Baghdad hosts the looted funds recovery conference

Shorja market in Baghdad
 
09/05/2021

Economy News - Baghdad

The capital, Baghdad, will host, in mid-September, the "Stolen Funds Recovery" conference, which is being held by the Ministry of Justice in cooperation with the Council of Arab Justice Ministers of the League of Arab States.

A member of the United Nations Convention against Corruption coalition and head of the "Al-Nahrain Network to Support Integrity and Transparency," Muhammad Rahim Al-Rubaie, said that "the Council of Arab Justice Ministers issued a study in 2020 entitled (Recovering the looted funds - how - procedures - available means," and there is a desire to translate Working in an international conference in which Arab and international experiences in fighting corruption and recovering looted funds and benefiting from them at the Arab and local Iraqi levels will be simulated.

He added that "the conference, which will be held on September 15-16, will be sponsored by the Iraqi government represented by the Ministry of Justice and (the Legal and Judicial Research Center) in the Council of Arab Justice Ministers of the League of Arab States," noting that "Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kazemi and the Secretary of the League of Arab States will be among the attendees." at the conference."

Al-Rubaie added that "the conference aims to implement an annual work program (the Arab Center for Legal and Judicial Research) by a decision of the Council of Arab Ministers of Justice, which will seek to achieve the sub-objectives by presenting scientific papers to the experiences and practices of countries in recovering money looted by corruption, Arab cooperation and the League's efforts to combat corruption and recover money. The looted corruption, and the framework for that, to come up with recommendations to be submitted to the Council of Arab Ministers of Justice with the aim of activating the protocols of Arab cooperation to recover the looted funds.

He stressed that "Iraq now heads the Arab Network to Promote Integrity and Combat Corruption, which includes members in 22 Arab countries, including government ministers, heads of integrity or financial bodies, oversight bureaus, civil organizations, and members of the network from all countries, including Transparency International's branches in Arab countries."

In addition, the financial advisor to the Prime Minister, Mazhar Salih, said, "It is not possible to give accurate figures about the amount of smuggled funds during the time of the previous or current regime," but he explained that "semi-official estimates of the total expatriate funds of Iraqis indicate about 150 billion dollars in a portfolio Diversified financial resources between investing and depositing and savings in the markets of foreign countries.

With the aim of returning the expatriate funds to the country, Saleh stressed that there must be “strong” legislation that targets the segment of expatriate capital and enjoys special care from the Iraqi government and without any restrictions imposed by the state by opening deposit and saving windows, estimating the number of expatriates of Iraqi origin abroad at approximately 10 million people.

And on the issue of capital smuggling and failure in treatment, the financial advisor to the Prime Minister said: “Capital flight is an issue that is difficult to estimate and needs an integrated legal entity through filing cases in Iraqi courts and transferring them to foreign courts in accordance with international law,” stressing that “the lesson in that It lies in closing those doors that destroy the national economy, and despite their high financial cost, Iraq continues to file lawsuits with the aim of cutting off crime and assaulting public money through images of chasing the smuggling of public money and returning the smuggled funds to Iraq legally.

Source: morning

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