2026-08-21T08:29:28+00:00

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Shafaq News- Baghdad

Iraq’s Federal Integrity Commission
launched an audit of pension records after cross-checks identified 16,384
deceased beneficiaries whose payments had not been stopped and uncovered “deliberate
irregularities” involving managers of some Pension Board departments in
provinces affected by terrorist attacks, the commission announced on Friday.

The review will be conducted by
joint committees headed by the Integrity Commission and comprising
representatives from the Federal Board of Supreme Audit, Martyrs Foundation, Pension
Board, and Interior Ministry, following approval by Prime Minister Ali
Al-Zaidi.

Their work will include matching
corrected Pension Authority records against information held by electronic
payment companies handling pension disbursements to determine sums collected
without entitlement and pursue their recovery through legal procedures.

The move follows an Integrity
Commission report recommending a comprehensive review of pension files, closer
verification of beneficiary records, and an electronic link between the Martyrs
Foundation and the Pension Board.

Among the irregularities, the report
found about 40,000 biometric Qi Cards had been issued on the basis of outdated
information that remained unchanged in the Pension Board’s system, despite the
commission calling several months ago for pensioners’ details to be updated and
duplicate pension numbers eliminated.

The Interior Ministry also provided
information on a large number of citizens whose Pension Board records were
incomplete. The report documented what it described as deliberate errors in
some pensioners’ information entered by the board’s branches and departments,
noting that managers of some departments had been implicated in corruption
cases, particularly in provinces that experienced terrorist attacks.

The commission called for the
affected records to be corrected in coordination with authorities to prevent
payments to people not legally entitled to pensions.

In Nineveh, a committee formed under
a cabinet order is reviewing 102,867 names registered as martyrs or people
injured in terrorist attacks. Cross-checks with Martyrs Foundation records
uncovered payments to ineligible recipients because the Pension Board had not
obtained their beneficiary details from the foundation.

This is a developing story…