march 7 part 3

Saudi Arabia confirmed that Mauritius can listen to the presentation but will not be part of the discussion. Dr. Nezeh expresses gratitude to the OECD Working Group for the opportunity to present. The OECD delegates' visit to Saudi Arabia helped raise awareness and promote the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention. Dr. Nezeh shares a story about the value of receiving observations and comments from the UNODC Secretariat. Saudi Arabia has made progress in criminalizing foreign bribery and establishing a dedicated department. They are working on a self-assessment report for compliance with the OECD anti-bribery convention. They have also enacted new laws and signed an agreement with the OECD for technical assistance. Clear expectations from the working group are needed for Saudi Arabia's accession. The OECD Working Group plans to expand to cover major economies, including G20 countries. Adaptability to new countries is suggested. as well that, while it is a closed session, Saudi Arabia has confirmed that Mauritius can listen to the presentation but will not be part of the discussion afterwards. With that, we are honoured to be joined by Dr Nezeh. If you would like to reintroduce yourself to the room, we would be very happy to hear your presentation. Thank you very much, Tresk, and if you could display my presentation. Okay, so I would like to start by expressing my gratitude to the OECD Working Group for giving us the opportunity to present today. And at the start, I would like just to say thank you very much to the Chair and to the OECD Delegates who took the time to visit Saudi Arabia last month. And I would like to tell the group that the Chair and the OECD Delegates – France, Brazil, Italy, Romania – did a brilliant job in their message being delivered to our senior ministers. They met with our Minister of Anti-Corruption, also they met with the Minister of Planning, and they discussed the issue of the OECD. So, thank you very much. It helped us a lot, not only in raising awareness but also in promoting the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention. So, today, I will present only three slides. So, if you can, first, my name is Nasser. I'm Deputy President of Anti-Corruption Authority in Saudi Arabia, and it's really my pleasure and honor to present to you today. Next, please. So, I will have only three slides, but these slides are full of information. So, I'll try to be precise, but also I would welcome any questions at the end of the presentation. And I would like to try to do my best to be as transparent as possible, because we consider yourselves as our partners in this journey. So, before I present, I would like just to show you, to share with you a story that I had back in Saudi Arabia in 2017. And through this story, you can understand why we, as an anti-corruption authorities, are very interested in maintaining our participant membership in this working group. In 2017, we had gone under the review of the United Nations Convention Against Corruption. So, we had two countries visiting us with the UNODC Secretariat, and they had a lot of comments on our legal system, and they had several observations on our practice and our compliance with the United Nations Convention Against Corruption. And myself, I was the head of the national team who is responsible to answer all these questions, and I was very defensive, defending Saudi Arabia's position that, okay, we are fulfilling this. No, we don't agree with this comment. And we were able to address most of their comments. But, you know, at the end of the meeting, we went outside, and I had a conversation with the lead experts from the UNODC Secretariat. And she told me something which I don't forget until now, and we thought it is a very valuable advice. She said, you know, we can take off most of these observations or comments, but at the end of the day, you are not helping your country. Because these observations and these comments indeed will help your country strengthen their domestic and international efforts against corruption, all forms of corruption. So, I had to go back to my minister, and I spoke with him, and I told him, you know, this is the observation that I received from the lead experts. What do you think? He was convinced, and he said, you know, try to be more objective and try to be more welcoming towards these comments. You know what happened afterwards? Most of these comments that were in our review report helped us a lot internally, in terms of protecting the integrity, the independence of our anti-corruption authorities. In terms of strengthening our domestic efforts, it helped in streamlining the process between anti-corruption authorities, which led to the merger of four anti-corruption authorities in 2019, helping us being more efficient, more effective at the fight against corruption. So, this is just to give you a background why we think your prestigious working group, with their rigorous review, definitely will help us in strengthening our efforts. So, having said this, now we will present three things. One, if you go to the following slides. So, this is what has been achieved in the past three years, and I will go very quickly over them. Even though we have done a lot, but still I can see some delegates, they have concern that we have not done a lot in our efforts to be in compliance with the Convention or towards the accession towards this working group. And I think they have some legitimacy on their concern, because from what I can see in the past three years, the expectation of the working group is very high, and it's always very challenging for any country to reach these expectations. But with that being said, I can tell you very briefly that when we started our journey in 2021 and became participants, we found that we didn't criminalize foreign bribery explicitly. So, if you don't know the legal system in Saudi Arabia, it's Islamic-based law. So, the judge can rule against anyone based on the law and based on the Islamic principles. So, we could argue that, okay, we have our law, we have our legal system, but from the discussion, we understand that we have to be very explicit on the foreign bribery. So, we criminalized foreign bribery in December 2021. And not only