Iraq Committee still digging for missing $17b fund

[Stillw8n]

Iraq Committee still digging for missing $17b fund

Baghdad, Oct. 29 (AKnews) –Investigation for the expenditures bills of the US$17 billion of the Development Fund for Iraq is still underway, the legal advisor for Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said today.

U.S. officials pointed out in June that an amount of the fund, $6.6 billion, has gone missing while Iraqis say the sum stands at $17 billion.

Fadhil Mohammed Jawad, Maliki’s advisor, told AKnews that the sub-committee which was recently formed from representatives of the Financial Audit Office, the General Secretariat of the Council of Ministers, the Ministry of Finance, in addition to the American representaive , is still investigating the fate of the 17 billion dollar.

He expressed his surprise over the comments of some U.S. officials who said the missing amount was remitted into the the Central Bank of Iraq (CBI), noting that the sub-committee holds meetings at the presence of an American inspector general in order to find out the fate of the money.

On May 11 the Integrity Committee in the Iraqi parliament sent the Office of the United Nations in Iraq a letter whereby it accused the UN agenices of ‘corruption and embezzlement’ with regards to the missing fund allocated during 2003-2004 under a resultion by the UN Security Council.

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