ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - An investigation by the Iraqi finance ministry concluded that a record-breaking $2.5 billion dollars in tax funds were stolen from a bank by five companies during the tenure of former minister Ali Allawi, the official investigation papers show.
The vast sums of cash, equivalent to nearly 3.7 trillion Iraqi dinars, were stolen by five companies from the General Commission of Taxes account at Baghdad's Rafidain Bank between September 2021 and August 2022 through the cashing in of 247 cheques issued by the tax directorate.
"Upon auditing the companies' statements of accounts, it was found that the sums of all the cheques were withdrawn in cash immediately after they were deposited in the companies' accounts," the finance ministry investigation reads, adding that the companies were not eligible to cash in the cheques.
Finance Ministry investigation concludes that $2.5 BILLION dollars was effectively stolen from its General Commission of Taxes account at Rafidain Bank by 5 companies from Sep '21 to Aug'22 who cashed cheques they were not entitled to pic.twitter.com/mlInq4EiXm
— Sajad Jiyad سجاد (@SajadJiyad) October 15, 2022
Iraq's former acting finance minister and current oil minister Ihsan Abdul Jabbar announced the results of the investigation he led during his tenure as acting minister on Twitter, stating that the results "have been handed from the finance ministry to the competent authorities, including the parliamentary finance, which asked us to do so officially and publicly."
However, the revelation of the theft led to Jabbar losing his position as finance minister over corruption charges, with outgoing Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi announcing his replacement on Saturday after a vote of no confidence against him was approved in the Iraqi parliament a few days prior.
Iraqi prime minister-designate Mohammed Shia' al-Sudani vowed to tackle corruption "that has so brazenly spread in the joints of the state and its institutions" in the upcoming government while referring to the stolen funds case.
"We will not allow the money of the Iraqi people to be stolen, as has happened with the funds of the General Commission for Taxes in the Rafidain Bank," Sudani stressed.
Iraq's Integrity Commission said it has launched investigations into the matter and referred the case to the judiciary.
A letter from US congressional members on Thursday urged President Joe Biden to "reconsider officially engaging" Jabbar "in any formal capacity when he visits the US in the coming days," blaming the oil minister for helping Iran evade sanctions as he is set to visit Washington heading an Iraqi delegation attending an annual World Bank meeting.
"Under Iraq's Oil Minister, Iraq's State Oil Marketing Organization (SOMO), has a track record of business dealings with Iran, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and Iranian oil-backed terrorist organizations Asa'ib ahl al-Haq (AAH), and Kata'ib Hezbollah (KB)," the letter reads while accusing Jabbar of "widescale corruption to accept bribes for the award of contracts and oil operations in Iraq."
Official papers also show that at least three of the five companies involved in the embezzlement scheme were established just over a month before the theft began.
Rampant corruption plagues all levels of the Iraqi state, and official figures published last year estimated that well over 400 billion dollars has gone missing from state coffers since former dictator Saddam Hussein's regime was overthrown in 2003.
The crisis-hit country ranks 157 out of 180 countries in Transparency International's corruption perceptions index.
Iraqis took to the streets in massive countrywide protests in October 2019 over widespread dissatisfaction with the country's politicians and rife corruption. The protests led to the resignation of then-prime minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi and early elections two years later.
