Scandals in Higher Education: Saeed Al-Rubaii as a Nasty Example!

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“Fighting Corruption is like cleaning a staircase. You must start from the top to the bottom.”

Lee Kuan Yew?1st?Prime Minister of Singapore*?

“People should be conscious that they can change a corrupt system.”?-- Peter Eigen, Founder of Transparency International

“I’m for truth, no matter who tells it. I'm for justice, no matter who it is for or against. I’m a human being, first and foremost, and as such I'm for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.” — Malcolm X

“Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” —?James Baldwin

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Introduction

Scandals in higher education institutions are not uncommon in the Middle East, especially in Arab countries. Many officials in these institutions exploit their positions and claim for themselves fake degrees and academic achievements in writing and research. They also exploit the absence of the freedom of the press, the freedom of expression, and repression in many Arab countries. When anyone opens his mouth to criticize or tell the truth, he disappears with his job or work contract. Whether you are a national or expatriate academic or a member of staff, there is no room for you to tell the truth without a very heavy price. This is why there are too many corrupt officials in higher education in Arab countries. Oman is no exception. ??

Saeed (Said) Al Rubaii?is one of the most corrupt top officials in Oman and the Middle East. He is a real rogue and worse than a villain. He is a big liar, a cheat, and a dishonest person more than his close friend, Abood Al-Sawafi of A’Sharqiyah University in Oman.

It is a real scandal that Saeed (Said) Al-Rubaii has been given a ‘blank check’ to be corrupt the way he likes without any consideration for any code of work ethics or moral values or without anyone holding him to account. This is why he behaves recklessly and ruthlessly against the teachers and students as he mistakenly believes he is above the law.

Saeed Al Rubaii?has indulged in very unprofessional behavior of deception, cheating, and lying, especially to the top officials in Oman and the Ministry of Higher Education. He never gives correct and accurate information to the Ministry of Higher Education, nor does he respect any teacher or student. This is why he has the reputation of being ruthless, corrupt, and a big thief. For him, work ethics and the qualities of honesty, fairness, and justice do not exist in his dictionary in his life or the workplace. To cover his fraud and corruption, he has filled the Omani Arabic Websites with hundreds of personal pictures of all sorts and shapes to deceive the ordinary public and the readers who do not know anything about him and mislead them into believing he is a great man of achievements whereas, in actuality, he is just good for nothing. All his books and research are fake written for him by some mercenaries and opportunist expatriate teachers interested only in their names being kept in the payroll of the miserable colleges of his university.

Saeed Al-Rubaii claims to have written and published many books in English and Arabic inside and outside the Sultanate of Oman. He also claims he has published many, many researches, studies, and articles, in Arab journals, magazines, and newspapers although he does not know how to spell his name in English! He sometimes spells it as "Said" and other times as "Saeed".

What we have now is an academic and a higher education top executive who is exceptional in knowledge, education, and management. You may be inclined to believe all of what is said about Saeed Al-Rubaii if you do not know him. But for us who worked with him for many years and know him very well and know that he is incapable of producing one meaningful sentence in English or Arabic, what is said about him reflects one of the most disgusting academic scandals in higher education in Oman and the world.

Saeed Al-Rubaii is rotten and corrupt from his head to his nails. He is a big liar and a big thief. He has no honesty or integrity. He is a crooked social climber. He has no honor.

What is the Problem?

When we talk about corrupt officials in higher education, we do not talk about corrupt individuals appointed by mistake or by “Wastta” (illegitimate favor) which is very common in Oman and other countries in the Middle East. We are talking, in fact, about a "corruption model" whose attitudes, actions, and behaviors impact many other academics and members of staff in institutions that are supposed to be examples of excellence, honesty, and integrity for the other sectors of society. Saeed Al-Rubaii and Abood Al-Sawafi, Hamed Al-Hajri, and Mohammed Al-Barashdi are nasty examples of this destructive corruption model in the Middle East.

They are not just managers whom we meet in our life or career life and then to be left alone after being caught or sacked. They are influencers who are more vicious and more dangerous than the COVID-19 pandemic. To fight corruption, we need to learn lessons from their wrong appointments, their disastrous actions, the unprecedented trail of destruction they have left in many institutions, and the conspiracies they have made with the help of the Devil and other corrupt, wicked, vicious, and mean slaves like some opportunist expatriate teachers. This is why we need to constantly talk about these corrupt top managers and warn the public and the higher education institutions about their dangers.

