Iraqi Parliament’s Integrity Committee calls for its activation in Kurdistan Region

Iraqi Parliament’s Integrity Committee calls for its activation in Kurdistan Region
7/21/2011 3:04 PM

BAGHDAD / Aswat al-Iraq: A Member of the Iraqi Parliament’s Integrity Committee has called on Thursday for the activation of the Committee’s efforts in north Iraq’s Kurdistan Region, stressing that Party compromises have caused the absence of such activity.

“The Parliament Members, representing large party blocs are not serious to activate the Parliamentary committees in the provincial offices,” the Legislature, representing the Kurdistan opposition’s Goran (Change) Movement, Haval Khidher Saeed, told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.

Saeed expressed surprise from the “existence of Parliament offices in Arbil, Dohuk and Sulaimaniya Provinces of Kurdistan Region, whilst no integrity committee representation exists in those provinces.”

“The issues of Integrity and Human Rights are matters related to all peoples and the existence of Parliamentary committees that care for such issues in the provinces would help to develop the democracy,” Saeed said, adding that “Party compromises and narrow-party interests hamper any step to activate the works of the Parliamentary committees in the provinces.”

He pointed out that “the problem in Kurdistan Region lies in fact that they justify the presence of a special integrity committee of their own; hence there is no need for a Federal Integrity Committee to follow up the activity of the Region.”

“There is no active committee for integrity in Kurdistan, because it lacks authorities and is unable to uncover the dossiers of corruption or to get information from ministries, to question or send corruptors to courts,” Saeed said.

In conclusion, he said that “the role of the Parliamentary Integrity Committee is to follow up the funds and means of their spending, whether in Iraq as a whole or Kurdistan in special; hence the presence of such committee in Kurdistan is necessary, because the Region’s budget is part of Iraq’s budget.”

SKH (FT)
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]