Shafaq News- Al-Diwaniyah
Iraq's Electricity Minister Ali Saadi has dismissed the headof the Al-Diwaniyah Electricity Distribution Branch, Muslim Khudair Bari,replacing him with Salam Aref Karim, previously head of the branch's subscriberaffairs department, according to an official ministry order.
The change is the latest in a wave of personnel decisionsreshaping the electricity sector following the arrest of Alaa Samir Rashedal-Jubouri, director general of the Central Electricity Distribution Company,on corruption charges. Al-Jubouri, also a senior figure in the Taqadum party,was detained by the Federal Commission of Integrity on Saturday over allegedcorruption and misuse of public funds; an anti-corruption court subsequentlyordered all his movable and immovable assets frozen.
On the same day as al-Jubouri's detention, Minister Saadimoved to remove two of his deputies. Alaa Abdel-Hussein Abd Imran was relievedon the grounds that his professional classification as a petroleum engineer wasincompatible with the administrative post he held, with Haider Mohammed Jawadnamed as his replacement. Tariq Ibrahim Khalil, deputy director general fordistribution affairs, was also removed; Ahmed Khalaf Abdullah was assigned inhis place.
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Earlier in the week, the ministry dismissed the head of theAl-Karkh electricity sector alongside three officials in Abu Ghraib, while theFinance Ministry terminated the contracts of two employees and transferred anadditional 70 Baghdad staff for negligence. On June 2, the Integrity Commissiondetained four senior electricity officials over an alleged 1.744 billion-dinar($1.33 million) scheme involving stolen electrical equipment in Diyalaprovince.
A government source told Shafaq News that further changes atthe Central Electricity Distribution Company are expected within hours or days.
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