·??????? Corrupt officials within this model are stupid, unqualified, incompetent, reckless, and ruthless.

·???????? When you talk to them, you feel they are very superficial people who do not have any knowledge about academic programs or academic issues. They are ignorant, vulgar, and rotten in mentality, and uncivilized in behavior.

·???????? Corrupt officials like Seed Al-Rubaii, Abood Al-Sawafi, Hamed Al-Hajri, and Mohammed Al-Barashdi have zero work ethics. This is quite understandable. If they had work ethics, they would not have been corrupt.

·???????? ?Corrupt people within this model are wicked in every way imaginable. They lack integrity. They are dishonest in everything they say or do. They are cheats and big liars. They deceive everyone for their own personal gains and they tell lies all the time. They are disloyal to their country and to the organization they work for. They are loyal to the Devil and to their selfish interests. They steal money from the students, the University, the Ministry of Higher Education, and even from their loyal employees. They are villains in every sense of the word.

·???????? They indulge in very unprofessional behavior of deception, cheating, and lying, especially to the teachers, students, and members of staff. They never give correct and accurate information to the Ministry of Higher Education or the educational authorities. They do not respect teachers and never honor the work contracts they themselves have signed on behalf of the institution. For them, work ethics and the qualities of honesty, fairness, and justice do not exist in their dictionaries in their lives or the workplaces they manage.

·???????? They are crooked and prepared to deal with the Devil for their selfish gains.?They always create a toxic work environment to intimidate their employees and conceal their corruption and thievery.

·???????? Because they are unqualified, incompetent, and corrupt, they are very impolite, vulgar, and uncivilized. They cannot stand any disagreement or argument.

·???????? Because they are sick and used to be slaves, they treat the teachers and other employees like slaves. They, mistakenly, think they “own” you as long as they pay you a salary. You feel humiliated and insulted when you talk to them or deal with them. And because they are academically and morally bankrupt, they spread a very disgusting?culture of fear, hypocrisy, and repression.

·???????? Teachers and other employees are constantly abused through stupid, silly, vulgar, and awkward directives from corrupt officials within this model. Most of these directives are disrespectful and threatening.

·???????? Teachers and other members of staff are tied to the jobs by work contracts and obsolete practices remnants of the slavery practices of the Middle Ages.

·???????? Many corrupt businessmen and officials like Saeed Al-Rubaii, Abood Al-Sawafi, Hamed Al-Hajri, and Mohammed Al-Barashdi within this model believe in superstitions and nonsense. They wash their faces with camel’s urine and drink it for divine blessings. They think that camel’s urine will give them health and increase their wealth. But, in actuality, it has made them very impolite and uncivilized and has turned them into monsters.

·???????? They mistakenly believe that stealing from the Government or the company they work for is a sign of “cleverness” and “bravery” and even a divine duty because all the governments, according to them, are non-Islamic and illegitimate.

·???????? They are very powerful and are illegally in control of many resources and financial means in the public and private sectors.

·???????? The decisions taken by corrupt people within this model are always arbitrary and destructive and are mostly taken for selfish personal gains and against the general interests of the company or the organization. This is an absolute dictatorship at work.

·???????? These arbitrary and destructive decisions create a very chaotic work environment where work ethics are non-existent and employees are treated like hired slaves or puppets or even beggars!

·???????? Corrupt businessmen and officials within this model do not believe in transparency; they favor and encourage hypocrisy in the organization. This is Saeed Al-Rubaii's favorite game. He does not possess any leadership qualities and therefore cannot rule through transparency which he regards as a great danger to him.

·???????? Corrupt businessmen and officials like Saeed Al-Rubaii, Abood Al-Sawafi, Hamed Al-Hajri, and Mohammed Al-Barashdi who are nasty examples of this model are very stingy and are prepared to suck your blood for a fistful of dollars.

·???????? Corrupt officials within this model always try to make their employees and those around them lose hope of bringing about any positive change whatsoever. They demoralize their employees to control them and exploit them.

For more information and insights, read my articles on LinkedIn.

Who is Saeed Al-Rubaii?

Saeed bin Hamed Al-Rubaii is the current president of the University of Technology and Applied Sciences in Oman. He claims to have been awarded several academic degrees in the English Language Teaching Methodology including a Ph.D. although he is incapable of producing one meaningful sentence in English. He has worked in the Ministry of Higher Education for some years and has made himself a big name in corruption, bribery, thievery, fraud, and deception. He is one of the most cunning and corrupt officials in higher education in Oman and the world.

