SAUDIWOMAN’S WEBLOG: Last Friday, the King made a three minute pre-recorded speech thanking Saudis for their loyalty in an obvious reference to no one coming out to demonstrate on the Friday before. After the speech, two tv presenters took turns announcing a number of royal decrees. The night before the king’s speech and announcements were made, all newspaper editors were told not to use the term “royal generosity” or anything similar to refer to financial packages. These little things are evidence that up high they really are listening to what we down here are saying.
Last Friday’s royal decrees were surprising in their traditionalism while we were anticipating the opposite. Retrospectively though, anyone who would have stepped back and looked at the big picture would have been able to foresee these decrees.
Besides the fun and bribe-like two month salary that almost every Saudi employee and university student is getting, the rest of the decrees are pretty much same old same old. A commission to fight corruption being set up, more interior ministry officers and a lot of money promised to infrastructure; where have I heard that before? The commission that was set up a couple years ago to examine the corruption behind the loss of millions assigned to Jeddah’s municipality has yet to name a culprit. We’ve all read about the millions poured into projects that never see the light of day like this outline prepared by fellow blogger Trad Al Asmari in which three different construction companies take turns being paid to build a ministry for education at a total cost of about 350 million US dollars. Continue reading and comment » | Eman Fahad Al Nafjan | Sunday, March 20, 2011
