By John Lee.
An audit of Iraq's national pension system has identified 16,384 deceased individuals whose retirement payments had not been stopped, alongside widespread data errors and corruption involving pension branch managers in provinces formerly affected by terrorism.
The Federal Commission of Integrity announced it has begun auditing pension files and cross-referencing data held by the National Pension Authority. Working committees have been formed, approved by Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi, comprising representatives from the Federal Commission of Integrity, the Federal Board of Supreme Audit (FBSA), the Martyrs Foundation, the National Pension Authority, and the Ministry of Interior.
The committees will cross-reference National Pension Authority data with records held by private electronic payment companies handling pension salaries, in order to identify amounts paid without entitlement and pursue their recovery.
A report previously prepared by the Federal Commission of Integrity and submitted to the Prime Minister's office, the Ministry of Finance, and the National Pension Authority had recommended the formation of these committees. The report identified approximately 40,000 Qi Card (fingerprint) records issued on the basis of outdated data that had not been updated, despite earlier calls from the Commission to do so, and found instances of duplicate pension numbers assigned to the same individual.
A separate committee, formed under a administrative order based on Commission recommendations, is auditing the names of 102,867 pension recipients from the Martyrs and terrorism victims category in Nineveh province. Cross-referencing of Martyrs Foundation data with pension payment records revealed that retirement salaries had been paid to ineligible recipients, due to the National Pension Authority's failure to request complete beneficiary data from the Martyrs Foundation.
The report also noted deliberate errors in the entry of pensioner data in provinces affected by terrorism, implicating branch and department managers in corruption cases. It further identified around 19,321 suspended records in Anbar province alone, and highlighted failures to establish electronic archiving of pension files or to link a digital platform for Martyrs Foundation pensioners with the National Pension Authority's system.
(Source: Commission of Integrity)
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