By Abbas Baghdadi
Azzaman, December 10, 2014
Prime Minister Haider Abadi is fighting a two-pronged war at two different battlefields and both of them are sapping his country’s resources.
With oil prices plummeting by up to 40% since he took office and spending skyrocketing to cover a ferocious war with Islamic State militants, he wants to rein in corruption and put an end to ‘double wage’ earners and people on payroll but they in reality do not exist.
Oil is almost Iraq’s sole hard cash earner.
It is part of his battle against corruption, which he says it is for him as important as the one that is raging against the Islamic State.
An investigation last month into corruption in Iraqi army ranks found that there were 50,000 false names on the army payroll.
Now the parliamentary commission on defense says its own investigation into security organs mostly belonging to the Interior Ministry, has revealed that there are more than 300,000 false names on government payrolls.
Pressure is mounting on former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maleki whom many in Iraq blame for the presence of the so-called ‘ghost army’ which has become a drain on the country’s treasury and blamed for the army failures in confronting Islamic State militants.
“The number of ghosts in the security establishment is estimated at more than 300,000,” said mudher al-Janabi, a deputy who sits on the defense commission.
“The reason for such rampant corruption falls on the shoulders of Maliki because he was aware of these facts,” Janabi added
He called for Maliki’s prosecution, saying that because of his policies “the country has fallen an easy prey to Daesh,” the Arabic appellation for the Islamic State.
