Al-Safadi sentenced for wasting public money

Rula Ibrahim-

In a precedent of this type that opens the door to end the phase of non-accountability of ministers financially, the Audit Office issued a decision to fine former Minister Muhammad Safadi, after finding that he was wasting public money on one of unenforceable obligations. Safadi was laying the foundation stone for a project that the Bidding Department confirmed was a defect in it. The result, after 12 years, was that no stone was added to the first stone, despite all the money spent.

The Audit Office issued a resolution on 9/25/2020 forcing the former Minister of Public Works and Transport, Muhammad Safadi, to pay a fine of two million and 500 thousand Lebanese pounds in accordance with the provisions of article 60 of the Organization Law from the Audit Office, in addition to a fine equivalent to three months’ salary calculated on the basis of the salary he received when he was minister. The violation is related to the award of a project for the construction of bridges in the Al-Bahsas – Tripoli area, based on preliminary maps and before completing their study, with their prior knowledge that the project cannot be implemented.

This circumvention of administrative and legal procedures to approve agreements and waste public funds has become an approach followed by most of those in charge of state administrations. With a slight difference, successive ministers have used their immunities to escape accountability and hold lower-ranking officials accountable by using them as a scapegoat for their corruption.

Hence the importance of this exceptional decision, the first of its kind in the history of the Audit Office, even 12 years after the infringement! Despite the small amount of the fine, the importance of what happened is that it constitutes an opportunity to build a legal framework that can be used to hold ministers financially responsible, and that the constitutional immunity that prevents the minister’s trial is not invoked except before the Supreme Council to judge presidents and ministers. Al-Safadi’s case may become a prelude to a breakthrough in this field, as his file could be an introduction to opening more similar files.

As for why Safadi and not others? The relevant sources say: “This file was transferred from the Central Inspection years ago, and it remained dormant since then until the Bureau staff found what authorizes them to hold the minister responsible in accordance with the laws that regulate the Bureau and strictly so that the accused cannot veto it or withdraw it with the help of his immunity or the lack of jurisdiction of the agency. Who wants to be held accountable.

Safadi’s accountability path began on 4/9/2020, based on a decision issued by the Office (239 / QR) within the framework of judicial supervision of employees. In it, he asked: Safadi and engineers Joseph Bou Samra, Hassan Khondi and Imad Hajj Shehadeh to state their defense of the violation attributed to them within 60 days, which indeed happened.

Regarding Al-Safadi, the Office assigned the following actions: 1- Forwarding the contract file for the works of the bridge construction project in the Al-Bahsas area to the Tender Department based on the study documents delivered directly to him by the consultant “Unitech” before the receiving committee in question received a final study. . 2- Al-Safadi did not send the study documents to the Department of Technical Studies according to the administrative hierarchy. 3- The urgency of the administration in completing the study and the file of the employment contract and its insistence that the employees complete all the required stages and sign the necessary references and documents in their office in one day.

The Office report indicated, based on what Al-Safadi himself said, that “the project contracting session was actually held in two phases in the eighth month of 2007 and in the administration of the tender, and the engagement was established at that time on a temporary basis at the Orient Equipment Company. ” However, the same commitment was canceled after a year by the Minister of Public Works, who later assumed the position, Ghazi Al-Aridi, in response to a request presented by the committed company “due to the difficulty of implementation and the need to modify infrastructure roads at a high cost “.

Thus, money was wasted on studies and projects that were not implemented illegally, for reasons that are not related to the public interest of course, but for a purpose that only Safadi and the company benefit from. Justifying what happened, Safadi clarified that he was unaware of the status of this project at the site where the implementation will take place, but it has not been implemented to this day, except through the media. But it was clear that the defense of the former minister contradicted the facts, since he did not intend, according to the report of the Bureau, “to freeze the project and stop its execution, but rather continued with it and approved the commitment by laying the first stone of the project, which that greatly weakens the defense cast and loses credibility. ” . The mistake made by Al-Safadi revolves around sending the preliminary study file submitted by the consultant to the tender administration before it is fully completed and before it is ready for the tender.

This led to the obligation and the initiation of the obligee to act according to an incomplete preliminary study that later identified the need to modify its terms, amounts and the cost of the commitment. It should be noted that Al-Safadi sent the same dossier twice to the Bidding Department even after the administration made comments on the first dossier and the bidding was conducted on the basis of this.

The foregoing constitutes an infraction of “committing an error, negligence or negligence that would cause material damage to public funds or funds deposited in the treasury referred to in numeral 8 of article 60 of the Law that regulates the Audit Bureau.” It also constitutes a violation of the provisions related to the management or use of these funds stipulated in paragraph 10 of the same article. This infraction adds to the urgency and pressure of the employees to complete the transactions in one day, as well as the legal and administrative regulations that circumvent it in the preparation of the bidding dossier and send it to the Bidding Department even before receiving the study by the administration, documented in the testimonies made by each of the heads of technical studies and head of the design and programs department. And the Director General of Roads and Buildings, who held these positions at that time. It is also described in the investigations carried out by the Central Inspection and supported by Book No. 319 / p, dated 08/24/2005 addressed by the Minister to the Director General, in which he affirms the need to “make the necessary corrections to some of the amounts contained in the binding file due to the speed in its preparation based on Our Guidance ”.

Despite the small amount of the fine, the decision remains an important precedent for holding ministers to account

Al-Safadi has partners, one of them is Eng. Imad Hajj Shehadeh, who prepared the tender dossier despite the incomplete study. Hajj Shehadeh, while defending himself, denied his authority and responsibility. However, according to the Bureau’s report, “it continues to be your duty as the contracting contractor to ensure that the study referred to is processed (…) and the existence of a definitive receipt, as well as to obtain definitive maps of the consultant”. In doing so, Shehadeh also violated article 60, paragraph 8.

As for the Acting Head of the Projects Department, Ing. Hassan Khondi, it was found that the contract file was forwarded before he was assigned to his duties, and the Office decided to stop pursuing him. Regarding the interim director of Roads, engineer Joseph Bou Samra, he explained that he held this position for a short period of time, and that the Minister of Public Works summoned him to his office, as well as the rest of the employees involved in the file , and asked them to sign the binding file, so he had to stop prosecuting him for the constitutional violations attributed to him.

Therefore, the Bureau decided, finally and in the field of judicial control over the employees, to impose on Safadi a fine of two million and 500 thousand pounds in accordance with the provisions of article 60, in addition to a fine equivalent to the salary of three months in accordance with article 61 of the Law that regulates the Bureau. Hajj Shehadeh is also fined 1.5 million pounds. The Office informed the House of Representatives of the violations committed by the former minister and communicated the decision to the Ministry of Works and Transport – the General Directorate of Roads and Buildings – the interested parties – the Office of the Prosecutor of the Office and the Ministry of Finance to collect the fines imposed.

It also requested the Ministry of Finance to inform the Bureau, respectively, of the measures taken by it to collect these fines and the dates of their payment. This low value is predetermined within the framework of article 60, which establishes that a fine of 150 thousand pounds to one million and 500 thousand pounds will be sanctioned for each employee who committed or contributed to the commission of one of the infractions mentioned in this article, in addition to the civil, criminal and conduct obligations that can be resolved by the references. Competent. In Article 61, which gives the office the right to sanction the employee, in addition to the fine, a fine calculated in relation to the significance of the offense committed and the amount of gross salary received.