"Draining the Iraqi Swamp" Saturday 9-19-2020
TNT:
Tishwash: The Anti-Terrorism Service arrests the managers of the Agricultural Bank branches in three governorates
A security source said, Saturday, that the Counter-Terrorism Service had arrested the managers of the Agricultural Bank branches in three governorates.
The source told Al-Ikhbariya that "the Counter-Terrorism Service arrested the managers of the Agricultural Bank branches in Ramadi, Fallujah, Abu Ghraib and Salah al-Din."
He added, "The operation came after important confessions made by the detained bank manager, Adel Khudair, regarding suspicions of corruption." link
Tishwash: Report: The arrest campaign in Iraq affected more officials ... and new names will appear!
Iraqi government sources reported the arrest of Iraqi officials and a businessman, as part of a new anti-corruption campaign led by the Prime Minister. This represents a rare case by subjecting current officials to judicial procedures.
Last month, Al-Kazemi formed a new committee to fight "major corruption files," which carried out its first arrests this week, according to Iraqi officials familiar with the committee's work.
The head of the Iraqi Pension Fund, Ahmed Al-Saadi, and the head of the Investment Authority in Baghdad, Shaker Al-Zamili, were arrested last Wednesday.
The sources confirmed the arrest of Baha Abdul Hussein, head of the electronic payment company "Key Card" upon his arrival at Baghdad airport, on Thursday.
Officials refused to disclose any other details, including charges against the detainees, where they are being held or what judicial procedures they will be subjected to.
An Iraqi official told Agence France-Presse that "the committee is looking into cases that have been suspicious for some time, and then its judicial committee issues arrest warrants."
In response to a question about whether the courts can be trusted to follow the process, the official said, "The committee's judges build" strong "cases.
"The campaign did not target any individuals, parties, or specific business sectors," two officials said.
One of them stated, "There is no target list, but you can expect more names to appear."
And he stressed the former anti - corruption council member Said Yassin Moussa on Saturday that the arrest campaigns carried out by the Iraqi authorities had to be implemented last year end , but it was broken down for various reasons.
Moussa said during an interview with the official newspaper, followed by "People", (September 19, 2020) that "the arrests were made based on the implementation of arrest and recruitment orders and by a judicial order, which cannot be appealed."
And Moussa stated, "There are files in the former Anti-Corruption Council according to meals, the first included 1000 employees with a recommendation for the government to withdraw the hand of these employees. In the second meal, about 140 employees from different ministries were added to it, so it became about 1200 files, of which 800 were filtered among the prosecution." There are 400 files regarding which judicial actions were supposed to be carried out at the end of 2019 and early 2020, but they were suspended. "
The new campaign of arrests comes after the formation of a supreme committee to investigate major corruption files, which Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kazemi recently announced.
According to Abd al-Wahhab al-Saadi, head of the Anti-Terrorism Service, which is considered the executive authority for the arrest warrants, "the prime minister stressed that the campaign of arrests targeting corrupt officials should be secret, with unspoken plans."
During the past 72 hours, news of the arrest campaigns carried out by the security services spread over the past 72 hours on social media and media agencies, including officials accused of corruption and manipulation of public money. link
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Iraqi Dinar News 09/19/20 - Jailhouse Rock
Pimpy’s Investment Chat: Sep 19, 2020
KTFA:
Samson: Iraqi banking officials arrested
19th September, 2020
An informed source said on Saturday that four officials of the Agricultural Bank had been arrested on charges related to corruption cases.
The source told Shafaq News, "The investigation committee in major corruption and exceptional crimes cases has arrested four managers in the Agricultural Bank, after investigations with the bank's director."
The source added that the detainees "are the managers of Ramadi, Fallujah, Abu Ghraib and Salah al-Din banks."
