Sweden benforcement authority Sida has have been i medially focus under them latest the weeks of grind av ett suspected case av corruption. The fall pipe en Side employee private that has detained suspected for, among other things roughly bribery and roughly fraud. The development magazine explains what has happened in the court case.
It was Sida that first raised suspicions against the employee, conducted an internal investigation and then reported him to the police. This led to the man's later arrest in Stockholm on May 7. Three days later he was arrested after decision from the Stockholm District Court.
The crimes involve one or more projects in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and are said to have taken place between 2021 and 2023, according to Global Bar Magazine. The suspect is said to have worked at the Swedish embassy in the country. Initially, the suspicion was limited to a specific project, but later it was expanded to include several projects. According to the prosecutor, it is an amount of over ten million kroner.
“No one man show”
The suspicions of bribery relate to so-called kickbacks in connection with aid projects. Kickbacks are a form of bribery which means that a procurement is made at a premium and that the supplier's excess profit is secretly returned to the person who managed the procurement.
- This is one of the world's most corrupt countries. Here there is an abundance of money that is distributed in aid and then you realize that there are many who want a share of that cake, says prosecutor Thomas Forsberg to Dagens Nyheter.
- Something like this is not a one man show. It could be people both inside and outside the embassy and Sida who are involved, he continues.
The man is also suspected of gross infidelity against the principal, which means that a person who has been entrusted with managing financial funds for another actor (principal) abuses his position in such a way that it damages the principal. However, the suspect denies any wrongdoing and all charges against him.
- In our opinion, there are not sufficient grounds for detention. Apart from that, I don't want to comment anything further, says the man's defense lawyer Therese Tidensten to Global Bar Magazine.
The prosecutor has until June 7 to bring charges.
Corruption within Sida
Since 2016, the number of suspected corruption cases within Sida has increased significantly. The increase is due to an increased awareness of the importance of acting and reporting suspected irregularities, according to Sida. The number of suspected cases was just over 300 in 2022. Hthe majority of them took place in Africa, the continent that is the largest recipient of Swedish aid. In two out of three cases, Sida confirmed the suspicions, often with repayment demands as a result. The suspected cases of corruption in 2022 involved a total of 170 different aid projects, which according to Sida is a low percentage of the 1 projects that were carried out with funding from the agency that year.