ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Iraq’s judiciary sentenced four former officials of the Najaf International Airport to jail time for alleged violations in a 72-million-dollar contract, the country’s anti-corruption body announced on Saturday.
The court sentenced in absentia Faid Kazem Noon Hussein Al-Shammari, the former chairman of Najaf International Airport’s board of directors, and three members to 10 years in prison and a fine of 10 million dinars (about $7,600) for “violating the contract for preparing designs and estimates for the construction of the new runway and corridors at Najaf Airport,” according to a statement from the Iraqi Integrity Committee.
“The contract, valued at $71.989 million, was awarded directly to a consortium of companies without announcing the project as a public tender, thus preventing a broader pool of competitors,” said the statement adding that the convicts violated the Iraqi government’s contract implementation instructions.
“The contract was awarded in exchange for an estimated bribe of 10 percent of the contract’s value,” it added.
This is the second corruption-related sentencing in Iraq within a week. The integrity committee announced on Wednesday that a Maysan court sentenced the head of the payments department at the Maysan Oil Company to six years in prison for embezzling funds allocated for employee bonuses in 2017.
Rampant corruption plagues all levels of the Iraqi state. Official figures published in 2022 estimated that well over 400 billion dollars have gone missing from state coffers since former dictator Saddam Hussein’s regime was toppled in 2003.
The country is currently captivated by developments in the case dubbed the “Heist of the Century” that saw $2.5 billion of tax money stolen.
Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani said during a speech at the United Nations General Assembly last year that combating corruption has been his cabinet’s foremost priority.
Iraq is ranked 154th out of 180 countries on Transparency International’s corruption perception index for 2023, improving three spots from the previous year.
