Shafaq News/ On Wednesday, the Iraqi Judicial authority released on bail the advisor to the former prime minister, Haitham al-Jubouri, who was accused in the "Theft of the century" case. A political source told Shafaq News Agency.
"Al-Jubouri returned some of the money and pledged to give back the remaining in the coming days." The source said.
"Theft of the century": more than 5bn$ plundered from Iraqi state funds
Earlier, the Iraqi Parliamentary Integrity Committee, the country's official anti-corruption body, revealed, new details about the "theft of the century" in which trillions of dinars were stolen from Iraq's tax authority.
Committee member Ahmed Al-Rubaie told Shafaq News agency that the Integrity Committee had formed an investigation committee to follow up on these thefts and has called many officials for investigation.
"The report of the Ministry of Finance concluded that almost 3.7 trillion dinars (about $2.5bn) had been stolen from the Iraqi General Commission of Taxes (IGCT) within a year, but the preliminary information says that the stolen amount is more than five billion dollars," Al-Rubaie said.
The scandal, uncovered last year by the former acting finance minister, has caused a political storm in corruption-plagued Iraq.
In the embezzlement, an amount of 3.7 trillion Iraqi dinars was fraudulently paid to five companies by the General Commission of Taxes, an office within the Ministry of Finance.
As a result, the head of Iraq's Commission of Integrity submitted his resignation.
Details of the thefts came to light following the resignation in August of the finance minister, Ali Allawi, in protest at what he described as endemic corruption in public finances.
Last December Iraq's Prime Minister, Mohammed S. al-Sudani, announced that more than 300 billion Iraqi Dinars have been recovered from the infamous tax fraud dubbed "the theft of the century".
Al-Sudani's office said in a statement that 134,450,600 Dinars were recovered and deposited in the open account of al-Rafidain's bank.
According to the statement, 317,535,536,525 Dinars have been recovered until today, noting that investigations and search operations to arrest the perpetrators are still ongoing.
The Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General, Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, said that the infamous tax freud might not be the last in Iraq, calling for systemic change in the country.
"I said it many times before, most recently at the UN Security Council in October: corruption is a major cause of Iraqi dysfunctionality, and keeping the system ‘as is’ will eventually backfire," she said.
"Iraq’s most recent high-profile corruption case, the so-called 'theft of the century', will unfortunately not be the last, and we can only hope that it serves as a wakeup call," she added, "there is no denying it, systemic change will prove vital for the country’s future. This change, however, will not happen overnight."
It is worth noting that Iraq is considered one of the most corrupt countries in the world. It ranked 157th out of 180 nations on Transparency International's 2021 corruption index.