Saeed Al-Rubaii is a close friend of Abood Al-Sawafi, the former VC of A'Sharqiyah University in Oman. who was sacked for his corruption and incompetence; "Birds of a feather flock together". Like his friend Saeed Al-Rubaii, Abood Al-Sawafi also claims to have a Ph.D. (in Engineering) although he has never taught one lecture in Engineering nor has he published any research paper in Engineering in any respectable or unrespectable journal. He was sacked, a few years ago, for his corruption, incompetence, fraud, and stupidity. I have already thrown Abood Al-Sawafi into the Black Sea; now it is the turn of Saeed Al-Rubaii.

I met?Said Al Rubaii?when he was appointed Dean of the Rustaq College of Education (now Rustaq College of Technology and Applied Sciences) in Oman. He was a little man, small-sized in both body and mind. He had no experience in management and was reckless, careless, and dull. I worked with him directly for a few months at Rustaq College and found him very incompetent, impolite, and indifferent to students’ interests and their education. One of the most striking things about him is his inability to produce one small coherent text in Arabic, let alone in English.

Academic Deception

Al-Wisal (??????) which identifies itself as the First Broadcasting Station and an Omani media and news company, has published on its website in Arabic some information about Saeed Al-Rubaii. This is the practice of most corrupt officials and businessmen in Oman and the Middle East. They publish fake data and information about themselves and their "great" achievements on Arabic websites which are accessible to only those who know Arabic. We hardly find any information about them or their "mythical" achievements in English. I have translated, into English, the following information about Saeed Al-Rubaii from this website.

"Saeed Al-Rubaii has written and translated many books published inside and outside the Sultanate of Oman. The following are among these books:

1.???? The Preparation and Training of Teachers in the Sultanate of Oman: Achievements and Ambitions (2004)

2.???? English Grammar for Arab Students (1999)

3.???? Self-Learning: Concept, Significance, Techniques, Applications (2006)

4.???? Higher Education in the Age of Knowledge: Changes, Challenges, Future Perspectives (2008)

5.???? Tourism in the Sultanate of Oman (co-authored) (2009)

6.???? Quality Assurance in Higher Education: Concept, Principles, International Cases (Joint Translation) (2005)

7.???? Globalization and Higher Education (Joint Translation) (2006)

8.???? Basics of English Grammar (Amman, Jordan, 2018)

9.???? Oman: Great Civilization and a World of Beauty (Muscat, Sultanate of Oman, 2019)

He took part in numerous international conferences, forums, training sessions, and workshops inside and outside the Sultanate of Oman.

He also published many, many researches, studies, and articles, in Arab journals, magazines, and newspapers." (Al-Wisal, Oman)

Saeed Al-Rubaii is depicted here as an academic and a higher education top executive who is exceptional in knowledge, education, and management. You may be inclined to believe all of what is said about Saeed Al-Rubaii if you do not know him. But for us who worked with him for many years and know him very well and know that he is incapable of producing one meaningful sentence in English or Arabic, what is said about him reflects one of the most disgusting academic scandals in higher education in Oman and the world.

I met?Saeed Al Rubaii?when he was appointed Dean of the Rustaq College of Education (now Rustaq College of Technology and Applied Sciences) in Oman. He was a little man, small-sized in both body and mind. He had no experience in management and was reckless, careless, and dull. I worked with him for a few months at Rustaq College and found him very incompetent, impolite, and indifferent to students’ interests and their education. One of the most striking things about him is his inability to produce one small coherent text in Arabic, let alone in English.

Saeed Al-Rubaii has always exploited his official positions in colleges and universities and the Ministry of Higher Education in Oman for his selfish gains in different ways. One of these ways is to bribe some expatriate academics to write books and research papers for him or include his name as a co-author in other books and research papers in return for the renewal of their work contracts even if they do not deserve to keep their jobs. He always picks up opportunist expatriate teachers with shaky personalities and a high level of hypocrisy; they are prepared to do anything to keep their names on the payroll.

