EX GOV'T OFFICIALS JAILED IN OMAN FOR COLLECTING BRIBE                                                                         IN OIL AND  GAS INDUSTRY....                                                                IN NIGERIA, A LARGE CONTRAST IS THE CASE..SOME ARE STILL IN THE                                                                LEGISLATIVE CHAMBERS.

A court in Oman sentenced two ex-government officials on Sunday to three years in jail for abuse
of office, local media reported, one of a series of trials that began last year to curb corruption in the Gulf Arab state.

Oman's Sultan Qaboos has been pursuing an anti-graft campaign to defuse public discontent. Corruption was one of the reasons for mass protests in several Omani cities in 2011, as it was for uprisings around the Arab world that year.

The privately-owned al-Shabiba newspaper said one of the convicted officials had been the under-secretary at the housing ministry and the other the secretary general at the Supreme Committee for Town Planning, since replaced with a new body.

The prosecution accused them of using their offices to issue title deeds for lands in the southern coastal state of Duqm that had been confiscated in 2006 for public use. The project is a major part of the Muscat government's effort to develop the desert country's industrial base.