BAGHDAD, Iraq – An Iraqi commission investigating huge corruption in the war-torn country named three former ministers and 53 senior officials in its findings, saying that a whopping $330 billion of public money remains unaccounted for.
The Iraqi Commission of Integrity (CoI) charged that former defense minister Hazm Shalan, ex-electricity minister Aiham al-Sammarae and former trade minister Abdul-Fatah Sudani were involved in graft during their tenures. It named 53 other officials involved in corruption.
At an annual press conference in Baghdad where the CoI reported on its work for 2014, the commission said it had investigated 17,616 cases of official corruption since its inception in 2004, and that 9,147 cases were probed last year alone.
It added that 4,129 corruption cases had been submitted for legal action, and that total funds missing from government coffers amounted to $330 billion.
Some of that money has been transferred outside Iraq, the commission said, vowing that all of the missing funds would be recovered.
The CoI did not investigate cases in the northern Kurdistan Region, which has its own autonomous government, or in Mosul and Tikrit, which have been under Islamic State (ISIS) control since the cities were captured by the insurgents in June.
The commission said that only 53 of 328 Iraqi lawmakers had returned forms declaring their assets, and that other high ranking officials who had failed to make the same declarations included the Iraqi vice president, the prime minister and eight ministers.
Corruption and nepotism remain huge problems in Iraq.
Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi has said that $45 billion are missing from last year’s national spending.
The impact of nationwide graft became apparent when the Iraqi army, which was built at a cost of billions after Saddam Hussein was ousted by US-led forces, collapsed in June before an onslaught by insurgents fighting under the ISIS banner.
The humiliating defeat revealed the existence of huge corruption within the military, where salaries were being paid to fictitious employees.
In an interview published by Rudaw early this month, Iraqi Finance Minister Hoshyar Zebari said the military was not the only place where corruption existed.
“There are a great number of them (ghost employees) in the Iraqi army and the ministry of interior. They also exist in the ministry of Peshmerga,” he said. “The ministry of defense has started carrying out some procedures to eliminate this kind of corruption. It has been decided to make everyone receive his own salary in person instead of lists,” he added.
Abadi fired 26 senior officers last month in a major shakeup of the military intended to restore public trust in the army.
A statement posted on the prime minister’s website said the shakeup was part of efforts to reinforce the work of the military on the basis of professionalism and fighting graft in all its forms.
The Associated Press quoted a government official as saying the sackings followed the findings of a probe carried out by an investigator appointed by Abadi to probe corruption in the military.
Iraq ranks globally among the world’s most corrupt countries.
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