I knew two such teachers in the Rustaq English Department who used to go too often to meet and write research papers for Saeed Al Rubaii in the Ministry. They were expatriate teachers well-known for their opportunism and hypocrisy. One of them was the first head of the English Language Department; he is known by his abbreviated name "Mr. B.B." or "Mr. Baby" as he used to behave like a baby! The other was the “Islamist” teacher whom Saeed Al Rubaii illegally transferred from the Ibri College to the English Department of the Rustaq College although his specialization was Islamic Studies, not the English language. I was officially assigned the task of examining his academic qualifications and found him unfit for the transfer and work in the Rustaq English department but Saeed Al-Rubaii did not respect the academic report as you may expect from a corrupt official.

Too Busy to Write

As the President of the University of Technology and Applied Sciences, Saeed Al-Rubaii has a very busy daily schedule as he meets with governors, Sheikhs, businessmen, owners of companies and representatives, and all sorts of top officials in the government and businesses in Oman in addition to delegates and officials from outside Oman. In a word, Saeed Al-Rubaii is a very busy official. This is not from me; it is from Al-Wisal website and other Omani websites. Just go and see by yourself before the information is deleted by Saeed Al-Rubaii as he has deleted his profile on LinkedIn!

If Saeed Al-Rubaii is a very busy official, how could he have all the time to write so many books and research papers as Al-Wisal claims? How could he have the time to attend hundreds of conferences, forums, workshops, and meetings inside and outside Oman?

The information about Saeed Al-Rubaii and his academic books and achievements on Omani Websites are no more than a bunch of lies and fabrications designed to hide his corruption and deception from the public and academic communities inside and outside Oman. This is typical of many Omani and Arab officials in higher education. It is a scandal that has been going on for a long time in Omani and Arab higher education institutions and it is one of the reasons that you do not find one single Omani and Arab college or university in any respectable international ranking scale. This is a real disaster in higher education in Oman and the Arab world.

Saeed Al-Rubaii: Unlimited Corruption

When I started my job as an Associate Professor at the Rustaq College, the Dean of the College was a professor from Jordan. He was a very respectable professor and a dedicated dean. There was a Central Examination Committee supervising the Final Exams for which half of the total marks of the academic year were allocated.

After a year or two, the Dean left and a new dean was appointed. The New Dean was a Syrian who was also a very respectable professor and a dedicated top executive. He used to welcome all teachers, students, and staff in his office. He was a very polite and open-minded person and used to meet with the teachers, students, and staff in open official meetings for discussion and feedback. The Central Examination Committee continued with its great job of supervising the Final Exams efficiently and effectively. He expanded the Committee and allocated more space and resources for it to meet all the challenges after the increase in the number of students in all departments of the College. Things were going very smoothly and I spent some of the happiest years of my career and my life at Rustaq College.

Then all of a sudden and without any prior information, the excellent Syrian Dean left the College, and, as always, we were not told the reasons. A new small-sized man was appointed as a new Dean. This time he was an Omani national. We were not given any information about him nor did he meet with us to introduce himself or to outline his policies and plans.?We heard he had just finished his Ph.D. in Something!?Nobody knew his specialization and he has never mentioned his specialization in any document.?It was also claimed he got his degree from an English-speaking country but in fact, he hardly speaks English and he cannot produce any coherent text in English. He even does not know how to spell his name in English! He sometimes spells it as "Said" and other times as "Saeed". He came directly to us from the airport without any experience in management or deanship. They told us that his name is?Saeed bin Hamed bin Saeed?Al Rubaii ???? ?? ??? ???????, but for all of us, he was an indefinite article. We were also told he was appointed as Dean even if he did not have a single-day experience because the Ministry had just started to implement a new policy by appointing recent Omani graduates to the top positions of higher education in the country to replace expatriate professors. This policy which was called "Omanization" has proved to be very disastrous and a calamity to higher education in Oman.

Within a month or so,?Saeed Al-Rubaii?has proved himself a very impolite person, very arrogant and ignorant. He was extremely stupid and unqualified to run the Rustaq College. He lacked all the qualities of an academic person and of a human being and started to behave in a very reckless and unprofessional manner.

The first thing he did was to close the doors of his office and refuse to meet any teacher, student, or staff member for any reason. He canceled the Central Examination Committee and replaced it with a small committee for each department. Because there were not enough teachers to manage and supervise final exams and insufficient resources, big problems started to emerge in almost all the departments.