this, we established a dedicated department to combat foreign bribery, and we have a dedicated communication channel to receive reports related to foreign bribery. Since then, we had four officers fully working on this department. So, this might demonstrate to you the investment that we put just into not only criminalizing, but also putting into action our law. So, this is number one. Number two is that to fulfill the requirements of Saudi Arabia to have accession to any convention, we have to have a full assessment of our compliance to the OECD anti-bribery convention. So, in May 2022, we signed an agreement to hire an expert, an international expert, to come and work with us to fulfill this requirement. And since then, they posted the position in the UNDP website, and you received a lot of applicants. But after examining their CVs, none of them has the required experience that we need for this self-assessment report. So, we had to go back, and we had to approach some of the delegates here in the room and with the OECD Secretariat, just to encourage them, if they know anyone who is capable of doing the self-assessment, to apply to this job. And we had to repost this through the UNDP, and luckily, we were able to find a very good candidate for this position, which I think most of you know, Catherine Marty from the OECD Secretariat. She agreed to join us, even though when she agreed, the job offer was not as, you know, requested from her side. We had to increase our budget for the UNDP, just to make sure that we have the right experts coming to us to help us doing this self-assessment, which in turn will help the working group in knowing our position in terms of compliance to the OECD and to the private convention. So, with that being said, we have done even more efforts at the domestic level. In terms of raising awareness, we have several workshops in terms of having the national risk assessment for money laundering. Now, bribery is one of the predicted offenses of money laundering. Also, we had new laws being enacted, which is the whistleblower's witness and experts protection law. This is a major law that we requested from our parliament to enact it. And I think the biggest, or one of the biggest assistance to us was signing the agreement with the OECD, technical assistance. Through this technical assistance, we are hoping that we will have delegates and representatives from the OECD, especially those countries who have experience in combating for a bribery, to come to Saudi Arabia and to share with us, when I say with us, not only the anti-corruption authorities, but also other government agencies, their experience to comply with the OECD anti-bribery conventions, also to promote the OECD anti-bribery convention. So, we are hoping that through the OECD Secretariat, they could arrange more visits in the following. So, having all of these achievements, again, one of the issues that I think, if you go to the next slide, one of the issues that we face, and in this regard, I would like really to thank the OECD Secretariat and the chair and the delegates who participated in our visit, is that we did not have clear expectations from the working group towards our accession. So, based on the suggestions of the chair and the OECD Secretariat and the delegates to visit Saudi Arabia, they put all their expectations into an action plan and they say, okay, this is what we expect from you, because we cannot continue having you forever as participants, and you have to show real and remarkable progress towards accession. So, through this, we are hoping that we will complete our self-assessment and also start our internal process to get the required approval for accession. Also, through this, we will have five workshops to support our reforms. Also, we have one of our officers will be seconded here in the OECD. Also, we will have, and we need your assistance in building our case for our parliament and our political leadership to convince them to have the accession. So, this is the second slide, and the last slide, which is maybe the most important one, if you go to the last slide. Okay. So, again, we understand that the OECD Working Group is planning to expand to cover all major economies, all major countries, especially the G20 countries, to be a member of this Working Group to achieve the level of playing fields for everyone and for all companies operating within the OECD Working Group countries. So, with that being said, I think maybe it is the time for the OECD to consider their previous practices and try to consider looking at, you know, being more adaptable to new countries from different regions with different political systems, different legal systems. And this is why we kindly request you to grant us or to consider granting us an extension on our participant status. And here I would like to highlight two things, and these are very important. And, again, I'm sharing these because, as I told you, we believe in the OECD Working Group on bribery, and we have to be transparent with you, and we need your assistance. So, if we ask, what are the mutual benefits of extension? The first one, and, by the way, I had the first one added based on advice from the OECD Secretariat because we don't want just to talk about ourselves, okay, Saudi Arabia this or that. But, you know, Saudi Arabia is the fastest-growing economy in the G20 countries in 2022. If you look at not only our economy, all other sectors within the government of Saudi Arabia, you will find major transformation. And all of these transformations happening thanks to our Saudi Vision 2030, which is really making Saudi Arabia leading in different fronts. Just to give you one objective within the Saudi Vision 2030, one objective was to have 100 million tourists coming to Saudi Arabia on a daily basis, an annual basis. So, we had this envisaged in 2016, that by 2030, Saudi Arabia should welcome 100 million tourists. Just two weeks ago, our tourist ministers announced that we already exceeded our target in 2023. This is just one sector. If you look at other sectors like defense, in the past, we imported all defense equipment. By 2030, the government is committed to manufacture at least 50% of its defense equipment within the government of Saudi Arabia. So, we have a lot