A lawsuit has been filed against Kirkuk Governor Rebwar Taha and a company regarding the purchase of 19 luxury cars for the affairs of Kirkuk’s government offices.
The lawsuit, filed by lawyer Hazhar Nuraddin Kakai on April 14, has been sent to the Kirkuk Prosecutor's Office for investigation.
"The 19 expensive vehicles, costing approximately three billion dinars (2 M USD), were illegally purchased for members of the Kirkuk provincial council. There is corruption in terms of vehicle pricing, and the process was conducted contrary to legal procedures," stated Hazhar.
Kakai is one of the lawyers who has constantly monitored the local governments in the previous two terms and filed complaints on corruption issues.
According to Kakai , the contract between Governor Rebwar Taha and the company specified that the vehicles were intended for Kirkuk institutions, not the council members. However, they were distributed among the council members.”
“Two or five vehicles should be for the council, not all the vehicles,” he added.
"There is corruption in terms of prices, with each car being bought at a significantly of about $ 7,000 to $ 10,000 more than the market value, while the purchase of cars must be tendered and bought at a lower price than the market value.”
There is corruption in terms of prices, with each car being bought at a significantly of about $ 7,000 to $ 10,000 more than the market value
According to Provincial Council member Ahmed Kirkuki, the vehicle purchase contracts cost "2 billion and 629 million dinars ($1.8M) for 16 vehicles for all Provincial Council members," with each vehicle costing 164 million dinars (over $100,000).
However, according to Kakai 's complaint, 19 vehicles cost 292 billion dinars, 17 of them Chevrolet Tahoe, with two other vehicles (Toyota Land Cruiser and Lexus), all 19 vehicles manufactured in 2024.
Kirkuk, an oil-rich city with Iraq's second-largest oil reserves, is ethnically a mixed province with 1.7 million Kurds, Sunni and Shiite Arabs, and Turkmen. It has long been at the center of disputes between Baghdad and Erbil. Kirkuki, who is close to Kirkuk Governor Rebwar Taha and both are members of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), said the vehicles were bought from the revenue of Kirkuk customs points.
“It is true that the source of the money is the customs, including the Chiman and Daraman checkpoints, but do not forget that several members of the provincial council and the governor protested in front of the media about these checkpoints,” Kakai said.
One criticism of the Kirkuk administration is that the person who bought the vehicles is Qasim Ibrahim, the assistant of Kirkuk governor and brother of Mohammed Ibrahim, the speaker of the provincial council.
Despite efforts to obtain information from the Kirkuk provincial office, they have been unwilling to address the issue.
"We will continue to fight corruption in this case and in other cases through legal procedures and through the Corruption Commission," Kakai said.
He claimed that he was not allowed to enter the Kirkuk governor's office during the tenure of former governor Rakan Saeed al-Jiburi who sued him.
The Kirkuk Provincial Council, which previously consisted of 41 members, granted each member a private vehicle before the dissolution of provincial councils in 2019.
Kakai stressed that the council has the authority to oversee and must be informed about the vehicle purchases, prices, and budget sources. He noted that the petrodollar budget is meant for service projects, not vehicle purchases.
The Kirkuk provincial council consists of 16 seats; The Kurds have seven seats (five for the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan PUK and two from the Kurdistan Democratic Party KDP), six for the Arabs (three for the Arab coalition, two for the leadership, and one for the Ouruba), two seats for the Turkmen, and one last seat for the Christians.
