Uloom told the newspaper democracy will not be established in Iraq in the absence of a serious attempt to eradicate graft.
He said 10% of the money the government spends on oil imports goes to corruption.
Iraq currently imports fuel products worth more than $500 million a month.
Attacks on oil installations are said to have almost halved refinery output forcing the country to rely on imports from neighboring countries.
Thousands of fuel tankers enter Iraq from Turkey, Iran, Kuwait and Jordan for distribution to the provinces.
Asked whether corruption had spread to SOMO, Iraq’s crude oil export arm, Uloom said: “I expect corruption to have found its way to SOMO which also supervises fuel imports but is still on a limited scale.”
He said corruption was rife in the Ministry of Oil whose contracts and financial dealings lacked transparency.
Uloom said the current climate of violence and the upsurge in attacks on oil installations were a contributing factor.
He said foreign firms were not willing to work in Iraq and the ministry’s attempts to have a foreign contractor install oil export meters have not yet borne fruit.(Source)Azzaman