of targets to be achieved. And we think that with the current determined political leadership, Saudi Arabia will be able to be among the biggest 15 G20 economies in the following years. So, this is with regards to the importance of Saudi Arabia. Another key point regarding the importance of Saudi Arabia is the role of Saudi Arabia in the fight against corruption. And this is very important. If you look at what has been done by Saudi Arabia in the fight against corruption, you will find remarkable achievements in every front. Starting from the GCC, we have established in 2013 the GCC ministerial meeting between GCC countries. In 2021, we established another type of ministerial meeting for anti-corruption. The first one is to enhance or to help exchanging good practices in terms of policy. The second ministerial meeting was responsible for law enforcement cooperation. In terms of the Arab nations, we had a real declaration that puts for the first time a new mechanism to implement the Arab Convention Against Corruption. In terms of the OAC country, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, we had the Meccan Convention, which is the first time of its kind to put a convention that facilitates exchange of information between anti-corruption authorities. So, what I'm trying to say is that Saudi Arabia is really leading the region in the fight against corruption, and not only this, but also at a global level. If you are aware of the Global Network, it's the biggest global operational network against corruption, and it was established by Saudi Arabia. This network was endorsed by many political forms, including the UN, the COASP of UNCAC, and more. So, this is with regards to the Global Network. When it comes to another mutual benefit of extension is demonstrating the working group flexibility for other countries to join with different political and legal systems. In this regard, if you are aware of other political forms, like the G20, it's been always an issue that some countries, some G20 countries, did not join the OECD working group bribery. So, it's not fair that these countries are not committed to the same principles as other countries in the room. So, we think that if Saudi Arabia continues its participant membership, it will put more pressure on the remaining three countries to join as well to the working group. Another one, which is very important, and I think this is the most important one from our perspective as an anti-corruption authority, is to support our domestic efforts against foreign bribery. And if you ask one question, if we don't have our participant membership and will we have all these achievements in the past three years, definitely no. So, I think having Saudi Arabia as a participant by itself will help the OECD working group in achieving its real mandate, which is combating foreign bribery, achieving levels of playing fields for all businesses. And again, joining to this prestigious working group is by itself a big win for any country. And even politically speaking, if you are a member of the OECD working group, this is good for the reputation of a country. But again, we are talking here about Saudi Arabia, different political and legal system. We have our own process. So, we cannot, even our minister, cannot just jump through and give the approval. It has to go to the political leadership, it has to go to the parliament, there will be discussion, it will take time. But I think our homework here is try to complete the self-assessment and submit it to our political leadership. Another one is facilitating exchange of information. Again, if you have Saudi Arabia, that means you have access to the MENA region. And now one of the things that we are discussing with the OECD Secretariat is having a MENA Glenn. And this is one of the topics that we are hoping that we can move forward with. The last thing is that effects of not extending. And again, hindering Saudi domestic efforts, and they already spoke about this. Also another one, and this is very important, is that we will not have the mandate to advocate the OECD anti-bribery convention. And this is, I can tell you, this is the only topic that is consistent over the years. If you go to the G20 leaders communique, this is the only topic that has been discussed in the past 10 or even maybe 13 years. So as of now, when we discuss this topic, we as an anti-corruption authority and we as representatives of Saudi Arabia can support making the reference to this convention. A last point, which is again, I was hesitant to mention it, but again, as I mentioned, I have to be very transparent with you, that what if the status of our participant status is being terminated? What happens? For us as an anti-corruption authority, it wasn't easy to get the approval to become participants. So it put us on the road, you know, just to move towards the accession. But if we terminate our participant status, we are not sure that we can get another approval to become back as a participant or as a full member. I'm not saying this will never happen. But again, I think, considering that I am personally was involved in the discussion from day one, in convincing our political leadership, you know, even when we joined the OECD anti-bribery working group, it was, you know, I raised this issue with our political leadership. And they told them, look, we have the G20 presidency in 2020. And one of the things that countries show as they have the presidency is leading by example. So why don't we make it one of our good initiatives is to join the OECD under our presidency. So, and we received the approval from our political leadership, and it was welcomed by the G20 leaders and under our presidency in 2020, if you look at the G20 leaders communique. Again, thank you very much. It took a long time. But I thought it is the time to come and to share with you everything we have in mind at the end of the day, it's your decision, it's your call. But we trust your judgment. And we value your partnership. And thank you very much for all your support. And in particular, I would like to thank the chair for all his support. