IRAQ: New commission looking into endemic corruption

[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

BAGHDAD, 16 Dec 2004 (IRIN) - When guards at the Ministry of Housing and Construction were hired, they all had to pay a fee of around US $200 to get their jobs. Those who didn’t pay had their applications thrown away, said an anonymous caller to the hotline for the recently established Commission for Public Integrity (CPI).

Investigators at the five-month-old CPI found evidence the allegations were true, and the case will go to trial, Raadhi Hamza al-Raadhi, the commissioner, told IRIN.

Former US administrator Paul Bremmer set up the commission and the hotline to supplement the previous Board of Supreme Audit and other financial auditing systems that were mostly ignored by the former regime of Saddam Hussein.

It is an independent body reporting directly to the interim national assembly, a legislative body overseeing the country’s more than 30 ministers, the prime minister, the president and other officials, al-Raadhi said. Inspector generals were also placed in each ministry by Bremmer to oversee potential corruption.

Paying money to get a job sounds a bit tame compared to some of the other allegations put forward, the commissioner said. Some officials in the government are continuing to steal money the same way they did under Saddam, according to stories from many of the callers.

In a country where corruption has been part of the government culture for so long, it’s tough to keep up with all the complaints - up to 10 per day. Posters on the street now urge people to report financial abuse. Once callers know they can be anonymous, the calls come in fast and furious. Investigators have already opened 121 cases based on tips coming in from the hotline.

One man looking at a poster said Iraqis are tired of the corruption because they know it hurts them.

“This may be new for Iraqis, but I hope it will succeed,” Abdul Karim Fakhri, 38, the manager of a supermarket, told IRIN. “We want someone to fight this corruption.”

Shoddy construction and financial mismanagement are the most common complaints, al-Raadhi said. Ministers and people who work for them are said to be stealing as much money as they can.
“Our main mission is to see if ministries are working for the law or against the law,“ al-Raadhi said. “We have many people now who are afraid to be witnesses. We‘re trying to offer them anonymity.”

In other cases under investigation, callers have charged that many of the new cement blast walls now in place in front of all ministries and many private offices do not have any metal in them and will act as a piece of a bomb rather than protecting against one, al-Raadhi said.

“Corruption is not only about stealing money, it can also be about abusing power by doing things without documents that are illegal,” al-Raadhi said.

Numerous contractors have put up houses and other buildings on government land without any sort of official approval, for example, al-Raadhi said. Others took over houses and buildings that did not belong to them. Such property issues are now being investigated, he said.

The commission is a good start, but it has a long way to go, mainly because it works with newly appointed inspector generals, and those people can be fired by their ministers, Bosho Ibrahim Ali, a judge and deputy minister at the Ministry of Justice, told IRIN. Investigators at the commission, however, are completely independent, al-Raadhi pointed out.

“It’s a good experiment to fight bribes and corruption after 35 years of a corrupt government,” Ali said. “We hope this experiment will succeed, but there is corruption in every ministry and directorate.”

Justice officials are some of the least corrupt in the government - mainly because they don’t buy and sell goods, Ali said. Saddam tried to figure out any way he could to make money illegally from the former UN Oil-for-Food programme, Ali said, when asked why buying and selling would be suspect.

“Corruption is everywhere, so I don’t believe this commission can succeed,” Jabbar Selman, 63, a retired Baghdad city hall worker standing outside the Ministry of Justice, told IRIN.

Each case generates volumes of paper - like a book in most cases. US experts are also involved in some of the cases, al-Raadhi said. One of them declined to talk to IRIN, citing the bureaucracy involved with getting approval to talk to the press.

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