By: Ali Hussein
The debate in Sweden did not stop, after the press discovered that the prime minister's wife used public funds to build a "coop" for chickens in a garden belonging to one of the government buildings used by the prime minister.
You might imagine that the prime minister's wife spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on the poultry farm, but she actually spent an amount of "16,000" Swedish kronor, which is equivalent to about "1800" dollars, nothing more.
In this country, whose politicians sing night and day about transparency and fighting corruption, and whose officials go in droves every year to perform the Hajj pilgrimage, a "clever" citizen named Noor Zuhair managed to steal more than three billion dollars in cash, and appeared in the flesh days ago standing in front of his private jet after performing the Hajj rituals and meeting with beloved Iraqi officials.
Four years separate the picture of Mohammed Shia al-Sudani showing us a picture of "scrap" money that we were told was from the "Deal of the Century" funds, and the statement of the new Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi revealing a bribe he received from the Deputy Minister of Oil amounting to "200" million dollars in order to close a corruption file whose stolen amounts and the people involved who transferred this money into their own pockets we do not know, and that the bribe was offered to the prime minister through an intermediary.
The tragedy of embezzling state funds by senior officials and their followers continues; nothing has changed, none of the thieves have stood before the judiciary, and the looting gangs remain as they are, chasing every dollar that comes from oil sales, and the government continues to record the theft of public funds against an unknown party, not against the perpetrators whose wealth has swollen and who have come to control the country's resources.
Therefore, it seems strange that the prime minister talks about the bribe and the intermediary who tried to convince him to accept it without telling us who this intermediary is, how many mediation operations he has carried out before, and what his interest is in closing a file of theft of billions of dollars.
Silence on corruption, which has killed development, education, health, agriculture, and industry in Iraq in the protest squares, and the failure to bring the perpetrators to justice, and watching Noor Zuhair boast about his private jet, are what encouraged the corruption sharks to exercise their power over Iraqis.
Perhaps the first moral act we demand today from Mr. Ali al-Zaidi is to inform all Iraqis of the names of the intermediaries who roam the government corridors, to restore the dignity of all Iraqis.
For 23 years, whenever a voice demanded accountability for the thieves of public funds, they rushed to silence it. What is required today is that we all stand against the perpetrators of hidden thefts so that crimes are not buried in dark drawers, and so that Iraq's economy does not turn into mere speeches and noise behind which files concerning the future of Iraqis are hidden.
The articles do not reflect the view of the agency, but rather express the opinions of their writers.
