Below is a very interesting interview by a website in Iraq of members of the Iraqi Parliament about the success or failure of the Iraq Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC - we are not sure if they mean the Integrity Commission, or a separate committee setup by the Parliament). My comments follow the article.
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How Is Iraq's Anti-Corruption Committee Really Doing?
Iraq is the fifth most corrupt country in the world, according to the latest Transparency International report published last year. This bad news does not simply add another item to the endless list of Iraq’s problems - topped by security - it also raises serious questions about the future of democracy in the oil-rich country.
But nearly four years ago, the Iraqi government established the Anti-Corruption Committee (ACC). How effective has this committee been? Rudaw asked a range of members of parliament in Baghdad for their views on corruption in Iraq, and the role of the ACC in fighting it.
Kwestan Karim, an Iraqi lawmaker for the Kurdish Gorran party:
The [ACC] has been in existence for four years, but statistics suggest corruption has been increasing continuously since then. The mechanism used by the committee seems to be effective, but officials can actually fill out the [ACC audit] form without having to declare exactly how much property and money they posses. Therefore, the mechanism is actually ineffective and cannot reduce the pervasiveness of corruption. The officials can be corrupt in ways that the ACC cannot find out about.
The ACC compares every official’s or lawmaker’s yearly salary with the amount of property and money in their possession that year. But it has become clear that the ACC has not been successful in eradicating corruption and revealing the sources of corruption. In Iraq so much money has been spent but not much construction has been seen. For example, a blast wall was installed for US$1000. This is clear-cut corruption, but yet no investigation was undertaken.
The ACC should also investigate officials’ funds and assets before they take office. There are officials, for instance, who have a lot of money in the United Kingdom. How did she or he get it? The ACC should investigate this.
Rawaz Khoshnaw, an Iraqi lawmaker for the Kurdistan Democratic Party:
The very presence of the ACC is important in itself. Its mere existence may be a deterrent to those officials who engage in corruption. The ACC in Iraq has done good work in the past, but Iraq’s political and security situation have prevented it from doing better work.
For example, since ministerial portfolios are given to political parties, the parties defend their appointed ministers, if an accusation of corruption is raised, in order to protect the reputation of the party. However, the minister [in question] could be very corrupt.
Asking for the disclosure of officials’ assets and funds is normal and natural, but what has caused the failure of this process in the Middle East, and particularly here in Iraq, is the lack of an effective banking system. Most people here keep their savings in cash, gold etcetera at home. However, in developed nations, the banking system is very advanced, and almost every person has a bank account, making it easier to know how much money a person has, and how much he has added to or taken away from his bank account in a given time period. In our country, people can easily hide illegally obtained money. Therefore, in order to prevent corruption, the banking system has to be made more effective.
Since the new Iraqi government is an inclusive, power-sharing government, the political parties in the government should not be like their predecessors. Parties should not defend their members if they are accused of involvement in corruption; [and] the ACC has to be more active than before.
Uday Awad, Iraqi lawmaker from the National Alliance Coalition
In fact, corruption in Iraq has a long history. All the cabinets formed after the collapse of Saddam Hussein’s regime have been involved in a high degree of corruption. Much money has been wasted, and a lot of oil money has been kept outside of and in Iraq as property or cash. Unfortunately, despite all the reports about oil smuggling, the stealing of [governmental] money and so on, the ACC is yet to do much about reducing corruption.
Although procedures to disclose the wealth of officials are not a bad thing, it is more important that the ACC does not merely depend on the form the officials fill out. Moreover, the ACC has to intensify its efforts to find out who has what outside the country, [for example], what bank accounts they have, how much money they have obtained and how they are spending it. These things are important, because nowadays many Iraqi officials, particularly those who have been accused of corruption, keep their money abroad; this is dangerous.
Despite the fact that distributing these forms to Iraqi officials [in order to ask them] to disclose their wealth is not a bad thing, [this] cannot reduce corruption. This is because those who are involved in corruption are very experienced and know what they are doing. They know many ways to be corrupt, so I believe we have to find alternative mechanisms.
Aliya Nuseif, Iraqi lawmaker from the Iraqiya coalition:
The various factions in the Iraqi parliament, particularly the bigger ones, should have asked their members who are in parliament and in the government to disclose their finances before or [just] after the formation of the government. The coalitions should have done this before the ACC started asking officials to disclose their finances.
However, distributing these forms to government officials and parliamentarians is a very good thing, and it will have positive effects. At least, it will show that there is a committee and it is monitoring officials, [and] this committee will be more active in the future.
But the most important thing concerning [the results of] these forms is that the ACC reveals which officials were corrupt, which have been the most corrupt, and which were fighting corruption. The amount of corruption of each corrupt official should be made public. In the past, these forms were distributed to government officials and parliamentarians, but we did not see any results or changes. Meanwhile, the statistics of the ACC show that corruption in Iraq amounted to US$1 billion in 2010. So, I believe it would better for the ACC to publicize the names, both of corrupt officials, and of those individuals working in the government who are involved in fighting corruption. In other words, the phase after distribution of the forms is as important as distributing them. If the results were made public, it would make Iraqi officials aware that there was a committee watching them.
Here is the comment I posted on the above blog report:
I was on of the US advisors who helped in 2004-2006 to establish the Iraqi Commission on Public Integrity ( CPI - now known the Integrity Commission) to fight corruption. I am not sure if your term ACC is for the same group, or another formed by Parliament. It worked great and many corruption cases were reported until we ran up against a Parliament regulation that said no Ministry employee could be prosecuted for Corruption unless the Minister approved it. They rarely approved corruption prosecutions of any high level staff, so that effectively killed the progress of the Commission. CPI also had an objective to get all employees sign ethics statements, and all management to fill out financial disclosure forms, and the Ministries would not enforce those regulations. Your article seems to indicate that politics leads to such decisions, and a tough regulation is needed to remove the regulation mentioned above and publicly prosecute the top level management in Ministries. Without those actions, both US officials and Canadian leaders are calling for a reduction in foreign aid to your country because Iraq's leaders won't ensure the funds are not stolen by corrupt leaders.
Vance Jochim
former Chief Auditor, Iraq Reconstruction Management Office, 2004-2006
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