Along with a number of Sunni lawmakers, Alwani formed a team headed by Speaker of Parliament Osama al-Nujaifi. Alwani said that he is trying to prevent attempts by Maliki’s government to dominate the Iraqi Central Bank, which is an independent body tasked with managing the country’s monetary policy.
The dispute between that group and the government reached its most intense period when in October 2012 a warrant was issued against former Central Bank chief Sinan Shabibi, charging him with corruption. In October 2012, the Iraqi cabinet appointed the head of the Board of Supreme Audit (BSA) Abdul Basit Turki to be the acting Central Bank governor.
The BSA is the highest fiscal regulatory authority in Iraq and an independent body that the constitution says should be controlled by the parliament.
Alwani said that “the parliament decided to scrutinize the work of the Central Bank after suspicions were raised about the [bank’s operations] under Shabibi’s leadership, specifically when economic sanctions were tightened on Syria and Iran. At the time, a number of private Iraqi banks started buying hard currency from Central Bank auctions and smuggled the money into those two countries. So we formed a committee consisting of the chairman of the parliament finance committee, Haider al-Abadi, the BSA head Abdul Basit Turki and me. That was done in coordination with the parliament deputy speaker, Qusay al-Suhail.”
Alwani said that the committee studied the allegations of corruption that have been raised about the Central Bank and its administration, and that the committee identified some violations and irregularities.
“We prepared a detailed report free of sectarian, political or personal interests and sent it to the Independent Public Integrity Commission,” he said.
Alwani said that “Shabibi was not involved in the violations detected by our committee, but there was negligence in pursuing fraudulent documents that were used to withdraw millions of dollars from bank auctions via private banks. Some banks were buying from bank auctions amounts that exceeded their capital, which is a clear violation that the Public Integrity Commission should investigate.”
The problems with Abdel Basit Turki al-Sae'ed are
1) there is a conflict of interest as he also happens to be the Head of the Bureau of Supreme Audit (BSA). You cannot audit the CBI and be the Head of the CBI. But because the PM office wants to control the CBI, Turki was the best man to select.
2) he mis-managed the daily currency auction, creating a shortage of dollars in the market. The Dinar has gone down, it is trading at IQD1255=1USD when it used to be at IQD1196=1USD before Turki took over. It proves that Turki has no experience in monetary policy and/or currency stabilization.
3) he led an questionable audit in September 2012 of the central bank currency auctions convincing him that $800 million is "transferred illegally under false pretenses" outside of the country every week. Strange enough, since he took over the demand for dollars in the daily auction is still $800 million a week and his AML unit has not reported one single suspicious case until now.
The CBI has lost its independence unfortunately since Abdel Basit Turki took over, simply because he does not have the required background & knowledge and he is a "Yes " man to the PM office. Remember he is the "Acting" governor, i.e. he is acting like a governor of central bank but he is not one, and that suits the PM office really well.
Totally agree.
I think it is time to forget this RV thing altogether.
All the ingredients are there, the PM office controls the CBI as per political agendas, a new CBI puppet head, and an excess demand for foreign hard currency on the iraqi street.
I agree that it is frustrating waitng the for the "RV" to happen. Think of this, no country wants to rely on another contrie's currency. They would be foolish to do that. They want to control thier own destiny. It will happen, just wait. Unless you are in it for 100k or more, just ride it out.