Around $10 million in aid for the displaced
in northern Iraq's Nineveh province, where ISIS group was based, has been
embezzled by its fugitive ex-governor, the country's anti-corruption commission
said Tuesday.
A
spokesperson for the Integrity Commission said that its investigators had
uncovered "invoices from developers in Iraqi Kurdistan".
But,
he added, "no receipt was found" for these debited sums, which were
meant for the rehabilitation of two hospitals in the northern metropolis of
Mosul, capital of Nineveh.
Many
of the province's inhabitants are still displaced as public services have not
been fully reestablished.
Currently,
1.6 million Iraqis are still crowded into camps for the displaced, of which 40
percent are originally from Nineveh, according to the International
Organisation for Migration (IOM).
A
total of 11.3 billion Iraqi dinars ($9.4 million) had been allocated to the
Provincial Council by the Ministry of Migration and Displaced, according to the
commission.
"It
has been debited and doesn't appear in any provincial authorities' bank
accounts or in the Provincial Council funds," he said.
"It
was transferred to Kurdistan," an autonomous region where the sacked
governor of Nineveh, Nawfel Akoub, is thought to be in hiding, along with
several other officials wanted by Baghdad.
He
has been on the run since a ferry sank in Mosul on Mother's Day in March,
killing 150 people.
In
April, the commission said that more than $60 million of public funds were
diverted by officials close to Akoub from Nineveh's budget of $800 million.
Graft
is endemic across Iraq, which ranks among the world's worst offenders in
Transparency International's annual Corruption Perceptions Index.
Since
2004, a year after the US-led invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein, almost $250
billion of public funds has vanished into the pockets of shady politicians and
businessmen, according to parliament.