referred to the Office of the Financial Prosecutor.
He also said he would form a committee to follow up on all complaints filed by citizens.
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