Shatha Khalil *
Iraqi schools suffer from a severe shortage in the provision of school curricula, which was reflected directly on the Iraqi families, which had to cut off quite a bit of its daily food to buy those curricula from the black market and with difficult numbers.
To shed light on corruption in the Iraqi Ministry of Education is not political, or electoral downfall , but is officially documented and proved by the Office of the Inspector General of the Ministry of Education and the Iraqi Intelligence Service.
The official documents reveal a corruption deal in the Iraqi Ministry of Education, with a Lebanese company, according to the official document issued 2/4/2017, and audited “under the title of audit of the contract” in the number 3623 on 26/4/2018.
The Ministry of Education has sent an invitation to a Lebanese company called “Dar Garnett” to print the books of the English language curriculum for the academic year 2018, and the amount of 24 titles of the book, in the amount of 38 billion Iraqi dinars.
Despite the existence of solid national companies and Iraqi hands, enjoys high potential, assessed by the committees of the Ministry of Education, has been submitted to print the same curriculum and the same addresses, the amount of 29 billion dinars, a difference of 10 billion Iraqi dinars, but the Ministry insisted in cooperation with the Committee to evaluate Prices by the administrative affairs to transfer the books to the Lebanese company “Dar Garnett”.
The ministry ignores, in sending of the official books related to the Garnett Company, security forces that check the status of foreign companies and this confirms the waste of public money, cheap personal interests against the interest of the country with the deteriorating economic situation of Iraq.
The Special Committee in its assessment of the price of the pamphlet explained that the price will be in accordance with the amount requested from the Lebanese company dealt with by the Ministry of Education 231 dinars, which was handed over to the Office of the Inspector General of the Ministry of Education, which in turn made his remarks that there is a waste of public money estimated at 10 billion Iraqi dinars in addition to many paragraphs on which he made a reservation, noting that the price of a pamphlet for the previous year amounted to 225 dinars.
According to the National Intelligence Service, Dar Garnett has no known branches in Iraq, with a capital of 2,500 pounds (about US $ 3,500), while it has brokers “employees” .
The document issued by the National Intelligence Service on April 2, 2017, addressed to the Ministry of Education / Office of the Minister confirmed for the existence of waste of public money in the aforementioned deal, as confirmed by the source.
The document bears the title: notification , and stated that, “Your book No. 4931, on 27/2/2017, we would like to inform you in regarding to it about the following :
1. When checking the database of foreign companies registered in Iraq, we do not have the presence of address or a branch of Dar Garnett Educational Publishing .
2. After researching and investigating the British,”Lebanese” company referred to in paragraph 1 above, it was founded in Britain on 1/3/1991, a private limited liability company classified by small companies competent in the field of printing books.
3. We can not express the security opinion on the subject at the present time because there is no current address for the company inside Iraq.
And the intelligence service praised the efforts of the Inspector General of the Ministry of Education, to his reservation on the printing of the curriculum of English language, despite pressure from the Minister.
It stressed that the law will prosecute all involved and the people will hold accountable all who stole and plotted against the poor citizen.
Economic Studies Unit
Rawabet Center for Research and Strategic Studies