Federal Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kazemi began a campaign of arrests of former and current state officials on charges related to financial and administrative corruption cases, after the supreme religious authority for Shiites in Iraq, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, called for "opening the large corruption files in the country to hold the corrupt accountable." LINK
Ryan1216: I'm rooting for Kazemi to quickly get all of the corrupt officials out Iraq and he's moving very quickly acting upon it. I believe he's in the final push of cleaning and parliament looks to be done being cleaned in very short order (This month to be exact.) All IMO.
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Samson: Justice "by implementing" the prosecution of hundreds of corrupt officials in the governorates of Iraq ... and the files that the parties covered up are "opened" again
19th September, 2020
Informed sources told Al-Masalla that arrest and summoning orders will include hundreds of officials from different governorates and under judicial orders that cannot be appealed.
The source pointed out that strict implementation procedures accompany these orders, and not just routine notices and data as used to in previous eras, where forces and influential personalities intervene to prevent this or that accountability.
The sources revealed that the procedures will include withdrawing the hand of those involved from service, referring their files to integrity and the judiciary, and activating the judicial procedures in relation to previous files that were covered up by parties, courtesy or bribes. And it seems clearly that Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kazemi, after forming a supreme committee to investigate major corruption files, is determined to implement justice for the corrupt.
A member of the Parliamentary Integrity Committee, Jawad Hamdan, said, Wednesday, September 16, 2020, that Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kazemi will be in confrontation with the leaders and heads of political blocs in his campaign against corruption, saying in a statement received by the obelisk that the Prime Minister’s steps are promising and come in The framework for its implementation of what it presented in its government program in combating corruption.
Malameh began serious steps in the efforts to combat corruption after the arrest of about seven officials by the special committee formed by Al-Kazemi, but these steps did not satisfy some of the influential forces that led a media campaign against Al-Kazemi's actions in the new appointments that were within a functional context and not a radical reform measure. By itself, however, the political forces, which were surprised by the changes in positions, sought to distort the image, and portrayed themselves as being against quotas, while they adhered to the sharing of positions, influence and special ranks. It is expected that the task of Al-Kazemi in fighting the corrupt will be difficult because those involved are protected from influential forces.
A security source revealed, on Thursday, September 17, 2020, that a security force had arrested the head of the Baghdad Investment Commission, Shakir Al-Zamili, and the Director General of the Government Agricultural Bank, Adel Khudair, in addition to other employees in Baghdad.
Iraq is considered one of the countries whose development is impeded by corruption, and the Iraqi citizen has reached a state of despair for not being able to hold accountable any corrupt person, even if he is small, which encouraged the corrupt to appear on satellite channels and the media and talk about commissions and commissions without fear of punishment, or respect for them. The least to the people's feelings. LINK
Samson: Al-Kazemi is beating the drums of war against corruption ... and the dominant forces are desperate to prevent their accusations from being harmed
19th September, 2020
A report by Al-Monitor newspaper, translated by Al-Masala, said that Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kazemi began serious steps in fighting corruption in Iraq, by announcing the arrest of a number of the major involved, while this met with widespread popular satisfaction, and the call not to courtesy of the dominant parties.
The report, written by researcher and writer Adnan AbuZayd, said that the representative of the Secretary-General of the United Nations in Iraq, Hennes Blashart, announced after a meeting in Najaf with the Supreme Shiite cleric, Ali al-Sistani, on September 13, 2020, that the reference supports taking exceptional steps to open the large files of corruption and hold those involved accountable. The report stated that political forces quickly picked up this new development to welcome the announcement, although it includes among its ranks figures accused of corruption. Indeed, the demonstrations that began in the country in early October 2019 accuse these dominant forces of plundering public money.
Emphasizing that Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kazemi has taken serious steps to hold those involved in corruption accountable, a source revealed to Al-Monitor that "the corruption investigation committee formed by Al-Kazemi on August 27, 2020, was carried out through security forces on Tuesday, September 15, 2020. Seven of the most corrupt, whose names will be announced later, including the former pension manager. One day after Blashardt’s statement, that is, on September 14, 2020, Al-Kazemi made changes in a number of government positions, but political forces, including the Sairun Alliance, attacked this measure, considering that this could "reach the point of overthrowing the Al-Kazemi government." The Sunni forces also attacked the appointments, and the rule of law expressed its surprise at "administrative appointments that expand quotas."
