Court summons, travel ban for Kirkuk governor for 'wasting public money'

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Governor of Kirkuk Rakan al-Jabouri has been summoned to court on charges of misuse of public funds and consequently issued with a travel ban, the Iraqi Integrity Commission announced on Tuesday.

The summons and travel ban were issued in relation to "wasting public money" in a project that involved "building of 25 schools in Kirkuk," a statement from the Commission read.

The provincial director of school buildings has also been served with the summons and travel ban, according to the statement. 

Arrest warrants were issued to another 23 Kirkuk Governorate and General Directorate of Education employees in relation to the project, the statement added.

The school construction project was given to a "foreign" company, to be carried out for 57.9 billion dinars – close to $50 million.

The court's decrees came a month after the commission "revealed that the company implementing the project had tampered with the basic designs and reduced the number of schools from 25 to 18 and changed designs and spaces, contrary to the terms of contracts and without obtaining the approval of the Ministry of Planning."

Jabouri was made governor of Kirkuk province in December 2017. His appointment by then-prime minister Haider al-Abadi came two months after Najmaldin Karim was deposed from the role when Iraqi forces, assisted by the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF, known in Arabic as Hashd al-Shaabi) took over the city.

Jabouri, a Sunni Arab, has also been accused of undermining the position of Kurds in Kirkuk since he took office, firing tens of Kurdish officials from top posts in the city and replacing them with Arabs and Turkmen, and reviving the Baath era's notorious Arabization process. In December 2018, Iraq's Federal Court rescinded any decrees made by Jabouri that had authorized the appropriation of Kurdish-owned land.