Posted By Justin Bresolin
In what seems to be a theme for certain countries, the Trade Minister of Iraq, Abdul Falah al-Sudani, has resigned today under accusations of corruption. While not explicitly charged with any crime, he is currently under investigation and the head of Parliament is hoping to have an arrest warrent issued for Sudani by the end of the week. Sudani's duties as trade minister include oversight of the countries imports and rationing to the citizenry, and issues of insufficient amounts of food rations, many long past expiration dates, being distributed to the citizenry have prompted suspicion into the former Minister Sudani's activities. Sudani denies the allegations of corruption, claiming them to be the product of disgruntled ex-employees in the Ministry. Sudani is considered to be one of the first politicians to fall victim to the recent rise in Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki's campaign efforts to stamp out corruption within the Iraqi government, a response to discontent regarding his past efforts at addressing this problem. Though he hasn't given any details, Maliki announced that he would be planning "to make extensive changes to his cabinet."
While it is good to see efforts toward addressing the concerns and issues of the people in a still unstable country, it remains to be seen how effectively such an anti-corruption campaign will be pursued. It sounds like corruption is rife enough that the near-entirity of Iraq's cabinet (and subsequently many individuals below that level) will have to be altered, and such dramatic change can bring problems of its own.
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