Anbar residents feel forced to pay bribes

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (Kurdistan 24) – Residents of Anbar province are frustrated by the routines and delays in the governmental agencies and offices.

The Directorate of Martyrs and Wounded suspended about 4,000 people’s paperwork for more than a year, justifying by the security audits are incomplete.

People from Anbar expressed their concerns about the phenomena of the administrative and financial corruption in the offices and governmental organizations.

Some of these, seek deals to handle people's affairs, while the hard financial circumstance that people go through, are on limited income and poor.

“Unfortunately, Anbar has become one of the most corrupted provinces, but the Commission of Integrity played a positive role fighting corruption in offices such as the Pension office also Martyrs and Wounded agencies, or establishments plagued by corruption” said an activist, Saif Khanfar.

Annoyed by such action, Saif believed corruption became a bridge between the political officials and directors of Anbar offices. Corruption is rampant here but it’s ignored.

Observers said corruption in Anbar governmental offices increased significantly since 2018; I.e. Anbar ranks the first place in Iraq in corruption.

“We are living in a number of crises, one of them is corruption” said the political observer Sabah Tai “we appreciate the efforts from the Commission of Integrity to fight corruption, whether in projects or agencies and offices”

The member of Offices and Establishments Monitoring Omar Dlemi said “there is no doubt that we are against the corruption and taken bribery in the government offices. Today, Anbar has become corrupted to the point that people feel happy if they visit an office and get their work done without bribes”

Meanwhile, eliminating corruption step is on by the Commission of Integrity to expose the corruption, with investigating, dozens of offices and directorates’ managers got imprisoned with theft and waste of public funds charges.