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Saudi Arabia. And I'd also like to thank you for being here today. I'd very much like to express my appreciation to you and your team for organising the mission from your end. It was an honour to meet the two ministers. Your hospitality was incredibly welcomed. And I said to them even before you came in, that when we had the technical meetings, it was very noticeable to us that you had a broader range of talent and officials from what seemed to us like all the right places, and they were engaged, asked the right questions and seemed to really participate in some very fruitful discussions. So we do very much thank you for that. I'm going to have to make a bit of a comment now on the timings of this afternoon, because the agenda has got away from us. So this is a hangover, we were late this morning. So it's not this. So what I'm going to propose we do now is have five or six minutes to ask questions of Saudi Arabia. If we need more time, then we can have those later. I'm going to pause the discussion on Saudi Arabia with apologies, because we've got the update from Peru and we've got critical timings for people online. So if it's okay, we'll take a pause for half an hour or so to discuss Peru. And you're welcome—that's not a restricted session, so you're welcome to stay for that. We can then pick up either any further questions for you, or we'll invite you to go and have another coffee—with dates, maybe, if you've brought some. We'll have our discussion here for as long as that takes—I don't know how long that will be. So the agenda item after Peru is supposed to be the discussions about the designations of the chair. I still propose to have that today, but that really depends on how long the Saudi Arabia discussions take after Peru. I don't see any need for us to overly extend into this evening, because we've got plenty of time tomorrow, particularly as we're not having a third reading of Luxembourg. So it may well be that we will move all or some of the discussions on the chair to tomorrow morning, if everybody is okay with that. It's not ideal, but we do have the flexibility in timings. Great. So while we still have five minutes before we return to the Peruvian discussion, are there any immediate questions for Saudi Arabia? I'll move over to Switzerland, please. Thank you very much. Great to hear you, to meet you. I was not able—not lucky enough to get to Riyadh last month. We're happy to see developments evolving, evolutions. We're also happy to lend you Catherine Marty, who is the lead evaluator on Switzerland, for one year, but give her back to us one day. This would be nice. And then I have a question you have brought us. You have brought us quite a few milestones. You have shown us a few milestones. There's one I missed, and this is my only question. What is the timeframe, what is the date set for joining, for ratifying, for signing, ratifying the convention? Thank you. Thank you very much. I think the action plan is very clear in this regard. So it says that we have to start our internal process in June 2025 until March 2026. And again, during this time, we have to come back to the group and update them every time on our status and our progress toward accession. But we have until March 2026. Thank you. Can I just clarify that my understanding of the road map is that the last process in your hands is getting political consent from your Parliament and from your Crown Prince to ask us to accede. At that point, that would trigger the preliminary assessment and then the full assessment process. Is that right? We have to do the assessment. That is why we hired the experts. And when we submit our request for the extension, we have to attach to it the full assessment and our political leadership will send it to the Parliament. The Parliament will examine it and it will start the process. But what we can do, and this is hopefully, is try to push, you know, our Parliament try to finalize as soon as possible. Are you able to give any kind of estimate on how long, on average, that process would take? I'm not sure if you can give me an estimate for your Parliament. We are hoping that by March 2026, as articulated in the action plan, we can join. But again, it's not my decision and we have our own due process. I'm going to do one more question before Peru and I'll do the US. Thanks, Chair, and thanks to Saudi Arabia for that presentation. I mean, one of the concerns we've had in the past is just the speed with which things have moved in Saudi Arabia. It's more on kind of your timetable as opposed to what the WGB would like to see. So, I just wanted to make sure we have a firm commitment from you that every one of these things in the roadmap is that you commit to do every one of these roadmap items in the time frame listed here. So, if you could just give us your commitment to that, because you didn't talk much about the roadmap in your presentation. Thanks. Thank you, Rios. I think you raised a very important question, and we discussed this with the Chair and the OECD Secretariat. This is, even though we have been consulted as an anti-corruption authority, and we agree with the OECD that this is a very clear roadmap with very clear milestones, and I think it would be fair for Saudi Arabia and for the working group to evaluate our progress in accordance to this action plan. But again, within the action plan, it has, you know, you need approval from the parliament, you need approval from the political leadership, and the action plan, by the way, did not, let's say, the government of Saudi Arabia did not go and approve it. It's our minister. We have shown him the action plan, and we explained to him that this is a milestone, and we will try to do our best to fulfill these milestones. And again, at least for the OECD working group, when you decide one year or two years from now that you will not extend, you have a very good justification that you did not fulfill these key milestones. So hopefully I answered your question. And thank you. We'll come back and see whether there's any more questions for Saudi Arabia after Peru, and I do apologize for having to break this discussion up mid-flow, and maybe there are no more questions and we can start deliberating after Peru, but I would like to turn now to Peru as it's half three, so we'll probably need a temporary change of secretariat up here, and so bear with us. Thank you.