In his speech to Al-Monitor, a high-ranking government source responds to the parties’ positions by saying, “The parties that are mired in quotas and practice it openly and refuse to prejudice positions and privileges cannot deceive the Iraqi people that they refuse this,” indicating that “the appointments include professional names and they are not radical changes. The names were chosen from within the institutions themselves, due to the expiration of the legal periods for holding positions, taking into account the factor of integrity, experience, and national balance.
It is very clear that the political forces are wary of the street and fear it, and are trying to "beautify" their image in any way, which prompted the head of the Al-Fateh Alliance, Hadi Al-Ameri, to issue a statement announcing on September 14, 2020 that he is not aware of the placement of one of its members, Sami Al-Masoudi, to the Hajj Authority This means that Al-Kazemi did not consult the parties regarding appointments and did not adopt quotas.
State of Law MP Alia Nassif told Al-Monitor, "Facing corruption is one of the most important challenges of the Al-Kazemi government," saying that "the government has not yet reached the level of the serious challenge that the state faces in fighting the corrupt, or disarming illegal weapons." Nassif believes that "the changes in the positions that Al-Kazemi made, to date, did not deviate from the wishes of the blocs in the quota system, which worries the Iraqis who place great hopes on the person of Al-Kazemi in particular in establishing a new path in the administration of the state away from the method of sharing positions." Nassif believes that "the citizen's despair stems from the fact that he did not see a corrupt person before justice, in previous government eras, and he hoped to see this procedure in the Al-Kazemi era."
Al-Kazemi pledged on June 20, 2020, to proceed with financial and economic reforms, while political forces fear that the war on corruption will affect them. Civil Aviation and the Shiite Endowment.
Former Minister of Communications Muhammad Tawfiq Allawi, in his speech to Al-Monitor, draws attention to "an important factor that enables it to stop the rotation of the anti-corruption machine, which is the early and fair elections that Sistani's statement mentioned three times in his meeting with Jenin Blashart," considering that "this places Al-Kazimi either as a crossroads. Ensuring the integrity of the elections or failure, because fair elections will end the corruption machine that is still going on." Allawi warns that "the public is not convinced of the election results because this will deepen the country's problems and put it in front of a threat to its unity and the future of its people." But MP Falah al-Khafaji told Al-Monitor, "Stopping corruption and enforcing the law must happen before the early elections, because without it they will not be fair." Al-Khafaji says that "the American elections will have a great impact on the course of events in Iraq."
The Secretary General of the National Civil Movement, Shorouk Al-Abaiji, affirmed in her interview with Al-Monitor that "the forces of a non-state are in control of all joints, and the Iraqi does not feel that he is a citizen of a state that has institutions that serve him." Al-Abayji considered that "all this defect did not accelerate the reform steps that are now supposed to be clear-cut, and the clear methodology for reform is still absent despite the prevalence of the system of corruption," calling for "a strategy that depends on legal mechanisms and mass mobilization to implement them, before it begins." The feeling that the government is weak in front of the forces of corruption, and this is something that the prime minister must rectify and not hold the stick in the middle. "
Writer and researcher Abbas Abboud, a former editor-in-chief of Al-Sabah newspaper, told Al-Monitor, "Al-Kazemi has more than one characteristic that qualifies him for success, being an honest person acceptable to the most internal and external parties, but he has to combine words with deeds and openness to the people," considering that "reform will not start." Before the next elections because the time and circumstance are not right now."
It is expected that the dominant powers will desperate to prevent rapprochement with their symbols accused of corruption, but that will necessarily lead to activating the protest movement, especially after the Marjaiya announces its supportive position. LINK