Zaher Khatouni, a member of the Iraqi National Forces Alliance, spoke to Alforat News on Feb. 13 about the need “to select the new ministers on the basis of professionalism,” stressing that the issue of appointment by proxy should be settled.
In a Feb. 28 statement, Kamel al-Zaidi, a member of the State of Law Coalition, said, “[We] will force the Iraqi parliament to urge the Cabinet to settle the issue of acting officials and replace them with qualified individuals.” He explained, “The problem of appointment by proxy arose as a result of the rivalry between political parties contesting these posts.”
In one example of the issue, according to the Iraqi Commission of Integrity, 3,200 director general positions have been filled by acting appointments and without regard to the law limiting their tenure to one year.
Mohsen Saadoun, a member of the parliamentary legal committee and the Kurdistan Alliance, told Al-Monitor:
“The delay in resolving the problem is due to the inactivation of the parliamentary committee [to achieve national] balance, tasked with settling the issue of acting officials since 2005. But in February, the committee was able to hold several meetings, and it expects to find a final solution for the problem during March, to end the assignment of government employees by proxy by agreeing on allocating the higher ranks among the parliamentary parties that represent the Iraqi people and vote for them in parliament.”
Comments are closed.