Rakan Al Jabouri, acting Kirkuk governor, says that becoming the Kirkuk governor has prevented him from fulfilling his duty as an Iraqi Parliament Member, but at the same time, the governorship of Kirkuk has granted him the honor of serving the city.
In an interview with KirkukNow, Al Jabouri spoke about Kirkuk administration which he has run since late 2017.
Al Jabouri claims that directly meeting people was his willingness and he took that step for a year. After a period of suspension, he again meets people because he says: it was successful and is a good way to have cooperations and relations with people.
He stated that Kirkuk governorship has given him exhaustion and office time as well as the honor to serve the city and the chance to plan and implement projects for all the neighborhoods.
“This position has deprived me of being an MP,” he said.
Even though Al Jabouri secured enough votes in May 2018 federal elections, he did not take oath and stayed in Kirkuk.
He spoke to KirkukNow in Kirkuk’s provincial council’s hall which has been used for his meetings with the people of the city every Wednesday. Except for Wednesday, he has devoted his other weekly days to meet security committee and governmental directorates, and visits the project and observes their implementations.
He mentioned that last month, he spent most of his time in Baghdad, visiting the ministries to demand projects and secure funds for them.
With the deployment of Iraqi security forces to disputed areas including Kirkuk on October 16, 2017, Rakan Al Jabouri was appointed as the acting governor of Kirkuk by Haider Al Abadi, former prime minister after sacking Najmaldin Karim, former governor.
Among the most important projects implemented under his administration is the Kirkuk International Airport, which had been used as a military airport. Other significant projects are Nasir hospital, new roads and renovations of destroyed bridges.
He promised to protect peaceful coexistence and stability, and to deliver projects to all neighborhoods.
On security situations, he did not hide it that the situation is not at the level of their demands due to ISIS sleep cells that harm the security forces.
He emphasized on the continuation of combating extremism. According to him, ISIS no longer poses a threat and is ineffective, but they seriously monitor the ISIS sleep cells and asked Baghdad for additional security deployment to the city.
