Iraqi News Highlights Sunday Evening 3-5-23
Tlm724 Administrator Bondlady’s Corner
Alia Nassif: The Corrupt Are Running Free Flights To Take Possession Of The Dollar At The Official Rate
Posted On2023-03-05 By Sotaliraq Representative Alia Nassif called on the National Security and Intelligence Service to prosecute the corrupt companies that operate flights to the UAE, Lebanon and Egypt with the aim of buying travelers’ dollars and smuggling them or reselling them, calling on the Iraqi judiciary to apply the maximum penalties to saboteurs and tampering with the country’s economy, whether the owners of companies or officials who are complicit with them, whatever their positions. .
And she said in a statement today: “It has become clear, with evidence and witness testimonies, that the currency mafias, which have become almost besieged by the regulatory authorities, have begun to use a new method by running (free trips) for people to Dubai, Beirut and Cairo for a week or less with free hotel accommodation, and in return These mafias defraud the state and buy the dollars that travelers get at the rate of seven thousand dollars from each traveler, and take advantage of the currency difference between the official price and the market price.”
Nassif emphasized, “The need for the intelligence and national security services to intervene to prosecute companies that practice this deliberate sabotage of the national economy, and for the judiciary to issue maximum sentences against those who tamper with the people’s capabilities to become an example to others.” LINK
American Newspaper: The Measures Of The Dollar Crisis Are Causing Suffering To Some Iraqis
Translated by: Hamed Ahmed Posted On2023-03-05 By Sotaliraq A report by the American newspaper The New York Times dealt with the hardships and great unintended suffering caused by ordinary Iraqis from the country who intend to travel outside Iraq and need dollar currency, resulting from the recent banking procedures and provisions that the United States and Iraq followed to limit the illegal leakage of hard currency to criminal entities. beneficiary outside the country and accused of money laundering,
Pointing out that the demand for the dollar has increased and that the cost of buying it in Iraqi dinars has risen at some of the local currency dealers.
Long queues of Iraqis who plan to travel outside the country form in the early hours of the day outside the exchange shops, carrying bags full of Iraqi currency with them. These days, it is difficult to find an exchange shop that has remaining dollar balance, and the shops that have balance run out early.
Abu Ali, the owner of an exchange shop in the Karrada area, says, “I have no dollars left.”
The new provisions, which were applied by agreement between the United States and Iraq, require more transparency regarding bank transfers of dollar currency from the Iraqi reserve account for currency deposited with the Federal Reserve Bank in New York.
These provisions came into force late last year, and are part of a long-awaited plan to modernize Iraq’s financial system as it begins to comply with provisions that most countries follow and adapt to provisions requiring greater transparency in international money transfers.
However, some Iraqi merchants and others who used to pay in dollars via international transfers did not like this procedure or they were unable to implement the requirements of transparency, and for this they resorted to exchange shops, causing a great demand for the dollar in the Iraqi street and its high price against the dinar.
Every day, the Central Bank of Iraq facilitates financial transfers from its account at the Federal Bank in New York for the benefit of Iraqi merchants and people to pay the prices of goods imported from outside Iraq. Money transfers are important because few commercial entities have international bank accounts.
On the other hand, a share of the hard currency is sent in cash to the Central Bank of Iraq, which goes to exchange shops and banks, and is disbursed in large part to Iraqis who intend to travel abroad.
Until the day when these provisions were implemented, American officials were unable to track the course of financial transfers of hard currency and whether they ended up with parties that were originally included in the economic sanctions lists.
According to the new provisions, it requires persons or companies that request money transfers for dollar currency to reveal their identity and return and the identity of the party or persons that will receive the money, and then the information is reviewed by an electronic system as well as by experts in the Central Bank of Iraq and the Federal Bank in New York before The transfer is being disbursed.
The Iraqi economist, Ahmad al-Tabaqjali, head of the Asian Union Fund for Iraq, says that the new system allows banks around the world to conduct electronic checks on remittances issued from Iraq to other countries.
