Legislative authorities are expected to issue a decision approving an annual stipend for anti-Tasattur inspectors that is equal to five salaries, in accordance with Civil Service regulations. Abdullah Zainal, Minister of Commerce and Industry, proposed the stipend to legislative authorities who will discuss it and refer it to the Council of Ministers to look into and approve the disbursement of the annual stipend for those working to combat Tasattur, the practice in which citizens own small companies and allow foreigners to use their names to establish ownership in exchange for some of the profit. Article 12 of the Anti-Cover-Up Regulation stipulates that the Cabinet can issue a decision, based on a Minister of Commerce proposal, to set regulations and disburse financial incentives for those who work to implement the Regulation and exert outstanding efforts in uncovering violations, according to a report in Al-Watan Arabic newspaper. ?In the second quarter of this year, Tasattur practices increased by 115 percent over the first, according to a ministry report; inspectors detected 381 cases as a result of inspections at 1,166 enterprises, the newspaper said. The ministry, the newspaper said, referred 122 cases to the Bureau of Investigation and Prosecution, which has jurisdiction to investigate Tasattur violations, while 80 cases were withheld because of insufficient evidence and 179 cases are being processed. Tasattur practices have generated about SR600 million in the second quarter, according to the report. The Ministry of Commerce and Industry expects more money to be transferred outside the Kingdom because of the increase in contracting, infrastructure projects recently announced by the government. The report, which said an increase in Tasattur will cause more money to go abroad, estimated that eight million expatriates, 75 percent of whom work in the private sector, annually send about SR100 billion to other countries. Jeddah inspectors found 80 Tasattur cases, 21 percent of those received by the ministry; inspectors in the Eastern Province uncovered 59 cases, 15.4 percent; and there were 54 cases, 14.1 percent, received by the ministry's branch in Makkah. Yemenis totaled 37.3 percent of the violators, 11.4 percent were Syrian, 9.6 percent were Indian and 1.3 percent were Lebanese, the report said. The remaining percentage was distributed among citizens of Sudan, Turkey, Afghanistan, Chad, Morocco, Indonesia and China. ?According to the report, the field of contracting had the highest percentage of the Tasattur cases, 47.2 percent; 42.4 percent were in consumer commodities; and 29.2 percent of the cases were in the field of foodstuff commodities.
