Committee' recent meetings - 20 July 2020

A summary of Kurdistan Parliament’s committees’ recent meetings and activities:

Committee on Peshmerga Affairs and Committee on Kurdistani Areas outside KRG Administrative Area

19 July – The two committees held a joint meeting, led by the chairs Jiwan Rojbayani (KDP) and Reving Heruri (KDP).

The committees discussed the grave situation in the Kurdistani areas outside the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) administrative area, the policy of Arabization and displacing the people from those areas, the dangers to the public from militia groups and ISIS terrorists, and the coordination between the Peshmerga forces and Iraqi forces to fight ISIS.

The MPs decided to submit a joint report, with data, statistics and requests, to the Presidency of the Parliament so that the issues can be included in the order of business of a future parliament sitting.

Integrity Committee

19 July - The committee, led by the chair Shirin Amin (Gorran), welcomed the head of the Kurdistan Region Integrity Board (Integrity Commission), Dr. Ahmad Anwar.

They discussed the Integrity Board’s annual report, in particular the 2019 report. Committee members gave their opinions and suggestions for the report.

The meeting also focused on the expenditure of $5 million dollars allocated to Erbil when it was selected as the tourism capital of 2014 by the Arab Council of Tourism. There were questions and ambiguities about the case, but the case file was closed by the Integrity Board. The committee asked why the case was closed, and the committee decided to present its decisions and demands on the case at their next meeting. The Integrity Board said that it was ready to disclose the details to the Committee.

Several other cases of corruption and waste of public funds and the reform process were discussed. The committee and Dr. Ahmad Anwar agreed that all should work together to eradicate corruption in Kurdistan.