Transport Minister soon in Parliament over “corruption allegations”

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[size=52]Transport Minister soon in Parliament over “corruption allegations”[/size]

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2024-09-21
Baghdad
The Iraqi Parliament is facing severe criticism and successive crises that it seems unable to address, most notably the absence of its oversight role by interrogating some officials who are procrastinating or whose work is tainted with corruption.[/size]
[size=45]Today, Saturday, the Parliamentary Transport Committee revealed that parliamentary signatures have been collected to question Transport Minister Razzaq Muhaibis due to “suspicions of corruption.”[/size]
[size=45]Committee member Zuhair Al-Fatlawi said in a statement followed by “Al-Alam Al-Jadeed” that “MP Yasser Al-Hussaini collected signatures from members of the House of Representatives to question Minister of Transport Razzaq Muhaibis due to suspicions of corruption in a number of departments and public companies affiliated with the ministry.”[/size]
[size=45]Al-Fatlawi pointed out that “there are many contracts that contain suspicions of corruption in the Iraqi Airways Company, the ports, and the railway company, in addition to other companies and departments in the Ministry of Transport.”[/size]
[size=45]He added, "MP Yasser Al-Husseini will submit a request to question the Minister of Transport to the Presidency of the House of Representatives to set a date for the questioning."[/size]
[size=45]It is noteworthy that the Parliamentary Committee on Transport and Communications also intends to question the Minister of Communications, Hiyam Al-Yasiri, and the Executive Director of the Communications and Media Commission, Ali Al-Moayyad.[/size]
[size=45]The committee confirmed during a meeting held a few days ago, according to a statement issued by the media department of the House of Representatives, that it would proceed with the subject of questioning the Minister of Communications and the Executive Director of the Communications and Media Commission, stressing that it had completed collecting signatures to proceed with the subject of the two interrogations.[/size]
[size=45]On September 11, the head of the National Approach Bloc, MP Ibtisam Al-Hilali, held the parliament presidency responsible for delaying the date of questioning MPs and officials.[/size]
[size=45]On August 19, Mustafa Al-Karaawi, a member of the Parliamentary Finance Committee, confirmed that a request had been submitted to the Presidency of the Council of Representatives to set a date to question the Governor of the Central Bank of Iraq regarding several files, most notably the exchange rate of the dollar against the local currency, but this has not happened yet.[/size]
[size=45]On August 16, the representative of the Ishraqat Kanun parliamentary bloc, Mohammed Al-Khafaji, revealed today, Thursday, that the acting Speaker of Parliament, Mohsen Al-Mandalawi, did not agree to the request to question the Minister of Electricity due to the existence of political pressures and agreements.[/size]
[size=45]In its previous sessions, the Iraqi parliament witnessed interrogation sessions for ministers and government officials, which were interspersed with chaos and exchange of words between the official and the interrogated representative. Despite the announcement by members of the current parliament that parliament is about to launch a campaign of interrogations for many officials who are suspected of corruption and squandering public money, these interrogations did not take place.[/size]
[size=45]It is noteworthy that the last interrogation conducted by the House of Representatives on March 13th, targeted the former head of the Iraqi Media Network, Nabil Jassim, who failed to convince the Council with his answers, and the Council was satisfied with withdrawing his hand from the management of the network only without holding him legally accountable for the files on the basis of which he was interrogated.[/size]
[size=45]Since the Federal Supreme Court issued a decision on November 14, 2023 to terminate the membership of Parliament Speaker Mohammed al-Halbousi on charges of “forgery” filed by MP Laith al-Dulaimi, the House of Representatives has been unable to elect a new speaker due to disagreements between Sunni blocs, as the “Progress” bloc led by al-Halbousi insists on the position, while the “Sovereignty” bloc led by Khamis al-Khanjar and other Sunni blocs consider the position a right for the Sunni component as a whole. Voting on the Speaker of Parliament requires a quorum of half plus one of the number of seats in Parliament, which the Sunni forces do not have, as the number is 166 representatives, and the Progress Party, which has the majority of Sunni seats, only has about 35 seats.[/size]
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