Shafaq News/ An Iraqi fund to recover stolen state assets has unearthed a potential corruption scandal involving the disappearance of 600 million dinars (approximately $414 million) from the account of the disbanded National Council.
Ayman Daoud, the deputy chairman of the fund, said in a statement that fund dispatched an audit team to investigate irregular transfers from an account for the former National Council at the Salihiya branch of al-Rasheed Bank.
The team, according to the statement, discovered 12 unauthorized cash withdrawals totaling 191,715,508 dinars, followed by the complete depletion of the remaining balance of 406,388,649 dinars, all occurring in August 2003.
Further investigation at al-Rasheed Bank branch at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where the National Council's account was merged in 2007, yielded no evidence of the funds being transferred to any government entity or official channels.
Notably, the team found no documentation of offsetting transactions or notifications regarding the missing funds.
"The probe traced the last legitimate transaction on the account to April 3, 2003, with a deposit of 500 million dinars," it said. "However, after the National Council's dissolution on April 9, 2003, the account should have been frozen and all remaining funds transferred to the Ministry of Finance. Instead, unauthorized withdrawals continued throughout August 2003, raising serious red flags."
"This pattern strongly suggests potential corruption in the illegal appropriation of the account's balance," Daoud declared. "The responsibility for this apparent malfeasance falls squarely on the shoulders of the branch manager, authorized personnel, and account and accounting officers."