Tabaqjali added, “In short, this banking system facilitates the detection of suspicious cases.”
The financial advisor to the Iraqi government, Mazhar Salih, says that many requests are now rejected, noting that sometimes questionable identities are the reason, and at other times the reason is that many Iraqi merchants do not have the required licenses to import goods or that they are not legally registered. They are commercial entities and therefore constitute a breach of Iraqi law. Salih added that these refusals created an increased demand for the dollar at the Iraqi exchange shops, and its exchange rate rose significantly to Iraqis who have a legitimate need for it.
Since 2003, there are two rates for the exchange rate of the dollar against the Iraqi dinar. There is the official rate set by the central bank and an unofficial rate for the black market and is often higher. When there is a scarcity of the dollar currency, its price increases on the black market in exchange shops.
The differences between the two prices create difficulties for the Iraqis, as happened to the woman, Jannah, who is a mother of four children. She says she is saving money to buy a $250 refrigerator.
In October, it cost 320,000 dinars in Iraqi dinars, but today, due to the scarcity of the dollar, its price has risen to 375,000 dinars, and she says, “The new price is beyond my purchasing power.” According to Central Bank data on daily dollar financial transfers, the new provisions have reduced the flow of dollars into the market by approximately 65%compared to the period preceding these measures, and the daily rate of dollar sales decreased from 180 million to 67 million dollars.
Since that time, transfers began to rise, but they are still less than half of the rate they were before the implementation of the new banking system.
The report indicates that until now it is not clear exactly the extent of the decrease in illegal financial transfers.
Douglas Suleiman, president of the Gulf States Institute in Washington and former US ambassador to Iraq, says, “I cannot limit the rate of manipulation and fraud at 90%. Perhaps the rate of manipulation is 45% and another 45% is incompetence or just not knowing how to deal with the new provisions.” LINK
The “Central” Is Facing Political Pressure To Ease The Controls Of The Platform Experts: Government Banks Are “Backward” And The Hoarded Funds Are Estimated At 50 Trillion
Posted On2023-03-05 By Sotaliraq Experts in the field of technology and digital transformation considered the recent government statements about the process of digitizing banking transactions, to conduct citizens’ transactions and combat corruption and money laundering, as talk for media consumption only, and that the issue has become similar to anti-corruption slogans launched by officials.
The experts emphasized that the government is unable to lead this process alone, and that the digital transformation process in the country must be led by an independent body, far from quotas, and carried out according to sober policies and a predetermined plan, subject to the process of continuous development.
Official Statements
Yesterday, Tuesday, the Prime Minister, Muhammad Shia’a Al-Sudani, received a delegation from the international company, Visa, for electronic payment cards, stressing that his government is proceeding with plans for financial inclusion and digitization of banking transactions, and upgrading them. To meet international standards and applicable specifications at an international level.
Al-Sudani indicated, according to the official office statement that was received by “Tariq Al-Shaab,” that “the government’s steps in this field will facilitate financial transactions for citizens, reduce time and strengthen the umbrella of the law by implementing controls that combat money laundering.”
For her part, the Minister of Finance, Taif Sami, stressed the need to transfer banking dealings from paper to electronic to reduce time and simplify procedures for citizens, according to what was reported by the Rafidain Bank, in a statement received by “Tariq Al-Shaab”.
And she stressed the necessity of “implementing the government program in applying the banking system and the goals that are achieved through it in the transition from paper-to-electronic transactions, reducing time, simplifying procedures and overcoming obstacles, away from routine, in addition to intensifying efforts to improve the level of services provided to customers.”
The statement added, “The goal of the visit comes to identify obstacles and diagnose weaknesses in the performance of the banking sector and work to overcome them by strengthening the capabilities of the comprehensive banking system and providing its requirements to ensure the provision of the best services to the bank’s customers.”
