Why Iraq is still on the list of the most corrupt countries in the World.

A brief look atthe corruption plaguing the Iraqi Telecommunications & Post Company (ITPC) of the Ministry of Communications (MoC)

On March 14 2011an articlesupposedly written by an anonymous telecom expert was published severely criticizing Minister Mohamad Allawi for being inexperienced and stating that “ he should have consulted with the specialized technical and legal departments” of the ministry of communications without any mention of what the suggested consultation would actually regard. In addition, the “anonymous telecom expert” lavished praise on the general managers for their “ideal work and accomplishments over the past two years” at the MoC [1].

Iraq5050 decided to investigate the article and its contents in order to shed some light on the Minister of Communications and the legal and technical general managers at the MoC (obviously he was referring to Mr. Imad Muhsen and Mr. Kassim Al Hassani), since they are the focus of the article. These are our initial findings:

Iraq has been on the list of the top ten most corrupt countries in the world since 2003. In 2010 Iraqwas listed as the fourth most corrupt country in the world, following Somalia, Burma and Afghanistan [2] (See Corruption Perception Index (CPI) in the figure below. [3])

We believe that widespread corruption is now taking an even deeper hold in Iraq; it has been described by some [4, 5] as“Mafia Corruption” harkening back to the era of organized crime. This coordinated corruption at the Ministry of communications appears to facilitate the sharing of ill-gotten gains, rewarding a lack of integrity [4, 5, 6, 7]. The individuals most deeply involved in this are bold enough to challenge honest people, twist facts, and attempt to smear the reputation of decent and transparent officials who happen to be patriotic and willing to fight against corruption for the sake of the Iraqi people.

While we are an investigative agency, we have access to telecom experts in Iraq to analyze the article [1] and the allegations of the so called “anonymous telecom expert”. We attempted to discern what his identity is, or if he is indeed a real person. While the investigation is still in progress this is what we found so far:

The anonymous expert praised two people, the first being Mr. Kassim AlHassani, General Manager of the ITPC of the Ministry of Communications. He has been accused with several allegations some of which are corruption, wasting MoCresources, signing contracts without advertising, using his brother to obtain contracts, waving lawsuits filed against certain companies, rewarding contracts to the same companies that the aforementioned lawsuits were filed against, pressuring ministry staff to demonstrate against the minister of communications who apparently restricted his authority to limit corruption, etc. [4, 5, 6, 7]. The second general manger who was praised by the anonymous telecom expert is Mr. Imad Muhsen, of the legal department at the ministry. Regardless of what illegitimate actions Mr. Kassim AlHassani takes, someone has to approve them legally for them to take effect, and that person is Mr. Imad Muhsen. He also stands accused of various charges of corruption. We were told by some ministry staff who we interviewed that Mr. Muhsen will process whatever Mr. Kassim AlHassini desires.

The investigation suggests there have been extensive suspicious activities over the last two to three years at the ministry of communications, including:

1.    Dropping a lawsuit against AlMazaya, a UAE based company who illegally deployed fiber optic cable in Iraq for the US Army. The minister in 2007 filed a lawsuit against this company the lawsuit was mysteriously dropped two years ago.

2.     Remarkably, the same company was awarded new contracts with the ITPC when the lawsuit was dropped. The champions of these two deals are the technical and legal general managers who were praised by the “Anonymous telecom expert” [1].

3.       Flag Telecom, an internationally known submarine cable who been in existence since 1995.   Under the leadership of Mr. Kassim AlHassani, Flag was intentionally delayed to connect to Al Fao landing site in Iraq in order to reduce the cost of internet services to Iraq. The cost of one Meg of satellite internet is $3,500, while the cost to Al Fao internet services with a much faster and reliable connectivity is about $300 per Meg with Flag. The investigation suggests the reason Flag was delayed by these agents of corruption was to give time to a small submarinecompany trying to compete with Flag. The small company is GBi, out of Qatar, and has Iraqi representatives who were facing lawsuits by the ministry of Communications on charges ofcorruption and attempting to steal Iraq fiber optic submarine cables. GBi is expected to complete its submarine fiber optic lines to Iraq in about a year and the legal and technical managers have been leading the way to delay Flag’s work at a huge cost to Iraq and its people.

4.       Several contracts were signed and rewarded to companieswithout tenders. For example a LAN contract valued close to one million US dollars was rewarded without any one know about it other than a few officials, two of whom are the technical and legal general managers praised by the anonymous telecom expert in Iraq.

5.       The investigation shows that the ITPC was unable to operate several multi million dollars equipment that was already purchased. This equipment is either out of warranty or simply still in boxes unopened yet without any benefit to the Iraqi people.

6.       The investigation suggests that Mr. Kassim AlHassani publicly and boldly lobbied for AlMazaya to obtain more business with the ministry of communications, while AlMazaya was engaged in illegal activities in Iraq.

7.       The investigation suggests that several employees at the ministry of communications complained about the general impression that AlMazya is now buying everyone at the ITPC. Companies that do not engage in bribery are publicly criticized for not being as generous with bribery as AlMazaya. As a result, work of some companies at the ministry of communications is being delayed or neglected, or at the minimum frustrating any business for companies who do not partake in bribery, using any and all means to delay them.

8.       With the full knowledge and encouragement of the legal and technical general managers, Al Mazaya has paid airline tickets, hotels and given generous gifts to ITPC’s officials outside of Iraq.

