Continued in the file of the “Majaz Al-Baqar” water dam, accompanied by tires from the Dams Agency:
father-in-law
Former Minister of Water Resources, Arezki Baraki
During these days, the former Minister of Water Resources, Arezki Baraki, is represented, along with the Director General of the National Dams Agency, M.M., his successor to the same agency, B.S.O., and other defendants, before the Economic and Financial Criminal Court in Sidi M’hamed, for heavy corruption incidents related to the project to strengthen the “Majz El Baqar” dam in the state of Guelma, which cost the public treasury nearly 600 billion centimes.
According to the details that “Al-Shorouk” has, the investigating judge of the eighth chamber of the court officially referred the case file to the scheduling department in the same judicial authority, but the public prosecutor appealed the referral order to the indictment chamber of the Algerian Judicial Council, which will decide on the decision this week, either by upholding the orders to dismiss the case for a number of defendants or accepting the prosecution’s appeal, before referring the file again to the scheduling department of the court, which will program the trial and determine the date of the session.
Granting the project through suspicious means… and concluding annexes that cost the public treasury billions
The case file was investigated by the Regional Judicial Investigation Department in Algiers, which concluded that corruption had taken hold in the National Agency for Dams and Transfers, after it became permissible to squander public money during the era of the defunct gang, by granting a deal in a suspicious manner to a private company, to its owner, “R.H.”, for the project of strengthening the “Majaz al-Baqar” dam, directed to agricultural irrigation in the municipality of Ain Makhlouf, in the state of Guelma, with a financial value estimated at about 130 billion centimes.
But it later became clear, according to what was revealed by investigations by the security authority, that the amount of the project had nearly doubled four times to exceed the ceiling of 580 billion centimes, due to resorting to concluding annexes that exceeded the financial value of the original deal. These are the annexes that had not been agreed upon between the National Dams Agency and the company benefiting from the project, and related to 3 annexes, as the deal was changed from strengthening the dam to increasing the height, as the second annex cost more than 230 billion centimes and the third annex more than 75 billion centimes, and other violations, which cost the public treasury more than 580 billion centimes.
During the hearing of the defendants by the investigating judge of the Eighth Chamber of the Pole, he ordered the temporary detention of 5 defendants, including the former Minister of Water Resources, Arezki Baraki, who is in temporary detention, and who was finally sentenced to 10 years of effective imprisonment earlier, along with the two general directors of the National Dams Agency, “S.O.” and “M.M.”, which was appealed by the defense team of the defendants, while the investigating judge ordered that 4 other defendants be placed under judicial supervision.
The defendants in the case file were charged with heavy charges that ranged from a misdemeanor of exploiting actual or supposed influence in a public administration or authority to obtain undeserved benefits, a misdemeanor of intentionally abusing one’s position in order to perform work within the framework of exercising one’s functions in a manner that violates laws and regulations for the purpose of granting undeserved benefits to others, a misdemeanor of squandering public funds, a misdemeanor of granting unjustified privileges to others on the occasion of concluding a contract or deal with the state or one of its institutions in a manner that violates legislative and regulatory provisions, acts stipulated and punished. It is stipulated in Articles 26, 29, 32, 33 and Article 48 of the Law on Preventing and Combating Corruption.
While the owner of the company benefiting from the project to strengthen the “Majaz al-Baqar” dam in the state of Guelma, the accused “R.H.”, was charged with inciting public officials to exploit their actual and supposed influence, with the aim of obtaining an undeserved advantage, the misdemeanor of benefiting from undeserved and unjustified privileges on the occasion of concluding a contract or deal with the state or one of its affiliated institutions, in addition to participating in the squandering of public funds, and the misdemeanor of money laundering.
The investigating judge of the Eighth Chamber also issued orders to seize and freeze the criminal proceeds resulting from the crimes of corruption and money laundering against the accused, their real and movable property, and bank account balances, while issuing national and international judicial powers in order to identify the real and movable property, and identify the bank accounts of the accused, their wives, their assets, and their branches located abroad.
