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Kurds focus on corruption in Kurdistan administration Thursday, January 12, 2006
KurdishMedia.comLondon (KurdishMedia.com) 12 January 2006: The Kurdish advocates have focused their recent activities on revealing corruption in the Kurdish administrations of PUK and KDP. A number of nongovernmental organisations were established to deal with corruption and some of the Kurdish websites have dedicated files on their websites for corruption. No newspaper or a periodical can escape without at least an article on corruption. "The committee for monitoring corruption in Kurdistan" which was established in Arbil is just an example of these organisations.
Corruption has become an umbrella concept that encapsulates other concepts such as abuse of power, nepotism, bribery, abuse of public properties and funds and the list just goes on.By reading the "Corruption file" on one of the Kurdish websites, dengekan.com, which is run by Kurds in diaspora, one can get a good feel for the depth of corruption in Kurdistan. Some examples of the headings are given here:
- The documents speak for themselves: several official Kurdish administration documents show how public funds are misused
- The corruption of the Kurdish authorities between planning and random actions
- The anger of people of Kurdistan [due to corruption]: where is it heading?
- The rise of civil movements against corruption in Kurdistan
- The [Kurdish] administration is the only source of corruption and the solution is changing it
- The fear of the corruption of the Kurdish administration disturbed people
- Which part of this land is not corrupt
- Corruption is terror
- A protest [against corruption] in Kurdistan is on its way
- Resisting corruption in Kurdistan
- Being the heroes and the thievesPeople of Sulemani, who are known for their sense of humour, have found some humorous sides of corruption. A long poem entitled "My City Sulemani" which has no name on and was distributed over the internet and thousands of hard copies must have been distributed in Kurdistan and amongst Kurdish diaspora community. The poem reveals how Sulemani was the centre of honesty before and how it is all changed now. Then it names some high ranking Kurdish political figures and links them to known corruptions to the public. The poem shows how the high ranking people in the Kurdish administration abused public properties and public funds. It also gives examples of how the politicians have transferred public funds to their relatives.
The corruption has reached to a stage that even the high ranking members of the Kurdish authorities and political parties address it publicly. On 9th September 2005, the PUK administration held a conference to address corruption of Kurdish administration. How successful were they? Addressing corruption is not the question. The question is: how can it be eliminated?