The deep shift that Syria has been witnessing since December 8, 2024, is the day when the Assad family regime has fallen after the country ruled more than 5 decades, to address the corruption that the country suffered from and reaped the ousted President Bashar al -Assad and his men, wealth of billions of dollars.
In their conversations to Al -Jazeera Net, Syrians unanimously agreed that the aim of evaluating and addressing this legacy according to what the country’s interests and current economic conditions require is:
- Improving the site of Syria on the indicator of global corruption perceptions.
- Returning the money that Assad and his men have plundered to the state treasury to benefit from them in improving the difficult living conditions, which most groups of society live.
In the context, experts confirm that what reinforces this call to the retaining of its location on the list of the 10 most corrupt countries in the world, as its points were limited to 12 points out of 100 points, according to the corruption perceptions index issued by the International Transparency for the year 2024, while its global ranking came 177 out of 180 countries.
The results extracted from the global index of the period between 2000 and 2024, according to economist Bassam Yaghi, reflect the size of the danger that Syria was exposed to during the period of the ousted president, after corruption undermined sustainable development plans and the growth of the economy, and turned society into a hungry society that lacks ways to continue life.
Yaghi stressed, in his interview with Al -Jazeera Net, the importance of the new authority to manage the post -conflict stage under the umbrella of Rashid’s rule, working to save what can be saved and control the state structures according to a transparent agenda that seeks to:
- Dismantling the corruption system left by the ousted system.
- Treating the repercussions of social and economic corruption.
- Cleaning the public space from influential networks, during the past two decades, the state economy has been kidnapped, and has exploited its assets and resources.
He pointed out that the new authority realizes this importance from the standard of serious threats, which the corruption of the previous regime poses on the body of the economy and the upcoming reforms and the restoration of development is the right path, adding that, as soon as it took over the administration of the country, it began to reassess the assets owned by the Assad men, in addition to the commercial interests belonging to the businessmen who had common interests with the previous regime.
In this regard, the Minister of Trade Maher Khalil Al -Hassan described the file as a huge, pointing – in a statement to Reuters early January – that “they control the state’s economy, and you cannot ask them to leave.” He said: Our policy is to allow these interests to continue to work, and to supply goods to the market, while freezing the movement of their money.
From soft corruption to coarse corruption
Corruption is related to most experiences to the nature of the system of government, which means, according to the applied memorandum issued by the United Nations Development Program “UNDP” on corruption, the failure of government institutions in community management. As for an institutional perspective, it arises when government men enjoy unlimited powers, in exchange for the absence of accountability.
As for Syria, the absence of accountability has led to corruption, a long trail companion, which extended – according to the industrial and economic researcher Issam Tizini – for decades, and his action in all joints and economic institutions, but in a soft way, initially adopted the calm infiltration so that it does not affect the composition of society and does not cause a flagrant disturbance in its structure, which can be described as soft corruption.
He saw in a previous study entitled “How do we protect the Syrian economy from corruption?”, That the latter’s transformation from soft corruption into rough and shameless corruption – according to his description – coincided with the war crisis that the Syrians lived from 2011 until the end of 2018, where corruption has had another form and greater effects after a corrupt group formed only its interests.
Although this category was lacking in skill and craftsmanship in practicing its corruption and accumulating its wealth, according to Tizini, it often caused direct harm, its effects emerged clearly when the structure of the Syrian consumer society began to change, and the effects of fatigue and fatigue appear due to the exacerbation of looting, theft and obscenity.
He pointed out that the corruption of the economy has resulted in two types of poverty:
- Poverty of money.
- Poverty of the ability to live.
Poverty controls about 90% of the population of Syria, according to United Nations reports. Half of the population suffers from extreme poverty – the individual lives at less than $ 2.15 per day – according to a report prepared by the United Nations Economic and Social Committee of the Asia Western (Eskua) in cooperation with the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).
Monopoly and preference
Experts in the Syrian economy believe that the ousted regime is often manipulated to preserve its authority and the wealth of its crew with economic policies, public sector institutions, resources and financing.
In addition to his depletion of the country’s wealth, and its investment in projects that benefit it instead of returning to local communities, according to economist Abdel Sattar Damascene, where he gave priority to prominent projects on infrastructure projects less in their financial benefits, but they are more urgent.
Damascus explained to Al -Jazeera Net that the support environment for him benefited in light of the chaos of the economy twice: once from the regular import leave, according to which major commodities in the market were monopolized. And again from special import licenses granted to them.
He said: The preference policy opened the field wide for its men compete without noise for more money and wealth in the scope of a hidden economy, raising the volume of tax evasion between 2010 and 2017, for example, from one billion dollars to 3.61 billion dollars, and they also benefited from its recovery in the contract of closed deals that generated enormous fortunes.
According to local newspapers, three importers were monopolized during the war to import and distribute sugar material at the country level. In two months, one of the importers of vegetable oil has achieved a clear profit estimated at $ 2.3 million.
In November 2013, Reuters revealed in a report a secret network of wheat, sugar, rice and other basic commodities, which reaped huge profits that it shared with those close to the presidency.
Fake companies, recorded by a relative of Assad, also provided a wealth that benefited from the regime, with a value – according to the documents of Panama published by the newspaper “Suwaidsche Zeitung” – equivalent to 60% of the total Syrian economy.
Damascus states Al -Jazeera Net that the worst expressive model in this regard is what the credit facilitation agreement resulted in between Syria and Iran, which amounted to one billion dollars, as the government allowed an official institution to announce tenders for the purchase of food and other goods, and concluded several deals under the auspices of an economic committee that includes several ministers, but all the articles that entered were not identical to the approved international specifications and standards. A corrupt Iranian tea deal was strongly objected to a food that does not fit a food, but one of the ministers, a member of the committee, insisted on completing it and allowed it to enter.
The most corrupt people in the world
With the exception of millions of dollars that the ousted lion was transporting regularly through planes from Damascus International Airport to Moscow, according to the British Financial Times newspaper, as an illegal outlet for prohibited gains and deals, the corruption of the ousted regime during the period between 2000 and 2024 is a black holes that swallowed the capabilities of the Syrian economy and dried its resources, and added to its previous losses losses between 2011 and 2024 In the GDP, according to the latest reports of the United Nations Development Program – it amounted to about 800 billion dollars, while the World Bank estimates the country’s material losses during the mentioned period at about 600 billion dollars.
The American embassy in Damascus, in a secret telegram dating back to January 24, 2008 – was translated from the WikiLeaks leaks, the location of the Syrian link – which indicates that the ousted lion was dependent on moving his money and achieving his illicit gains on four Syrian personalities, Zahir Sahloul, Nabil Al -Kazbari, Muhammad Makhlouf, and Fawaz Al -Akhras.
It also revealed great corruption cases such as the disappearance of oil revenues, the investment of the mobile phone network, market monopoly, and the internal and external bribes that are being overwhelmed, as the Syrian economy was deprived of billions of dollars that have been secretly turned into a lack of a few or safe havens at the expense of most of the dignitaries under the weight of suffocating living crises.
In the same context, the OCCRP OCRP was awarded the ousted president the most corrupt people in the world for 2024 against the backdrop of corruption and organized criminal activity. Its choice is an affirmation of his abuse of power, and its unlawful gains have continued over 3 decades of corruption.
The Syrian journalist specializing in economic affairs estimates the value of the money that Assad wasted in 2020 through corruption at about 3450 billion Syrian pounds – that is, 20% of the GDP – even though what was discovered, according to what was reported by the local Syrian lira website, constitutes only 1.8% of its real size estimates.