There was a great deal of forgery and deception at the Rustaq College during the years in which?Saeed Al Rubaii?was Dean of the College. There was a forgery of students’ grades, employees’ salaries, purchase receipts and documents, teachers’ qualifications, tuition fees, numbers of students at the colleges, HR documents, financial statements, bank accounts, and bonuses.?Saeed Al Rubaii?was a corrupt Dean down to his nails. He behaved in a selfish and very unfair and non-academic manner and did exactly the opposite of what His Majesty Sultan Qaboos, the late Sultan of Oman, was saying about honesty and loyalty and the goals of higher education in the Sultanate. It was, therefore, a great shock for us when this unqualified, crooked, and corrupt Dean was promoted to be the Director-General of the Colleges of Education in the Ministry of Higher Education in Oman.

The following are some points about his corruption already mentioned in a previous article:

Forgery:?There was a great deal of forgery and deception at the Rustaq College during the years in which?Saeed Al Rubaii?was Dean of the College. There was the forgery of students’ grades, employees’ salaries, purchase receipts and documents, teachers’ qualifications, tuition fees, numbers of students at the colleges, HR documents, financial statements, bank accounts, and bonuses.

Embezzlement:?The forgery, deception, and corruption started to intensify further after?Saeed Al Rubaii?assumed the responsibilities of the Director-General of the Colleges of Education which were transformed later on into the Colleges of Applied Sciences. He started to “outsource” the recruitment of the teachers of the Colleges to some “Recruitment Agencies” in return for big bribes (commissions) -- huge sums of money that went directly into his pockets. The Recruitment Agency was charging RO 3,650 (three thousand, six hundred Omani Rials) which is almost $10,000 for each teacher they used to recruit for the Ministry. But, in general, they paid the teacher only OR 800, almost $2000. If we calculate the money being taken illegally from the Ministry, it will amount to millions and millions of dollars every year taking into account the recruitment of thousands of teachers for the Colleges. You can then imagine how much money this crooked?Saeed Al Rubaii?has embezzled from the Ministry of Higher Education in Oman.

Fake Degree: Saeed Al Rubaii?has never mentioned his Ph.D. specialization in any public document or any website nor has he mentioned the name of the university from which he has got his Ph.D. There was a brief profile for him on?LinkedIn?where he mentioned he had a Ph. D., without mentioning the name of the university. When I exposed Abood Al-Sawafi’s corruption and his fake Ph.D., Said Al Rubaii went to his LinkedIn profile and deleted it. I have been watching him and chasing him for years. Abood Al-Sawafi and Said Al Rubaii are close friends. Abood Al-Sawafi used to tell me a lot of things about Said Al Rubaii. I concluded from the information he was giving me that both of them are very superficial, stupid, crooked, corrupt, and have nothing to do with the academic world.

Destroying Academic Resources:?Things did not stop at this extent of corruption. It went even further. Most of the teachers whom the Recruitment Agencies used to recruit and sent to the departments of English at the Colleges of Education (Applied Sciences) with the approval of?Saeed Al Rubaii?and under his direct supervision had nothing to do with English Language Teaching (ELT). They are not specialized in the field of ELT and many of them have “fake degrees” which?Saeed Al Rubaii?used to cover up in his capacity as the Director-General of the Colleges. One teacher specialized in?Criminology, another in?archaeology, the third one in?History, and the fourth one in?prostitution! (She had no specialization at all and she used to come almost naked to the department and she used to build up sexual relationships with the teachers and students). This was how?Saeed Al?Rubaii?used to run the Colleges of Education.

Bribery:?Saeed Al Rubaii takes bribes from as many people as he can deceive. He takes bribes from teachers, students, investors, and even the bus drivers who sign contracts with Colleges of Education (Applied Sciences) to transfer students from the Colleges to the schools where they practice their practicum lessons and fieldwork. One day, I received an official request and documents from a teacher at Ibri College. The teacher wanted to get a transfer to the Rustaq College of Education, as the Rustaq College is nearer than Ibri to Muscat, the capital city of Oman. The request and the documents were referred to me for an academic opinion in my capacity as the academic coordinator of the English Language department. I went through the teacher’s academic profile and educational qualifications, I found him unfit to be transferred to the Rustaq English Department. His specialization is in?Islamic Studies,?and his education degrees and certificates are from an Islamic University; so I recommended the rejection of his request. But after a few months, we were shocked to see him joining our English Department to teach many courses in English although his specialization is in Islamic studies and his English is very weak.?After a while, we heard he paid a big bribe to Said Al Rubaii, the Director-General of the Colleges in the Ministry.

