Legislators say corruption mushroomed in state ministries

BAGHDAD / IraqiNews.com: Members of parliament warned of a Goliath administrative and financial corruption in some of the Iraqi ministries, stressing the need to question whoever is proved to be involved. “The Iraqi Parliament must tighten its monitoring role to fight financial and administrative corruption inside some of the government ministries,” urged Bassem Sharif, a member of parliament from the al- Fadhila (Virtue) Party. “Some ministers have already packed up and are now making final arrangements to escape from Iraq after they noticed that the Parliament has invigorated its surveillance role,” Sharif told IraqiNews.com news agency. He called on the political powers “not to protect the corrupt officials and to cooperate in order to bring them to justice”. On whether the issue of questioning ministers inside parliament involves some score-settling turns among the political powers, Sharif replied that even if this was right, there should be clear-cut mechanisms the parliament has to follow before questioning. “Any lawmaker who asks to have any minister questioned must bring about evidence that condemns this or that minister,” he added. The Parliament had questioned during two recent sessions Minister of Trade Abdulfalah al-Sudani on charges of involvement in financial and administrative corruption. The charges were pressed by the parliament’s anti-corruption committee. For his part, Rasheed al-Azzawi, a member of parliament from the Sunni Iraqi Accord Front (IAF), said the government and parliament are “determined to fight the corrupt,” considering the prohibition of the trade minister from leaving Iraq as “a normal measure now that the minister is wanted by the judicial authorities”. Regarding the government’s approval for Minister Sudani’s resignation prior to having him come under a no-confidence vote, Azzawi said that the government has viewed the Sudani affair as one internal crisis inside both the government and parliament and wanted to contain it through the prime minister’s right to accept the resignation. “What is really pleasing is that the majority of requests for questioning come from within the political or religious groups those officials represent, which is a positive indicator that Iraq is getting healthier and that national interests come above partisan or political ones,” he pointed out. On May 25, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki had accepted Trade Minister Sudani’s resignation. However, Jamal al-Bateekh, the leader of the Iraqi National List (INL) parliamentary bloc, said he has fears that some ministers charged with corruption could escape outside Iraq . He criticized the government’s acceptance of Sudani’s resignation prior to settling the issue of a no-confidence motion over him . AmR (I)/SR 1