The Iraqi Investment Authority: $ 130 billion worth of "fake" projects and the lands granted to them

[size=52]The Iraqi Investment Authority: $ 130 billion worth of "fake" projects and the lands granted to them[/size]

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Of the 2,322 projects awarded by the National Investment Commission in Iraq during the past years, only 613 projects have seen the light or approached, according to the commission’s president, Suha Dawood Najjar, who said that about 1,000 of them were “fake”.
[size=45]Najjar added that there are 750 other projects that have been delayed for a long time and have not witnessed advanced completion rates.[/size]
[size=45]The American Al-Hurra website quoted the head of the commission that the Iraqi government “canceled investment licenses for more than a thousand projects,” the rates of completion of which were either zero or low, after the Prime Minister’s decision to withdraw the licenses from projects that had been supposed to be completed three years ago. Without completing at least a percentage of its construction.[/size]
[size=45]The new measures are expected to return tens of trillions of Iraqi dinars (tens of billions of dollars) to the state, and they are also supposed to return thousands of acres of land to the investment movement.[/size]
[size=45]The value of registered, unimplemented, projects is about $ 70 billion, according to Najjar, who says that the value of the lands granted to these “fictitious” projects reaches $ 60 billion, in the “most conservative estimate”.[/size]
[size=45]“I think the number is twice as high, but we did not want to cause a shock,” she explains, “according to Najjar, who took over the presidency of the commission after government changes made by Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kazemi after taking office last year.[/size]
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[size=45]Al-Kazemi referred the former head of the commission, Sami Al-Araji, to retirement, as he reached the legal age.[/size]
[size=45]Iraqi businessman and economist Salim Muhammad says that "obtaining an investment license is almost one of the most difficult things for investors, even more difficult than implementing the actual project."[/size]
[size=45]Adding, "fellow investors were asked in 2013 to pay 100 thousand dollars for an opportunity to meet with officials at the Investment Authority, even without assurances that they would be awarded contracts.[/size]
[size=45]Najjar confirms these data by saying, "The contracts that were not implemented were awarded through the widespread corruption in Iraq," noting that "there are people who do not even get an application form even though their papers are complete while others get plots of land in vital places in two minutes." .[/size]
[size=45]According to Najjar, “Virtual investors take loans from banks, using the investment license, or they take sums from people and run away with them, or enter materials and trade in them, or take lands from the state and subcontract them and sell them, or sell the investment license itself, or He introduces foreign labor and trades with entry rights.[/size]
[size=45]Najjar asserts that she is "exposed to pressure, but does not submit to it." She answered, "Yes," to the question whether she fears security threats, stressing, "The war on corruption is not easy and when we take such decisions, they must be calculated, and if we were not serious and know exactly the repercussions of implementing the decision, we would not have taken it."[/size]
[size=45]A source in the Presidency of the Council of Ministers says to the American website, that "the prime minister is pressing the sources of corruption to dry it," he said, stressing that "economic decisions are almost as strong as military and security decisions in terms of impact."[/size]
[size=45]The source, who is close to the prime minister, and asked not to be named, added that “the parties hostile to the idea of ​​the state benefit greatly from corruption in order to finance their activities, and depriving them of enormous resources will greatly reduce their influence and limit their ability to threaten the regime.”[/size]
[size=45]Iraq is considered one of the most corrupt countries in the world, according to reports by Transparency International organizations, but Al-Kazemi issues measures from time to time in an attempt to combat corruption.[/size]
[size=45]The government's decisions, such as controlling the border crossings that were witnessing large smuggling and unofficial entry operations, and the decision to remove government support from the currency, received much attention and praise, and also much skepticism.[/size]
[size=45]Economist Mustafa Roudhan says, "The outlets are still witnessing illegal activities, even if their percentage is less than before, while the currency decision caused great turmoil in the market because of the lack of infrastructure equipped for it."[/size]
 
[size=45]Roudhan fears that "the government has a record of incomplete decisions, but only time will reveal if this decision is one of them."[/size]
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