Arab Spring 2011: Omanis Are Against Corruption

Only a very tiny minority of Omanis do not care about corruption. They think that they cannot fight corruption as the corrupt people are too powerful and too influential to be controlled or defeated. These corrupt people are themselves members of the Government, the powerful Sheikhs, the rich businessmen, and the top officials in the ministries. So they feel hopeless and careless. They tell you: “You have to live with corruption.”

However, the majority of Omanis are against corruption. They strongly believe that corruption is threatening their future and eating up their national budget and resources. They try to correct the situation reasonably to avoid having problems with the Government or with the public prosecutors who are among the most ruthless prosecutors in the Middle East. There are also many repressive articles like?Article 16 of the Oman Penal Code.?This article is greatly abused by judges and public prosecutors. The article talks about “privacy” and personal information and photos, but the prosecutors and judges usually interpret it as referring to anyone writing about corruption.

When the Arab Spring started in 2011, Oman had a small share. A significant number of Omanis started to demonstrate against corruption and corrupt people. You see them gathering in public parks and places demanding an end to corruption and the removal and punishment of corrupt officials and businessmen. Sultan Qaboos, the late Sultan of Oman, was very wise and understanding. He did not use violence or ruthless measures against the demonstrators as was the case in most Arab countries. The demonstrators themselves did very little violence and the burning of property.

The students, and some teachers, in many Omani universities and colleges joined the protests. This included the Rustaq College of Education. The students stormed the offices of the Dean and his Academic Assistant. They forced the then corrupt Dean,?Mustafa Abdul Baqui,?to resign, put him in his car, and sent him to Saeed Al Rubaii in the Ministry. The Assistant Dean,?Mr. B.B. (Mr. Baby),?escaped from the back gate of the College. Then we heard that some other students blocked the roads of Al Suwaiq, where?Saeed Al?Rubaii?lived, and when they saw him coming, they attacked him, pulled him out of his car, and beat him up severely. This indicates how angry and frustrated the Omani students were with Saeed Al-Rubaii and other top officials of higher education.

Read more details about the corruption of Saeed bin Hamed bin Saeed?Al Rubaii????? ?? ??? ????????in my article,?“Enough is Enough: Corruption, Racism, and Fascism in the Ministry of Higher Education in Oman” published on July 25, 2020, on LinkedIn).

Biggest Problem

Corruption has always been an epidemic in most developing countries of the world, including Oman, and has been a major source of unrest, troubles, and violent demonstrations. Regrettably, many governments and anti-corruption agencies are not doing enough to combat corruption either because they are unwilling or unable to do so or because ministers, or at least some of them, and the officials making up and supervising the governments are themselves corrupt and protected by the privileges of their positions in the governments.

It is also noticeable that many corrupt top officials, especially in Oman, get rewards and promotions instead of being held to account for their corruption, fraud, abuse of power, and thievery. This, naturally, encourages other officials to be corrupt and big thieves because there is implicit impunity against corruption, which runs against the officially announced policies of the governments. This is certainly hypocrisy and complicity in the fight against corruption. This is why Oman and many other countries in the Middle East have been sinking into an unprecedented level of corruption and poverty, extending even to basic needs for survival.

Like most of the countries of the Middle East, Oman has no independent agencies or non-governmental organizations to which you can report corruption without fear of retaliation from corrupt people. All the existing agencies and organizations are formed by the governments and supervised by them. They are there not to sincerely fight corruption but just to report those who may criticize the governments or the top officials. The public does not have trust in the anti-corruption commissions or agencies widely publicized by the governments and local newspapers because they know these commissions and agencies are traps to catch anyone who challenges the status quo or they exist only as a formality to persuade the public and international investors that the government is really serious in its fight against corruption. You can hardly find any international organization or commission within or outside the UN that works against corruption freely and independently in Oman or in the Middle East. All of these countries claim that the work of such organizations is “interference into their internal affairs”. This is utter nonsense. These organizations greatly help in eliminating, or at least reducing, corruption when it exists. So why are the governments and officials afraid and do not want independent anti-corruption commissions and agencies in their countries if they are clean and do not have anything to hide?!?

