Only in Iraq !! No voice is louder than corruption, and there is no word more popular among Iraqis except it , It has become the focus of everyone’s attention, especially with the spread of international and local documents, that the Iraqis who are tired of killing, displacement and poverty to wake up on the largest operations of systematic corruption in history, and of course the simple citizen and no one else pays the bill in the end .
We’re going to complete the talk, which we began in a previous article about the auction of currency done by the Central Bank of Iraq , The importance of this auction stems from being an auction for the exchange of foreign currency in Iraq to cover large expenses to support Iraq’s foreign trade and the other hand to help Iraq on a partial withdrawal of local currency from the markets to help maintaining on specific levels of inflation.
A few Days ago ,the Iraqi Central Bank announced its decision to deprive three private banks and 99 banking company from entering to the window of currency sale , for violating the laws and regulations on the purchase and sale of foreign currency. It is of course information in which we’ve published a number of articles and reports on corruption within the corridors of the currency auction, and for the influential figures who do not care about the law or regulations.
Many of the documents revealed the largest gaps of corruption that leaked from it $ 312 billion through auctions of the Central Bank to sell the currency through fake invoices .. It seems that these documents there will come daily according to the events experienced by Iraq, and because of the evidence of the involvement of figures in the processes of corruption, and recently , the Minister of Finance Hoshiyar Zebari, revealed during an earlier television interview for converting an amount of six billion , four hundred and fifty million dollars to account Hamad Yasser Mohsen al-Moussawi, the owner of Bank of Huda , and sources have indicated that the transferred amount is more than nine billion and it has been converted from Hamad al-Moussawi.
The central bank publish a copy of the letter which was sent to the Integrity Committee of the parliament , and it was declared in it for the lack of any transfer of $ 6 billion and $ 455 million outside Iraq to account of Moussawi.
what makes it easier for the work of these people who abuse with money of Iraqis is that the influential personalities are standing behind them, thus the field was available to them and their suspicious operations , and here we mention reports indicated that former Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki stood behind characters like; Hamad al-Moussawi, which had a long history at the central bank operations and money laundering , and sources indicated Maliki has defended about the innocence of al-Musawi, who is one of the closest merchants to him , and who is also one of the arms of Almaliki, to close all the files of corruption that could topple the big heads.
In the same context, the parliamentary finance committee member Majda al-Tamimi revealed that banks managers benefit from currency auction of the Central Bank of the value range between 300 to 400 million dollars a month.
She pointed out that «the state reserves of foreign currency has greatly decreased as a result of leakage of funds to the pockets of the ” corrupt ” In addition to the presence of 20 defendants in these cases, some of them are with a degree of Chairman of Bank Management Board .
And as the Rawbet center for Research and Strategic Studies has been distinguished in a previous article in detection of a meeting of a number of banks and banking employers in Baghdad about the price of dollar and the need to reduce its price on the black market, and they threatened to issue a decision to limit the auction with a limited number of banks.
As it is well known, ” to be safe from the penalty , to offend the morality” noting that the whales of auction threatened to issue a decision to limit the auction to a limited number of banks, some of them said they were able to control of all joints of the state , and the price of the dollar and they reject to sell the dollar available in their accounts abroad.
To go in details into the subject of the currency auction is complex and sensitive , as a result of providing the necessary cover by personalities of a sensitive positions in Iraq , and it is shown through the size of money that has been smuggled in the currency auction, which was estimated at 57% of oil incomes since 2006 , while reports talking of smuggling of nearly 200 billion dollars from Iraq to other countries between 2005 and 2014. And reports talked earlier that the central bank in 2009 sold 92%, of oil incomes which entered the country. ”
The Iraqi central bank sold more than $ 44 billion in foreign currency auction in 2015, and statistics mentioned , published by the bank, that the quantity sold to banks amounted to 44 billion and 303 million and 799 thousand and $ 966.
We pointed out that Iraq’s debt is today about 77% of GDP, while the normal not exceed 60% of GDP, which is an abnormal situation and worrying. this case creates the growth of Iraqi debt that it became large and Iraq has become running to countries and donor financial institutions like the World Bank and the IMF and 7 industrialized states , and currently is discussing with Britain to borrow $ 13 billion. However, the current policy has not changed noting that wealth of people is stolen through the window of selling the currency in force till now .
The economists indicates that the Iraqi borrowing exceeded $ 100 billion, a very large number and enter the country in a dark tunnel because if the interest rate of 2% , Iraq will pay $ 2 billion per year.
Suspicious transactions that took place over the currency auction wasted huge amounts of the capabilities of the Iraqi people, as reports have talked of wasting billions of dollars by Iraqi officials between 2008 and 2014, during the reign of al-Maliki, who his tenure as prime minister has seen the biggest corruption in Iraq’s history, however, there was no punishment or account.
While the Parliamentary Commission of Economy announced that the bank presented an appeal to the Federal Court to cancel setting the auction at 75 million dollars a day in the budget, which led to cover the merchant need of hard currency on the black market.
The dollar exchange rate in the Iraqi market see a continuous rise despite central bank measures to maintain stability; During the past two months, Iraqi market has seen a gradual rise in the dollar’s exchange rate against the dinar, is currently up to 1300 dinars to the dollar.
The banking sector in Iraq need to re-review and revealing, the sector has witnessed suspicious operations of hundreds of billions of dollars, in addition to that it has become a hotbed for some politicians and corrupt and needed today to find strict legislation that deters those who tempted to touch the food of Iraqi people and the wealth of the country, and put in place mechanisms to check the credibility of invoices and make sure of the customer’s account and the fact of the required amounts , Do it covering imports by the private sector or for other reasons.
Iraqi citizen has been suffering from this corruption, which came on everything and everybody, and even with the government’s attempt to facing this great genie ,a torrent of corruption is still tremendously that nothing stand in his way , thus the street exploded and thousands of Iraqis came out to the streets, demanding the “cleansing” of state institutions of corruption , but the matter is large equal to the size of corruption and its family, however, reports continued revealing the extent of the disaster that befell Mesopotamia in which its resources were looted and capabilities lost and divided among a bunch of thieves.
The builder of the renaissance of Singapore Lee Kuan Yew kan say ” when thieves walking in the streets are safe , there are two reasons:” Either the system is a great thief or the people is the largest stupid , ” the corrupt is still practice of scheduled theft operations over the office and their relationships under the sight of government. .. While the phenomenon of begging were spread in the heart of the capital Baghdad because of the deteriorating economic situation in Iraq, while the auction of currency at the Central Bank of Iraq has become a big feast and money laundering and the smuggling of the dollar abroad, and here , a very large and fast action is put on both the government and the people to save what can be saved before it is applied to Iraq the saying “that hole in the dress is bigger than anyone can fix . ” ( it is said at the spread of corruption and could not be reformed ).
Rawabet Center for Research and Strategic Studies