Iraqi lawmaker uncovers serious banking irregularities
Shafaq News/ The representative Jamal al-Muhammadawi divulged procedural irregularities committed by Iraqi banks, raising question marks about the Central Bank of Iraq (CBI) role in monitoring banks and banking companies.
In a press release issued today, Tuesday, MP al-Muhammadawi said that the scrutiny of the Financial Oversight Diwan in the Federal database of Iraqi Banks' capitals revealed that some banks did not comply with the circular of the general directorate for monitoring banking and credit operations that stipulated increasing the banks' capital to 250 billion dinars. Of those banks, al-Muhammadawi named Dar Al-Salam (150 billion dinars), Babylon Bank (178,859 billion dinars), Tigris and Euphrates Bank (100 billion dinars), and Islamic Cooperation Bank (144,481billion dinars).
He added, "The instructions of CBI on buying and selling currency was not inclusive to the commercial lists provided by domestic banks on the imported products covered by credits. This hinders the CBI from keeping tabs upon the transactions."
"The General Directorate for monitoring banking and credit operations do not impose any exemplary penalties upon the banks that do not pay the documentary credits within the ultimatum," he continued.
"Some companies practice brokering in Baghdad without being registered in the database of the Directorate," he noted, "brokering companies exploited the legal gap in the Directorate's decision that suspended the application for new bank branches."
Al-Muhammadawi was surprised by "halting the activity of brokering companies in al-Anbar and Nineveh in 2016, while those in Saladin in Diyala were allowed to continue working."
