The case against former Health Minister and employees of the Ministry of Health accused of embezzling public funds came up before the Ministers Court on Tuesday.
The Court, chaired by Judge Badr Al-Sara’awi, listened to testimonies of witnesses in the case against former Minister of Health Dr. Ali Al-Ubaidi, former undersecretaries Khalid Al-Sahlawi and Mahmoud Abdulhadi, and an employee at a medical equipment company for illegally benefiting from public funds. The four were accused of signing a contract with a medical services company to supervise the overseas treatment of Kuwaitis in the United States.
The court will also look into another lawsuit referred to its Investigation Committee based on the accusations that Al-Ubaidi and former senior officials allegedly received illegal privileges as per the above-mentioned contract. The Anti-Corruption Public Authority referred the relevant file to the court.
The Investigations Committee previously listened to the testimony of a former health ministry official, Ali Al-Anzi, who said that contracting with the company in the USA had in fact saved public funds.
He said that the contract had managed to decrease the cost of treatment for one patient from an average of US$150,000 to $135,000 and that this cost had soared to $231,000 after the contract ended. He pointed out that before signing the contract with the US company, the State had to pay more than $1 billion in treatment fees, but during the contract period this amount decreased to $739 million and thus managed to save public funds.