Exploring the Attitudes of Kuwait’s Residents Toward the Role of Corruption and Anti-Corruption Entities (Nazaha) in Kuwait

Abstract

This paper explored the attitudes of Kuwaiti residents toward corruption practices in Kuwait and the role of the Nazaha Kuwait Anti-Corruption Authority in tackling such actions. To achieve the aim of this study, a survey questionnaire, which was based on a survey introduced by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime in 2018, was distributed to 535 participants in Kuwait. The questionnaire covered areas related to problems facing Kuwait, behaviors of public officers, opinions on practices of public sector employees, corruption in Kuwait by industry, the role of Nazaha in Kuwait, the correlation between bribery and access to government services, and the reporting of corruption in Kuwait. The collected data were analyzed with SPSS. The findings indicate that 374 respondents noted corruption as the most serious problem in Kuwait, which is practiced systematically in Kuwait due to the prevalence of nepotism and other cultural reasons. In addition, it was found that there is dissatisfaction with the role of Nazaha, with 46.9 and 32.3% of participants reporting that Nazaha did not react in time and did not catch offenders, respectively. This study suggests that Nazaha should be empowered with further legal means to tackle corruption in the future.

Keywords:

• Anti-corruption
• corruption
• government
• Kuwait
• Nazaha