It is with profound sadness I report to you all one of our diligent Moderators, Admins & friends – Charles Bright has passed away.
Several months ago it was found he had late stage prostate cancer. I was constantly amazed at his attitude and how he handled his fate. He has gone on to his great reward.
Charles is with Jesus now.
Baghdad – Mawazine News… The National Investment Commission confirmed today, Thursday, a government approach to advance the investment reality in Iraq.
The head of the National Investment Commission, Salar Muhammad Amin, said in a statement, “One of the most prominent directions of the commission at the current and near stage is to open up to available local and foreign investments in various sectors and to find out the most prominent causes of reluctance.”
He added that he “meets daily with dozens of investors, businessmen and companies wishing to invest, and learns about the most prominent problems they face, in attempts to overcome these obstacles through direct coordination with the state departments concerned with the investment process.”
He stressed that “the advancement of the investment reality in Iraq is one of the most prominent directions of the government and the commission,” noting that ”
www.mawazin.net
Information / special… Independent MP Basem Khashan called for the disclosure of the network that stands with the first person involved in the theft of the century, “Nour Zuhair.”
Khashan said in an interview with Al-Maalouma, “It is assumed, after the period that has passed, that the latest developments in the theft of the century will be revealed after the investigation with the first accused, Nour Zuhair,” pointing out that “the Federal Court deals with complete secrecy with the case.”
He added, “Some parties are working to coordinate with the countries to which some have fled in order to return them to Iraq after their escape,” calling for “disclosure of the network that stands with the first person involved in the theft of the century.”
And the Ministry of Finance had announced, earlier, the seizure of movable and immovable funds for five people accused of the tax case, which is described locally as “theft of the century.” vernal.
And the Parliamentary Integrity Committee had announced, earlier in the day, that the report on the “theft of the century” was soon to be announced, while Prime Minister Muhammad Shia’ al-Sudani issued directives regarding the investigation of the case.
Almaalomah.me
Shafaq News / Iraq’s oil reserves accounted for 8.4 percent of the world’s reserves, in addition to the cheapest extraction, according to the British company BP.
The company said, in a report seen by Shafaq News agency, that “Iraq’s oil reserves amounted to 145 billion barrels,” indicating that “these reserves constitute 8.4 percent of the world’s oil reserves.”
And she indicated that “Venezuela ranked first with the largest oil reserves in the world, with an amount of 303.8 billion barrels, which constitutes 17.5 percent of the world’s reserves, followed by Saudi Arabia with 297.5 billion barrels, and then Canada came third with 168.1 billion barrels, and then Iran came fourth with 157.8 billion barrels, and Iraq came fourth. Fifth, then Russia came sixth with 107.8 billion barrels, Kuwait came seventh with 101.5 billion barrels, then the UAE came eighth with 97.8 billion barrels, then the United States came ninth with 68.8 billion barrels, and Libya came in tenth place with 48.4 billion barrels.
She explained that “Venezuela has the largest amount of oil reserves in the world with more than 300 billion barrels in reserve, but most of its oil is in the sea or underground and is considered dense, so the cost of extracting oil in Venezuela’s reserves using the technology currently available is too high to be profitable, indicating that the oil reserves in Iraq and Saudi Arabia are close to the surface and on the ground, which makes access to oil more accessible and the extraction process more cost-effective and more profitable.
Shafaq.com
For almost a year, armoured vehicles carrying hundreds of thousands of Iraqi dinar bills have wound their way through Baghdad’s busy streets on a weekly basis.
The trucks, laden with tax funds siphoned off from state-owned bank Rafidain, were allegedly pulling off in broad daylight what has since been dubbed Iraq’s “heist of the century”.
In all, $2.5bn was allegedly spirited away from the country’s tax authority between September 2021 and August 2022, according to the ministry of finance, a massive corruption scandal that is roiling Iraq’s hallways of power since it erupted last month.
