Baghdad, The Investigation Department of the Integrity Commission announced the implementation of (5) arrest operations in cases of tampering with disbursement documents, wasting public money, and violations in a number of oil companies in Basra.
The department said in a statement, “The Basra Investigation Directorate’s work team, which moved to the Iraqi Oil Tanker Company, revealed that tampering had occurred in (20) disbursement documents, amounting to a total of (4,000,000,000) dinars from the amounts of social benefits allocated by the company to various public services projects in the governorate.
It added, "It was noted in the Basra Oil Company - Projects Authority that the company did not collect sums of money for its benefit owed by an Australian company that was contracted with to implement the energy escalation project, pointing out that this laxity and negligence in following up on the completion of the sums led to damage to public money after the announcement of bankruptcy of the Australian company,
It indicated setting the priorities for consensual compensation for the West Qurna/1 field of the Basra Oil Company for the purpose of using the compensated lands as oil wells, noting that the company included non-agricultural and fictitious lands in the compensation.
The department continued that violations were observed accompanying the process of distributing housing units belonging to the South Refineries Company, and violations of instructions and distribution controls were recorded, after housing units were granted to the general manager of the company and a number of employees without their real entitlement, and the director housed his son in the house he received even though he is not affiliated with the company.
The statement continued, "In the General Company for the Distribution of Petroleum Products, the firsts of two contracts concluded this year were seized to transport petroleum products for the benefit of extraction companies within the 'licensing rounds' with a private transport company, stressing that the investigation, auditing and follow-up work showed that the General Company for the Distribution of Petroleum Products... It transported products to licensing companies using government vehicles, without contracting with private companies.
Source: National Iraqi News Agency