Al-Karbalai called for “fair and transparent investigations into the real reasons behind the frequent fires in Iraq’s ministries. These fires have raised much doubt in many minds,” al-Karbalai said. “And there are question marks over the damage being done to thousands of documents that are of importance to Iraqi citizens.”
It is also interesting to note that the rash of fires seems to have started in 2008, then increased in frequency in 2009, the year that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki declared a national campaign against corruption.
The blazes often break out at night after working hours. Maintenance staff can’t be blamed as the fires usually start after their working hours. And the fires are mostly only discovered by security staff far later in the evening or in the early hours of the morning. Traffic and road closures in the capital mean that fire service vehicles usually get there until it is too late.
Most recently the conflagrations reached Iraq’s security ministries. On June 30, a fire broke out in the Interior Ministry. According to a ministry employee working on the same floor, the blaze began in the office of Deputy Interior Minister Ayden Khalid Qader and damaged all the prisoners’ records.
On July 4, another blaze started in the certificates office of the Ministry of Higher Education. In March 2011, the CoI announced that it believed there were over 20,000 people currently employed by the state who had got their jobs with forged educational qualifications. Additionally, the CoI reported, they thought the forgeries are not just confined to junior staff but are also used by high ranking government members.
A senior Education Ministry staff member told NIQASH that the fire had damaged the section responsible for checking these kinds of certificates. “That includes certificates belonging to officials under investigation because of requests from the Integrity Commission,” the employee said. "The fire will delay these investigations for at least a whole year in some cases.”
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