The scandal broke days before new premier Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani’s government was sworn in and he has said his administration will prioritise fighting corruption, which has “so brazenly spread through the joints of the state and its institutions”. He has begun publicly purging acolytes of the former prime minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi.
But Sudani, ostensibly an independent who is backed by some of the factions alleged to be involved in the scandal, may struggle to hold to account senior members of Iraq’s political establishment.
“The fault and the liabilities go all the way to the top,” said Sajad Jiyad, a Baghdad-based fellow with The Century Foundation. “It implicates a lot of high-level players, including ministers and ex-ministers, civil servants and well-connected businessmen. So this is a political issue — we’ll see how far Sudani can go.”
Corruption in Iraq is endemic and has corroded state institutions, sanctioned by a political class that has governed the country since former president Saddam Hussein was toppled in 2003. The ethno-sectarian arrangement intended to foster power sharing has instead entrenched a system of horse-trading between factions competing for top government jobs and sources of patronage within ministries.
This latest fraudulent scheme is said to extend deep into the arteries of Iraq’s powerful but discordant Shia political factions, most of whom united this summer to name Sudani prime minister.
The new government is dominated by blocs linked to Iran, known as the Coordination Framework, and its affiliated militia groups, who fought against loyalists of rival Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr this summer as both sides jostled for control over government formation. Five people with knowledge of the probe said the latest scandal casts suspicion on both sides.
The scale of the fraud, which revolves around the tax authority, the central bank and the ministry of finance, emerged when the ministry of finance revealed the outcome of an internal investigation. It found that from September 2021 to August 2022, about 250 cheques were written out to five companies. They then withdrew funds held in escrow and earmarked to cover annual liabilities in accounts controlled by the tax authority at state-owned bank Rafidain.
In a public letter after the embezzlement was revealed, ex-finance minister Ali Allawi said that he had alerted Kadhimi’s office about the scheme in November 2021 and ordered payments to be halted from the accounts without his approval, but the payments continued. A former senior adviser to Kadhimi said the premier’s office had not seen “official correspondence” from Allawi about the fraud.
The companies claimed to be acting on behalf of bigger firms, including several international oil companies, according to the ministry. Three of the companies were founded in the month before the scheme began, four people with knowledge of the investigation said.
In total, the ministry said 3.7tn Iraqi dinars ($2.5bn) were withdrawn from the accounts at Rafidain — or around 2.81 per cent of the country’s 2021 budget. Some of the cash was then used to buy US currency through the daily “dollar auction” — a process in which the central bank provides dollars to a commercial bank in exchange for Iraqi dinars.
Three people with knowledge of Iraq’s banking sector said the central bank and Rafidain must have both known about the scheme because the uptick in dollars bought at auction was higher than usual and the amounts withdrawn were so large. They also said that the sheer volume of cash being moved daily in Baghdad would have required armoured trucks, implicating government security agencies.
“This thing is outrageous even by Iraqi standards,” said one of the banking industry sources. “There is simply no way nobody noticed such large amounts were being withdrawn.”
So far, the judiciary has issued travel bans against nine named suspects, including five senior civil servants at the tax authority and finance ministry and the companies’ directors.
One of them, Nour Zuhair Jassim, was detained on the tarmac trying to leave Baghdad on a private jet. Six people with knowledge of the investigation say Jassim is the central suspect and the judiciary is probing his ties to Kadhimi aides, Sadrists, and Coordination Framework leaders, including former prime minister Nouri al-Maliki and paramilitary strongman Hadi Al-Amiri. At least one of Kadhimi’s advisers has been called in for questioning by the judiciary.
Investigators are also querying the role played by senior officials at the central bank and in the finance ministry. Allawi declined to comment for this story. The directors of the finance ministry and the central bank’s media offices did not respond to a request for comment.
The former senior Kadhimi adviser denied any involvement by the ex-premier, his close aides and his former oil and finance ministers in the corruption scheme. The Sadrist Movement’s political wing did not respond to a request for comment. The secretary-general of the Coordination Framework declined to comment.
