New directives from Prime Minister to boost anti-corruption and internal audit work

Shafaq News/ The Iraqi Prime Minister, Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani, issued three new directives on Sunday to enhance the anti-corruption efforts and the internal audit work in the government institutions, as part of the government's strategy to fight and prevent corruption. His media office stated that the directives aim to address the threats that corruption poses to the government institutions and the public services that the citizens receive, and to improve the internal audit work in the government institutions and integrate its role with the role of the Federal Board of Supreme Audit, the Federal Commission of Integrity, and the law enforcement agencies. The first directive is to improve the internal audit procedures and extend its work scope by increasing the administrative level of the audit and internal audit formations in all government institutions, and assigning effective tasks for them to conduct audit of all kinds, on the spending of funds to achieve preventive audit procedures, and to avoid the squandering or losing of public funds and preserve them and uncover corruption and hold the corrupt accountable and take legal measures against them and offer legal protection for the workers in that field and encourage them to persist in their role with efficiency, effectiveness and stability. The second directive is to distribute the internal audit guide prepared by the Federal Financial Control Bureau to all government entities; to provide audit guidelines for the administrative units that help in increasing their ability to achieve their objectives and tasks and prevent corruption. The third directive is to draft a law for the Federal Internal Audit Authority based on the provisions of Article (108) of the Constitution of the Republic of Iraq for the year 2005, to strengthen the internal audit in all government institutions and regulate the procedures of preventive audit before and after and increase the levels of responsibility, integrity and transparency; to safeguard the public funds and all government institutions. The Prime Minister stressed the importance of implementing these directives as soon as possible, and urged the relevant authorities to cooperate and coordinate with each other to achieve the desired goals and outcomes. He also affirmed his commitment to support and follow up the internal audit work and the anti-corruption efforts, and to ensure the accountability and transparency of the government performance.