9.       Several high level officials expressed concerns about the corruption level AlMazya is engaged in with ITPC officials and are concerned more contracts and privileges will be extended without public knowledge.

10.   While the investigation is still underway, Iraq5050believes that both the legal and technical general managers Mr. Imad Muhsen and Mr. Kassim AlHassani have displayedunprecedented signs of financial prosperity that areinconsistent with their ministry salaries.

11.   Mr. Kassim AlHassani is known to be rarely attending his post at the ITPC and most of his time is spent in London and other countries. His nick name at the ministry of communications is “Kassim Efad” which means Traveler Kassim.

12.   Mr. Kassim Al Hassani is known to have granted lucrative contracts to companies with business ties to him using an old trick in which granting such contracts to UAE based companies owned by European companies in order to hide the UAE actual shareholders.

In summary, the investigation data suggeststhe “MoC Mafia” consists of foreign companies with Iraqi representatives in cooperation with high ranking MoC officials motivated by greed, and a lust for power. This group has waved lawsuits filed by the former MoC administration against companies engaged in theft from the Iraqi people and signed new contracts with them at the expense of Iraq. Without any cause given or notification the lawsuitswere dropped and new contracts were signed with AlMazaya under the leadership of Mr. Kasim AlHassani, who publicly lobbied on their behalf and at the ministry of communications.   ITPC has also pioneered the delay of Flag submarine fiber optic cable in favor of GBi Fiber Optic cable, as they possess close ties to Mr. Kassim. Their goal is to give a chance to GBi to extend its cable before Flag to Iraq at the expense of depriving Iraq from fast, reliable and cheap broadband internet in order to make a personal gain.Mr. Kassim also championed the signing of high valued contracts such as the LAN contracts and others at the ITPC without advertising them or even notifying anyone about them.

For the sake of Iraq it is essential to expose the lies and deception which were used by the so called “Anonymous Telecom Expert” in order to intimidate anyone standing in the way of these individuals and their associates. The article [1]states that an anonymous telecom expert says “M. Allawei has no telecom experience, and wastes Iraqi resources” andthat the legal and technical managers mangers (obviously referring to Mr. Kassim AlHassani and Mr. Imad Muhsen) “have done an ideal jobto build the telecom infrastructure in Iraq over the past two years at the ministry of communications [1].” It is true Minister Mohammad Allawei is not a telecom engineer; however, it is also true that the former telecom Minister Mr. Abdurrahman [8] has no telecom experience and neither does the General Manager Mr. Kassim [10] whom the anonymous telecom expert brags about. Experience in a field is not a must to succeed as it is evidenced by the successes we find in Europe and North America.We all know President Ronald Regan was an actor, andyet he is considered by many Americans as one of the greatest and most beloved presidents in US history.Prime Minister Mr. Nouri AlMaliki was living and operating from a basement in Syria fighting the previous regime and yet he became Iraq’s prime minister in a democratic manner.

The investigation data suggests we have a successful business man who built a multimillion dollar business by building “telecom fiber optic cable” years before he returned to Iraq in 2003 [9], served as a minister of telecom in the former Iraqi government and is serving as a telecom minister in this government, served in the telecom committee of the Iraq parliament for several yearsend enjoys high level of respect among both his peers and opponents alike for his high level of ethics and integrity. From a humanitarian point of view, Minister Mr. Mohammad Allawei has also been a member of two internationally known humanitarian agencies to help Muslims in Kosovo and Bosnia [8].   If Iraq has two options,one is to select ademocraticallyelected official with such impressive humanitarian and business successes, with credentials to run the ministry of communications, or, have a corrupt Ph.D. telecom expert with no business sense or ethics.It is important to mention that Minister Allawei’s first term in 2006 cancelled many questionable contracts signed during the tenure of his predecessor minister Juan Masum who was investigated by the AlNazha Agency for signing many questionable contracts that were unfair to Iraq. Minister Mohammad Allawei then invalidated these corrupt contracts and was faced with many powerful enemies who happen to be part of this new “MoC Mafia” at the ITPC today.   It is Iraq5050’s belief that the anonymous expert does not exist and it is the work of these nefarious individuals.

The table below shows the experience of the existing telecom minister and the former telecom minister.

The unidentified expert states that the last two years the ITPC experience a jump to another level in its infrastructure. The anonymous telecom expert is correct there was indeed a jump; however, we disagree with him on the type of jump that took place at the ministry of communications. Iraq5050 believes the ITPC experienced a jump over the past two years to a new level of corruptions and bribery at the expense of Iraq and its people. This jump is led by Mr. Kassim AlHassani and his Mafia at the ministry of communications.    One can quickly discern the motives of the anonymous expert when present with the reality of the situation.

REFERENCES:

[1] http://www.ipairaq.com/index.php?name=inner&t=economy&id=36332

[2] http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2010/oct/26/corruption-index-2010-transparency-international

[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_Perceptions_Index

[4] http://www.aklamkom.com/vb/showthread.php?t=1691

[5] http://alsadear.blogspot.com/2009/10/blog-post_4640.html?zx=96706abf7fd4fd3d

[6] http://www.shiaee.com/vb/showthread.php?p=808651

[7] http://www.aliraqnews.com/new/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=24333:2011-02-13-08-24-37&catid=13:politics&Itemid=26

[8] http://www.iraqtelecoms.com/

[9] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammed_Tawfiq_Allawi