Iraqi PM says corruption is structural, warns against retreating from fight

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Prime Minister Mohammed Shia' al-Sudani said corruption has become a structural and entrenched system in Iraq, telling a meeting of the Federal Financial Supervision Office that abandoning the fight against it would be "a disgrace." Speaking in remarks posted on the prime minister's social media account, al-Sudani said contracts in the country are routinely inflated beyond 400 percent of their real costs, forming the backbone of corrupt practices. He said officials often act in collusion, leaving contracts effectively unmonitored on paper. The prime minister said defects in schools, hospitals and roads ultimately translate into public debt two decades later, and described the state's oversight mechanisms as a thin barrier that has slowed, but not prevented, institutional collapse. When a participant at the meeting apologized for interrupting a Saturday holiday, al-Sudani responded that what was truly being cut into was the state's "illusion of comfort." He added that corruption has spread across Iraqi institutions over more than 20 years.