Many Requirements
In this regard, the expert in the field of technology and electronic governance, Ali Anwar, said that the Iraqi state does not differentiate between the concepts of automation, governance and digitization and mixes them with each other, while each of them is not similar to the other and has differences, pointing out that these official statements are nothing more than media talk. Just; The problem of banks is not digitization, because the banking sector is highly developed in this respect.
Anwar added, in his interview with “People’s Way,” saying that the government “on its own is unable to lead this process, because at first we suffer from a lack of legal legislation, and this is related to the work of the Parliament, and we have a problem in the absence of an independent body that manages digital transformation, as there are more One side wants to manage the file, including the General Secretariat of the Council of Ministers, the Ministry of Communications and the Ministry of Interior.
The spokesman – who is a consultant to 12 banks in Iraq to draw governance and digital transformation plans – pointed out that “the process of digital transformation and automation is a program that does not stop but continues to evolve, so we must have that” the process of digital transformation and automation is a program that does not stop but rather It continues to evolve, so we must have a strategy in digital transformation, and plans,” indicating, “We have not yet clearly distributed roles and responsibilities between state institutions on the one hand, and between the relationship of the private sector and civil society organizations on the other hand.”
He continued his speech, saying: “The government is still working with the mentality of unilateral action, and these results are clear. We are living experiences and slogans only, without a clear plan starting from drafting correct drafts of laws and legislation that we need in this field, drawing up policies, plans and a road map, and then forming an independent body that leads the process of digital transformation as in the countries of the world, and we keep it away from quotas, and this talk may be a dream.”
According to the expert, the banking sector is one of the advanced sectors in digitization in Iraq, compared to the health, education, transportation and other sectors, and this is due to the fact that it is governed by the Central Bank to implement international standards and systems.
He pointed out that “the Central Bank issued a complete guide in 2019 called (Governance Guide), and imposed it on banks, and the paradox here is that government banks are lagging behind in terms of applying central bank standards and global systems, while they are the ones that have the largest cash block.”
He noted that “AML systems impose international laws and policies on central banks, and the latter reflect them on the banking sector,” continuing to talk that “the central bank always puts requirements on banks, but some banks hesitated, and unfortunately used political pressure on the central bank to evade Implementation of controls and instructions.
Accountability First
On a related level, the expert in the field of combating corruption, Saeed Yassin, said that Iraq has three files before it, which are money laundering, smuggling and financing of terrorism, and there are procedures and requirements that Iraq must implement in this aspect.
Yassin added, in an interview with him about “The People’s Way,” that “the first of these measures is the issue of automation;
The monetary mass available to the citizen is around 50 trillion dinars, stored outside the banking system, and those concerned should think about how to integrate this money into the economy through a series of procedures. Part of it is by establishing trust through cooperation with international companies, which are recognized and have precedents in this field. On the other hand, control over financial transfers.
Yassin stressed that digitization and electronic transfer are not sufficient, “without accountability of the parties that were evading and practicing the money laundering process, and we will continue to spin in the same vortex, as digitization and automation only determine and through which we know the path of money, and it enhances the citizen’s confidence in the banking system in Iraq, and the great challenge remains to be held accountable these parties.”
He concluded that the government should adopt clear policies developed by financial and monetary experts, in addition to adopting the principle of law policy and enforcing it strictly and fairly without discrimination. LINK
The Minister Of Defense And The US Ambassador Discuss Issues Of Common Interest
Iraq Sunday, March 5, 2023 Baghdad / National News Center Today, Sunday, the Minister of Defense, Thabet Muhammad Saeed Al-Abbasi, met with the US Ambassador to Iraq, Alina Romanowski.
A statement by the ministry, received by the National News Center, stated that “Defense Minister Thabet Muhammad Saeed Al-Abbasi received today, in his office, at the ministry’s headquarters, the US ambassador to Iraq, Alina Romanowski, and her accompanying delegation.”
The statement added, “The two sides discussed, during the meeting, issues of common interest between the two countries.” https://nnciraq.com/190890/
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