Bahraini Lakes Reveals: King Hamad Introduces Millions of Dollars in Renovation to his New Palace

The King of Bahrain continues his favorite hobby of squandering more money of the Bahraini people, whose majority complain of poor purchasing power and blatant discrimination.

This time, Hamad bin Issa wasted an additional 10 million dollars on the renovation, maintenance and acquisition of luxurious furniture for his new country mansion, which he recently bought in England.

Sources close to the Royal Court revealed that the King of Bahrain ordered the introduction of renovations to “Glimpton Park”, in preparation for his conducting an inspection visit to this palace and staying there for several days.

This is expected to take place during a visit he is expected to make in the coming period to England, where he has close ties with the British royal family.

The renovations included the installation of a new advanced security camera network around and inside the palace garden, and a change of paint on the walls and marble of many floors.

A company in Britain has been charged with implementing all that the palace requires for its new owner, King Hamad. He keeps to overlook the suffering of Bahraini citizens and their growing complaints about the extremely bad economic conditions, especially during the COVID- 19 crisis.

The king has recently purchased this palace from Prince Bandar bin Sultan, a prominent Saudi royal.

Public documents filed this month to Glympton Estates Ltd, which manages the property, show that the owners of the palace are now King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa and his son, Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa.

King Isa is now replacing the palace of Prince Bandar, who was previously the Queen’s ambassador to the United States and head of Saudi intelligence.

Sources told Bloomberg that Prince Bandar sold “Glimpton Park” in the scenic Cotswolds area in February. One of the sources said that the price of the palace exceeded 120 million pounds ($ 165 million).

Bandar bin Sultan bought the palace for 8 million pounds (11 million dollars) in 1992, and it was reported that the palace was renovated and restored at about 42 million pounds (58 million dollars) and provided it with insurance barriers and bulletproof glass, according to the British newspaper The Guardian.

Glimpton Park consists of 2,000 acres of land (810 ha) of which 167 acres (68 ha) are parkland.

The grounds include a huge 18th century country mansion, Norman Saint Mary’s Parish Church, and 21 stone cottages.

The park was dedicated to deer hunting in the 16th century, and its ownership has since been alternated by wealthy European and British families, before it was sold to Prince Bandar.

Bahraini observers believe that the Caliph family is competing in squandering taxpayers’ money in Bahrain.

They noted that this is done through the establishment and inauguration of institutions and the purchase of palaces and sports clubs. Its goal is to form empires for the royals.

Human rights activists and anti-corruption workers face constant prosecution by the Bahraini authorities. This is approached under the directives of members of the royal family to undermine their work in exposing their corruption and control over public money in Bahrain.

The conclusion of a recent in-depth analytical study concluded that Bahrain has two general budgets.

One of them is official, and the other is secret, which goes to the security sector and the extravagance of the ruling family and tries to buy loyalties.

The study showed that the state’s revenues are included in private or sovereign accounts and funds, and are not included in the official budgets of the Kingdom.

The study prepared by the opposition Al-Wefaq National Islamic Society focused on analyzing Bahrain’s financial budgets between 2019 and 2022.

It showed that allocations of wages, salaries, and bonuses for the National Security Agency are not included in the budget, under the pretext of secrecy.

It indicated that the deficit in Bahrain’s budget is chronic, reaching more than 7.6 billion Bahraini dinars (20.2 billion US dollars).

It estimated that if the deficit had escalated since the outbreak of the political crisis in Bahrain in 2011, the number could exceed 30.0 billion US dollars.

The public debt ratio of Bahrain ranges from 120% to 130% in relation to the GDP.

The public debt is increasing steadily as a result of the authority’s lack of vision, and reliance on borrowing and taxes to cover corruption and waste.

The study found that the government’s excessive borrowing from home and abroad had a dangerous consequence, which is the erosion of the budget’s financial ability to meet the vital requirements of the Bahraini people.

40% of Bahrain’s expenditures are consumed by the security and defense apparatus.

In addition, the general budget in Bahrain does not include all aspects of public revenues, as well as all items of expenditures, especially with regard to the sources of oil revenues, and spending on the forces and security institutions (defense, interior, National Security Agency, National Guard).

It shows that the main feature of the Bahraini budget is the existence of a permanent and chronic deficit, which leads to more borrowing and the impasse of external and internal debts.

This puts the government and Bahraini society on the crater of a volcano from economic anxiety and social storms, according to the study.

“All this corresponds to a degree of extravagance and waste on the part of the ruling family and the political class allied with it,” the study continues,” illustrated the study.

This is evident in many manifestations of extravagance, festivals and entertainment events, and attempts to buy loyalties among journalists, intellectuals, media professionals and various elites, either in Bahrain or in the Arab region or the world.