Can Iraq curb corruption among customs officials?
Corruption on Iraq's borders is robbing the government of the customs income its budget depends on.
BAGHDAD — The head of the Security and Defense Committee in the Iraqi parliament, Hakem al-Zamili, has spoken out about the corruption prevailing over Iraq's border crossings. In a press conference held Oct. 3, he stated that the state was not benefiting from financial revenue that is directly going into the pockets of corrupt officials.
Corruption is robbing the state of potential revenue from the tariff law implemented this year to reduce the deficit in the current budget, which amounted to 24 trillion dinars ($18 billion). The General Customs Authority has announced that it had expected to collect $5 billion this year, but only $306.5 million had been received as of August.
Alaa Matar, a food merchant from Baghdad, told Al-Monitor, “The officials at the border crossings and customs are delaying processing their goods for up to a month to force [merchants] to deal with middlemen to reduce the delay to a week.”
He said, “Border crossing and customs employees work as middlemen between the managers and merchants and get paid 1 million dinars [$766] for each transaction. When it comes to imported goods with high taxes, these middlemen coordinate with the officials to change their category to goods with low taxes in exchange for thousands of dollars that go into the pockets of the customs officials.”
