ERBIL, Kurdistan region - A former senior employee of the Maysan Oil company has been convicted of embezzlement and sentenced to jail time, Iraq’s anti-corruption body announced on Wednesday.
“The Maysan Criminal Court - First Panel issued an in-person ruling to imprison the head of the payments department at the Maysan Oil Company for six years,” read a statement from the integrity commission.
The unnamed person embezzled funds allocated for employee bonuses in 2017, according to the statement.
The court also sentenced a second person who received a bribe of 700 million dinars from the first person in exchange for not conducting a financial audit. This person was sentenced to “four years and a fine of two million dinars.”
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.