Corruption persists in higher education in Oman because corrupt people are “protected” by public prosecutors who fear them and never dare to investigate their corruption, fraud, and thievery. Corrupt officials and senior executives can do whatever they like and can steal money in different ways from the public sector or the private sector companies and institutions without being held accountable to anyone. They control almost everything in their companies and organization as they control the two most important functions: administration and finance; though these two functions differ from one institution to another in terms of size and scope. They also control, to a surprising degree, the public prosecutors everywhere in the country. These prosecutors would turn against anyone who submits any corruption documents or tries to file complaints against corrupt figures in the public or private sector. When I reported the corruption of Abood Al-Sawafi (former VC of A’Sharqiyah University) to?Saif Al-Saltti, the Deputy Public Prosecutor in Ibra, Oman, he shamelessly said to me, “I am not concerned about the corruption of Abood Al-Sawafi; I am concerned about whether Abood Al-Sawafi has been insulted or not.” Imagine that! Can we fight corruption with such a corrupt public prosecutor?!

Like many corrupt officials in higher education in Oman, Saeed Al-Rubaii was promoted and appointed President of the University of Technology and Applied Sciences in Oman instead of being punished and banned from public office for his incompetence, corruption, fraud, thievery, bribery, and deception. This is not only a disaster but also an insult to all respectable academics and institutions of higher education inside and outside Oman.

There is very little or no freedom of expression in any real sense in Oman and most Middle Eastern countries. Most of those who write and interact on social media inside the country praise the government and officials for their fictional “great achievements” or are simply mercenaries or hired agents and spies. Those who write and criticize the government and expose corruption from outside their countries are labeled “traitors” “foreign agents” or even “terrorists” just to discredit them and frighten those who are inside the country from joining them.?There are also many repressive articles like Article 16 of the Oman Penal Code.?This article is greatly abused by judges and public prosecutors. The article talks about “privacy” and personal information and photos, but the prosecutors and judges usually interpret it as referring to anyone writing about corruption.

Conclusions

The Higher Education sector in Oman is completely demoralized nowadays because of corruption, fraud, garbage foundation programs, weak study programs, forgery of grades, very low salaries, and corrupt secret police officers and intelligence officers who have been appointed to high academic positions without any academic qualifications or experiences in running higher education institutions.

Corruption is one of the major problems facing the world nowadays. It is very widespread and it penetrates every aspect of life and business in Oman and elsewhere. ?Higher education is no exception. It hurts and makes us sad when the government announced policy is on one side of the valley and the real problem is on the other side. The policy is largely ink on paper only and the corrupt officials, like Saeed Al-Rubaii, are promoted and get stronger and more powerful instead of being punished despite all the documents that may be presented against them even in a court of law.

Corruption in higher education, as elsewhere, does not exist in a vacuum. It is usually committed by some corrupt top officials who cheat the systems of control and supervision and do not respect any laws or regulations. They are usually entrusted with a range of powers but, regrettably, they betray this trust and go beyond these powers for selfish and wicked purposes.

Corruption can be reduced, avoided, or eliminated if we take care of two important things: the systems and the people who operate these systems. The systems must be effective and the people who operate them must be honest and efficient. If one of these two things is missing, then we should expect deception and corruption. This is why we have scandals and persistent corruption in businesses and higher education institutions. There are hardly any systems or mechanisms in Oman to regulate operations and report corruption to higher educational authorities. Corrupt officials like Saeed Al-Rubaii, Abood Al-Sawafi, Hamed Al-Hajri, and Mohammed Al-Barashdi have taken advantage of this absence of systems and mechanisms and have manipulated a toxic work environment for their selfish interests and to get rid of anyone who differs from them in opinion or tries to stand in their way of corruption and deception. There are certainly some people in the Ministry of Higher Education in Oman who offer them protection and cover up when they steal or?take bribes. Without this protection and cover-up, corrupt officials in higher education would not have been able to continue with their reckless, mafia-like actions of deception and conspiracies and would not have been inflicting heavy damage on the academic reputation and infrastructure of higher education in Oman.

There?are too many episodes and documents certifying that Saeed Al-Rubaii is very stupid, incompetent, reckless, ruthless, and corrupt. He has inflicted heavy damage on the University of Technology and Applied Sciences in Oman. This University deserves better than this idiot to be its top executive. This idiot is not fit to manage and lead a higher, or lower, educational institution. He is fit to manage a farm for camels or, at best, fit to be a “garbage collector” or a beggar collecting money from corrupt government officials, corrupt Sheikhs, and corrupt businessmen.

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*?Lee Kuan Yew?(16 September 1923 – 23 March 2015), commonly referred to by his initials?LKY, was the first?Prime Minister?of?Singapore, governing for three decades. Lee is recognized as the nation's founding father, with the country described as transitioning from the "third world?to the?first world?in a single generation" under his leadership. (Wikipedia)