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Baghdad – The reasons given by Iraqi Health Minister Alaa Alwan to justify his resignation from Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi's government highlighted some of the chronic problems facing the Iraqi state and its institutions. , in particular the impact of political parties on the performance of these institutions.
On Sunday morning, Alwan posted a long letter to the Prime Minister on Facebook, including his request to approve his resignation.
Explaining the reasons for this resignation, the Minister stated that "it is unfortunate that we are exposed to a wide range of obstacles and unacceptable attempts to blackmail, repress and distort the facts that hinder the Ministry's work ".
Although Alwan did not explicitly mention in his letter that made him sing, observers understood that he was talking about the deputies of the big parties who were using their leaders in parliament to lobby the ministries in order to prevent them. obtain contracts for the supply of medical equipment and construction contracts worth several million dollars, as well as public jobs that belong to them. Their parents and their supporters.
Alwan received a hefty legacy from former health minister Adila Hammoud, nominated by the Islamic Dawa party, which sparked disasters in the health sector under the previous government led by Haider al-Abadi.
The outgoing minister blocked parties competing for his department's contracts and was waiting for him to overthrow him from a parliamentary interrogation.
The shock was not too late for Alwan. After taking office, the former minister spent about half a billion dollars on the construction of three hospitals in Baghdad, demonstrating that the land allocated to these projects had been taken over by converts and turned into irregular parking lots. or in informal housing.
When Alwan himself decided to visit the sites of the three hospitals, he discovered that it was illusory projects and went directly to the Prime Minister.
Thanks to the financial allocations allocated each year from the Ministry's general budget, the health sector offers great potential for profit that the parties can exploit.
All you have to do is send a request to the minister to have that particular company, which is simply a pretext for a big party, get a contract for the preparation of a contract, the value of which is generally important, and that the minister does not approve or is questioned in Parliament in anticipation of his dismissal.
It appears that the Minister of Health has decided to follow the shortest route, after being besieged by crushing contracts with the mafias of the government, preferring to withdraw from the scene, to be expelled by the game of 39, which had already been successfully represented by the Parliament with Khalid al-Obeidi and Hoshyar Zebari, Defense Ministers and Finance Abadi era.
Informed sources say that over the last three months, the health minister has been under intense pressure to contract out construction contracts for hospitals and other equipment with the help of the government. modern medical equipment to companies owned by political parties. Fearing that he would come back, he resigned.
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