Saudi purge in the name of corruption

Saudi crown prince Mohammed Bin Salman’s (MBS) extraordinary action of arresting princes, ministers, higher government officials and businessmen under the pretext of corruption is the beginning of a painful surgery in the history of Saudi Arabia.  The surgical operation by MBS surprised everyone internally and externally.  If we look into the history of political, social and economic structure embroiled with tribal cultural system, this purge is certainly a shocking news to many.   A country which has been struggling for a decade without clear policy direction, financial mismanagement, known for lethargic government services and reticent business activities limiting to few highly connected rich individuals is now openly admitting that the economic crises is igniting political uncertainty.         

MBS wants Saudi Arabia to move away from oil based economy to market economy, in other word, patronizing the population with grants and freebies must be removed as soon as possible.  It is no more pumping of oil dollars and spent on pampering supporters to protect power.  His vision 2030 is a non-starter because people around him are masters of lip service and seldom intent to subscribe his vision.  Probably, there is no seriousness among his ministerial colleagues.  The existing power structure with well-guarded layers built by predecessors over a period of sixty years is a hard nut to crack to enforce his vision.  

Too many noises and too little action is the culture of Saudi Arabia and more than three generations lived with little interest and knowledge of what is happening around them.  Since, there is no people participation in government’s functioning or credible feedback system, rulers take decisions based on few advisors and act accordingly.  Al Saud family controls the country through tribal chiefs, multiple security apparatus, religious scholars and preachers ardently following government dictates.  The only strong connection between people and government is monitory aides, subsidies and stipends’.  

People are neither interested nor worried about changes in Royal head and readily welcome whoever is in charge as long as their requirements are well served.  People’s patriotism is a symbolic gesture aimed receiving festive booties from royal princes and hardly any real love towards nation. 

King Abdulla initiated national dialogue and tried to get people’s opinion on various issues like employment, youth empowerment, businesses, women issues, education, etc, but all of them turned out to be a good PR show with little effect on ground and discontinued after his death.   

Much spoken Saudization spearheaded by former Labour Minister Mr. Adil Fakeeh (I think, he is one of the arrested ministers) could not serve the purpose, whereas, it was a pain on both government and private sectors.  Students graduated from poor education system, lack of proper training, laid back attitude and lavishing government aides made them one of the worst workforce in world. Government offices are functioning at the mercy of its employees and productivity is expectedly lowest in the world.  Government forced untrained and unqualified local youths into private sector with remuneration compensation, but neither beneficial to private sector nor these youths are inclined to learn on job.  They appear on salary day without actually contributing anything and resulted in discontents between government and private sectors. 

Meanwhile, most private sectors are primarily to serve the interest of businessmen and barely interested to establish any manufacturing facilities.  It is difficult to measure value of imports in absence of publicly available data, yet it is visible that most of the FMCG products are imported and distributed by private business conglomerates.   Private sectors contribution to national coffers is limited to customs tax and since there is no GST or Service tax, and the country is deprived of income sources other than selling oil.  Now VAT has been introduced from January 1, 2018.  None of the businessmen interested to establish automobile manufacturing or assembling unit despite of billions of dollars are earned and remitted to Japan, Korea, USA and Europe.

MBS could have easily enjoyed his position and power, but as a genuinely worried ruler I presume, his concern is well founded and one can give credit to him for not yielding to the pressure of sycophants who are all conveniently hiding behind the tribal and cultural veils and preventing him from any meaningful reforms. 

MBS biggest challenge is transforming the society.  To change the society, he need to teach them to fishing.  He need to focus on younger generation more than worrying about older deterrents.  Youths representing 60% of Saudi population is a phenomenal workforce if trained.  The cream of them are well educated and have exposure due to their education in western & eastern countries, but are reluctant to be part of government.  This foreign education younger group, who are not employed in government segment, can create peer pressure among fellow youngsters who may not be well qualified, but ambitious enough to sail through.  MBS need to be more transparent with these group of population and require building a clear structural system to make them sincere, active and ready to replace expatriates without disturbing productivity flow. 

Unless the younger generation becoming qualified human resources be it in employment or entrepreneurship, MBS cannot transform the society.  Instead of pushing and pulling with private sector, he must start changing the education system and syllabus in schools.  Meanwhile establish national institutes to train present graduates to reduce the gap between them and employment.  The current training centers supported by Chambers of commerce, Ministry of HRD and Labour Ministry is not enough to prepare necessary manpower to replace six million strong expatriate community even in next ten years period. 

Engaging youths with positive dialogue, incentives, training, encouragement and coercion, MBS can nudge them from religious and cultural darkness.  

However, MBS recent adventure in Yemen and Syria is clearly dragging country’s economy to disastrous.  It has been well proven in the history of Middle East that none of the conflicts or war ever come to an end.  One conflict will trigger another or one war will lead to another and the entire region is now invariably crippled with multiple war and wounds.   Ideological arch rival Iran will never allow Saudi Arabia to settle in peace as long as both are determined to engage in proxy war.  The more MBS go after Iran, the more he will drag his country into economy disaster.  His foreign policy requires complete revamp and especially he should find a way to reduce the tension with Iran.  Further, he should not put all his weight on USA and expecting unconditional support for his efforts in region.        

MBS had arrived at a junction, rather a dangerous cross road and require enormous courage, political power, luck and wisdom to judge the beginning of new journey for country and himself.  He had voluntarily connected his own future with the country’s future and it will be interesting to watch his moves.

His success and failure are depending on a question of ‘will MBS able to change the cancerous ruling system of Saudi Arabia?’