Shafaq News /The City of Mosul is struggling to regain its life after the ISIS scourge (2014-2017), yet it is also suffering from a deep humanitarian problem -of which Shafaq News agency reveals some aspects; a scandal related to the unlogical delay and neglect of the city’s residents’ compensation.. tens of thousands of Mosul’s people are in dire need of help, yet all they find is heedless ears, especially from the federal government in Baghdad.
It concerns thousands of victims, dead, wounded, missing, and those who lost their homes and cars. To understand the scale of the nightmare, recent UN statistics indicate that nearly 11,000 housing units –that was once home to tens of thousands of people, have been razed to the ground or severely damaged.
It is normal if the government tried to compensate these people, and for the victims to file claims for compensation for the losses and damage they suffered during the occupation and the battle to liberate the city. After the economic blockade imposed by ISIS on Mosul, the people had no choice but to turn to international organizations and promote compensation transactions by the Iraqi government to rebuild their houses.
"The conduct of compensation is like a nightmare for Mosul’s people; the simplest requires routine procedures for about a year and a half to two years.. Some transactions have not been completed until today -and it has been more than three years since Mosul’s liberation", Mohammed Al-Akidi, a lawyer who specializes in compensation transactions for homes, cars, and victims of terrorism, told Shafaq News agency.
"One of the measures that have exhausted the citizens is the security clearance -for it takes a year and a half to be acquired. It is not reasonable for a citizen to receive an official document proving his innocence from ISIS after a year or a year and a half; this procedure has become the biggest obstacle, let alone the rest of the details that have made thousands of Mosul’s people leave the compensation transactions”, Al-Akidi clarified.
50,000 transactions discarded on the ground!
Shafaq News agency obtained exclusive images of thousands of transactions completed by the Sub-committee after years of work, only to end up tossed on the ground.
Sources inside the committee told Shafaq News agency that the prosecution was supposed to approve these transactions -thereafter remains only financial allocation; but although months have passed since the prosecution took over the case, only dozens of transactions were approved..Apparently, another three years will pass and these transactions will not be completed.
As for the danger of this situation.. Sources point out that a single match would burn the rights of thousands, and turn billions of dinars into worthless black ashes.
Compensation’s corruption suspicions
Of more than 50,000 transactions, only less than 1,000 received the compensation that Baghdad had ordered to disburse during the past period -according to Shafaq News agency.
According to the sources, the majority of the beneficiaries of compensation are close to the deputies, in addition to the brokers who followed up their transactions from Baghdad..as for those without an official figure supporting them, their compensation is merely a dream that will not be achieved until years later.
The sub-committees estimate the compensation to the half, meaning that if the house’s damage is 30 million dinars, only 15 million or 10 million dinars will be received –if received at all.
Ahmed Mahmood told Shafaq News agency about what happened to him during the liberation.. he lost his wife, home, as well as his car, and for years he has been "fighting" to complete compensation transactions to no avail, "I own the pictures of my wife’s dead body being transported across the river, all of Mosul’s people know what happened to me and mine, yet I have been working on the transactions for more than two years, but to no avail. The government has wronged us so much and we desperately need our rights".
"I've been working on it for two years without even a clue of when the government will pay my dues..It is a miracle we are still surviving for we are passing through the toughest days of our lives”, Ahmed Mahmood added.
"The delay is Baghdad’s responsibility and the government should allocate funds to compensate those affected, most of whom are either displaced in rents or drowned in debts –of which they have been forced to borrow, aiming to rebuild their homes”, Mohammed Augla, director of the secretariat of the sub-committee said to Shafaq News agency.
"In the past, the citizen blamed us for the delay, but today -after we have completed more than 50,000 transactions of homes and wheels and more than 10,000 transactions of martyrs and wounded, we have not failed to do anything and thousands of transactions are still being completed. But of the tens of thousands, only under 1,000 have received compensation, so who is the negligent?”, Augla said.
According to the Iraqi parliament's latest decision on the compensation law, each transaction with a compensation amount of more than 30 million dinars must be approved by Baghdad, otherwise, it must be approved by Mosul’s prosecutor's office. Augla said, "I think it will take years for these transactions to be completed”.
Hundreds of houses in Mosul are still in ruins, their owners have not returned yet -hoping to obtain compensation first.. Those who do not have the possibility of reconstructing their houses, can do nothing but sit on its ruins waiting for a hope no one can predict when it will come.
Despite the efforts of international organizations and philanthropists from the city in the construction of damaged houses and buildings, the scale of the destruction is large.. Without government compensation, it will be difficult to heal the wounds of the war that Mosul’s people continue to suffer from until this day.