Looking forward King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz god mercy on him .Prince Muhammad bin Salman perform the usual oath after his appointment as Minister of State, a cabinet member, saying: “I swear to Almighty Allah, to be faithful to my religion, to my king. my country, not to divulge a secret of the state’s secrets,  to protect its interests and laws, work  honestly, loyal and faithful manner. “

In April 2016 AD, Prince Muhammad bin Salman ,in interview with the journalist Turki Al Dakheel, on Al Arabiya Channel, said: “Corruption undoubtedly exists. Corruption exists in all societies and in all Governments, and in varying proportions. What concerns us today is to be at the forefront of the fight against corruption and the lowest proportions of corruption in the world. “

In May 2017 AD, Prince Muhammad bin Salman vowed to pursue the corrupted persons, asserting in an interview on MBC with Dawood Al Shiryan, that anyone found guilty of corruption would not  go unpunished whoever he was. He also confirm that if the fight against corruption was not at the helm of power, it would be useless, adding that anyone against whom sufficient evidence was available would be held accountable, whether a minister or a prince.

On November 4, 2017, the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, King Salman bin Abdul Aziz, issued a Royal Order to form a supreme committee chaired by the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and the membership of each of the Chairman of the Control & Investigation  Board, Chairman of the National Anti-Corruption Commission, President of the General Auditing Bureau, the Attorney General, and Head of State Security for current and past follow-up. That was an initial outcome of the Saudi Arabian leadership war on corruption, and then the King announced the launch of a new phase to strike the corruption with the sword of reform under the title “We are not afraid of being blamed for firmness and determination that does not relent”.

Some might ask: why is this narrative? We reply that any attempt to read and understand the previous royal decisions is not right without putting them into perspective and their correct chronology. This sequence proves beyond any doubt that the current Saudi leadership, from the very start, is doing everything to overcome any obstacle to the progress and advancement of the Kingdom, whether the obstacles were extremist ideas and outdated ideologies, or dens and holes where corruption lies and is plundered.

A few days ago, the kingdom welcomed a new step as part of the kingdom’s community revolution aim to giving women all their rights and fair treatment, and today it welcomes a more important and dangerous step than others, the war on corruption.

If His Royal Highness Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman is the architect of Vision 2030 to promote the kingdom and place it in the ranks of the great powers, and it is natural and logical that this architect cares about the most important corner of the progress, and we talk here about the economy in a a very broad sense, beginning with figures and statistics, passing through mega-projects, to providing a decent standard of living to the people of the kingdom, which is the essence of the overall economic process.

If the rule says “economy is the locomotive of politics”, corruption is the biggest disease of the economy, regardless of the nature of this economy and the intellectual school that belongs to it, capitalism or socialism, corruption as disbelief is one, and no wonder that the architect of Vision 2030 cares about fighting “Disbelief ” in all its forms and different images, whether in the form of brutal terrorism, hateful extremism, or a forthcoming corruption, and regardless of the multiple elements and causes of corruption, its consequences are the same, namely the economic waste of the material and financial resources of the society.

The Saudi leadership knows very well that the effects of economic corruption generally appear on the development indicators and on the competitiveness of the economy, where there is a reverse relationship between the spread of corruption behavior and the ability of the economy to compete externally, and if corruption reduces domestic investment and reduces foreign investment, it is natural that corruption reduces the economic growth.

The effects of corruption may be one of the subjects that have been killed in all countries of the world, but corruption itself remains a major stumbling block to the aspirations of development and progress, and its task is difficult to confront it as the people profiting from it – often – strongly think reaching the level of certainty that they are above criticism or accountability, and that their interests and pockets are more important than the development goals of the State, and do not find it difficult to go with the flow if the State administration is young and ambitious, but it will not be sincere in complying with the plan of the administration, which is essentially aimed at freeing the country and the people from their corruption and impairment. Here, it is difficult to confront the heads of corruption.

However, because the leadership of the Kingdom is well aware that its aim is to raise Saudi Arabia and to make it a state of welfare and the goal deserves to stand firmly in the face of those who prevent to achieve this goal, the decisions were to prosecute all those involved in corruption cases over the years and it was not restricted to one single incident, and anti- corruption did not stop at a certain head, or retreated in front of a certain position, but it dragged all those involved in corruption cases, whatever the names or positions are, or even kinship links, and the latter is always the most important obstacles, especially when speaking of an Arab state.

Saudi leadership has achieved the first, most important and most difficult step in the fight against corruption. The first step in any project is its great history after that, which is the spark that inflames in its land the fire, and the world became convinced that the leadership of the Kingdom, represented in the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques and his Crown Prince, is serious in its quest, and the Saudi leadership will not bury its head in the sand, or refuses to face the fact that there is corruption, and this is by itself the first step in the treatment of this incurable disease.

Given the data that were the reason for the Crown Prince’s move as the Chairman of the Anti-Corruption Commission, we will find that the Kingdom’s Corruption Perceptions Index fell from 48 internationally in 2015 AD to 62 internationally in 2016 AD, according to the International Transparency Organization. Although the Anti-Corruption Commission referred 111 cases of corruption and abuse of government officials to the auditing authorities in 2016 AD, to take disciplinary decisions, all related to the committing the offences of abusing the power of the job for personal benefit, forgery in official documents, waste of public money, administrative misuse, circumventing with the intent to conceal the crime. The Commission was able to recover billion as a result of embezzlement and corruption offences, noting that it had recovered in the past year a total of 463 million riyals, which had been embezzled by workers in several government agencies.

“November 4th Revolution”.. This is how the citizens received the decisions of the Kingdom’s leaders and this is how they described them, and even some activists described Mohammed bin Salman in “Vandita” as the most famous figure in the literature of revolutions, believing in the seriousness and importance of the decisions made by the Anti-Corruption Commission chaired by His Highness the Crown prince. If Saudis are in pain from corruption to the extent that they make more than 22,000 notices to the National Anti-Corruption Commission “Nazaha” from 2011 AD to 2014 AD, they are — for sure — the happiest with the decisions of the Crown Prince, as they are sure that the leadership of the Kingdom feels the people’s concerns and moves without equivocation to get rid of the corruption.

After few hours of the establishment of the Commission, a number of princes, former ministers and businessmen were arrested, and the Jeddah Rainfall File was reopened, as well as the investigation into the case of the corona epidemic… 11 princes, 38 ministers and vice-ministers in public money and anti-corruption cases.

Political Studies Unit *