A Kirkuk Court has issued an arrest warrant for acting governor of Kirkuk, Rakan Saeed al-Jiburi on charges of corruption.According to a KirkukNow source, al-Jiburi has been accused by an Iraqi MP of wasting 950 million Iraqi dinars in public funds allocated for reconstruction in areas retaken from the Islamic State (IS) control.

The case was moved in February 2019 by a representative of Kirkuk in the Iraqi parliament on the PUK list, who filed a lawsuit with the office of the attorney general in Kirkuk against the acting governor. 

"Dilan Ghafoor, an Iraqi MP from the PUK faction, took the case to Kirkuk investigation court last February and filed a lawsuit with the attorney general. The court then sent the case to Baghdad for approval," the source told KirkukNow."After the case was returned from Baghdad, the Kirkuk court issued an arrest warrant for Rakan Saeed al-Jiburi last week, however, al-Jiburi had left Kirkuk towards Baghdad and has not returned yet," the source added.
The source who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that the lawsuit filed by Dilan Ghafoor against the acting governor is related to “the wasting of millions of Iraqi dinars in public funds."  According to the source a great part of the funds which were allocated for reconstruction projects in areas retaken from IS has been spent on the acting governor’s own guest house.

Copies of receipts were recently published in social media sites which indicated that various sums of money ranging between 2 to 5 million Iraqi dinars were spent on meals at the governor’s guest house.

However KirkukNow was unable to verify the authenticity of the documents. Meanwhile, none of the sources who spoke to KirkukNow could provide a copy of the arrest warrant issued for  al-Jiburi.

Dilan Ghafoor refused to elaborate on the case saying, “I am awaiting the decision of the court.”While many Kirkuk provincial council members denied having information about the case, Azad Jabari, a council member on the PUK list told KirkukNow that what the court issued “was not an arrest warrant but a summons letter regarding the case.” 

KirkukNow could not reach the acting governor for a statement on the case as his office did not respond to the calls.Rakan al-Jiburi was in Baghdad on Sunday June 16 to attend a meeting for the supreme coordination committee among the provinces, chaired by Iraqi PM Adil Abdul-Mahdi.