The investigation is already being used to settle scores, analysts said. “Those who are corrupt and powerful succeed by using their power to target those who are weaker: often anti-corruption mechanisms are the political tool used in their targeting,” said Renad Mansour, director of the Iraq Initiative at Chatham House.
In a system rife with corruption and vested interests, the investigation is likely to stall, analysts said. Jiyad added: “It’s not unrealistic to expect that some heads will roll at the banks, and then the issue will quietly go away. That seems to me the obvious game plan by the political elite, who will go back to their old ways.”
Ultimately, that so many competing political factions in Iraq are alleged to be involved shows their willingness to continue to collude for financial gain. “Corruption in Iraq is the political system,” Mansour said.
Information/Baghdad… A member of the Parliamentary Finance Committee, Jamal Kougar, suggested, on Saturday, that the draft budget law will arrive within the next two weeks, indicating that the draft will be different from the laws presented for several reasons.
In a statement to Al-Maalouma, Cougar said, “The draft budget is ready and needs additional details to be in harmony with the current government’s program and plans.”
He added, “The project is in two parts, including operational, and it is known, and the numbers cannot be tampered with too much, as they pertain to the salaries and allocations of employees and the investment section. Projects, services and job grades can be added according to the government’s need.”
Cougar pointed out that “the budget will be different due to the presence of the Minister of Finance, Taif Sami, who is the most experienced in managing and implementing the budget at the head of the ministry, as well as Muhammad Shia’a Al-Sudani’s ambition to establish service projects.” Done/25 d
Almaalomah.me
Yes Iraq: Baghdad – For the first time in months, the central bank’s weekly sales did not exceed 800 million dollars, after the central bank’s sales of hard currency touched an average of 1.2 billion dollars per week, which means that the central bank’s weekly sales of dollars fell by 32%, while it is hoped that The decrease over the next week will be about 40%.
According to the data of the Central Bank, it sold during the past week for the five days in which the auction was opened, and from Sunday to Thursday, 792 million and 415 thousand and 787 dollars, at a daily rate of 158 million and 483 thousand and 157 dollars.
According to that, the average daily sales was about 158 million dollars per day, while it was recording more than 200 million dollars per day during the past months.
And the central bank recorded during the week preceding last week sales of more than one billion and 150 million dollars.
And the actual decline began since the beginning of November, i.e. last Tuesday, when daily sales began to record only 120 million dollars, which means that the decrease amounted to 40%, which will be recorded during the next week, as sales next week are expected to not exceed 600 million dollars. , down 25% from last week and about 45% in the preceding week.
The real decrease, which amounts to about 50 million dollars per day, appears from the decrease in cash sales only, as foreign remittances sales for the purpose of import are still stable at 150 million dollars per day, while cash sales decreased from 50 to less than 10 million dollars per day.
Perhaps this decline is due to the lack of demand for the dollar as a result of citizens’ fears of a possible drop in the dollar’s price, amid the continuation of parliamentary statements calling for a decrease in the exchange rate.
Yesiraq.com
Shafaq News / Commentator “Brian Kamenker” saw in an article in the American Thinker magazine, that Joe Biden’s actions as president of the United States only indicate that the billionaire George Soros in particular runs America through the networks of his organizations.
According to the article, Biden, who usually forgets names and suffers from “obvious dementia”, cannot independently sign “dozens of very extreme decrees” that have caused “devastating inflation”, immigration and energy crises and “terrifying” citizens.
The article added: “Everything points to the involvement of the Soros network of foundations in this. The people there are very smart and experienced, they hate America with a passion, they have aimed for it for decades, and they have access to unspeakable wealth and influence. They are more than capable of Organize all of the above.
According to the author of the article, Biden became president thanks to a large-scale coordinated effort aimed at undermining the American electoral process, during which billions of dollars and the most powerful American companies and political organizations were used.
“Looking at what’s happening now, and drawing lessons from the past, it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that we are all passengers of a train rushing to hell. If we don’t stop it soon, there will be no turning back,” he said.
Shafaq.com
