Baghdad The Special Parliamentary Committee in charge of constitutional amendments stressed the need to legislate a law on “recovering corruption proceeds” before holding the elections scheduled for next October.
The Deputy Chairman of the Committee, Yousif Muhammad, stated, in a statement to the National Iraqi News Agency (NINA), that “the bill is very important, and we participated in the sessions of preparing such legislation, and we are currently waiting for its presentation on the agenda to proceed with the legislatively appropriate procedures for approval in the House of Representatives.”
He added that “the legislation of the law will guarantee the return of a lot of Iraqi smuggled and looted funds during the previous years, and it will be an important qualitative leap to fight corruption at the level of the federal government and at the level of the region.”
Regarding the possibility of passing the law during the remaining time of the parliament’s life, he explained that “there is an imperative necessity to legislate the law during the remaining period of the parliament’s life, due to the importance of the law and its relationship to the elections,” noting that “one of the obstacles to ensuring the integrity of the electoral process is that there are equal opportunities for all, which is money, that is corrupt political money, and therefore the enactment of such laws will guarantee equality for groups and people in order to compete in the upcoming elections.”
Muhammad, who is the head of the Parliamentary Change Movement Bloc, confirmed that “all agencies associated with the federal government, the National Oil Company, and the ministries of finance, oil and planning will be required to implement the new law, as well as any mechanisms required by the general budget law to deliver oil revenues from the region, as well as federal revenues and the region’s share in the budget.”
On May 23, the President of the Republic, Barham Salih, announced the submission of a draft law on “recovering corruption proceeds” to the Parliament.
Source: National Iraqi News Agency