READER COMMENTS

God will guide those who work for his sake without having any personal interests, as is the case with the giant water project in Al-Risafah, which is run by Mr. Isaam Al-Asadi and even the French ambassador. Theft is now legal, because all parties are collaborators. On the other hand, the company of Ramzi Abd Al-Hussein, who did not have even 100 dollars in the past, became the major partner and preferred contractor for the main personalities in the government, and he also became a member of the noblest religious parties that have offered tens of martyrs. However, the contracts with Ramzi Abd Al-Hussein have destroyed the reputation of this party and were one of the main factors in the significant decline in the popularity of the party during the recent elections. Unfortunately, the precious sacrifices were offered for nothing.

By God, it is strange to call it a mayoralty. It is a word that indicates honesty and stewardship of the people's money. It is responsible for carrying out its duties, but what we see on the ground has nothing to do with this word in any way. The Mayoralty of Baghdad has occupied the top echelons of the administrative and financial corruption among the rest of the departments and institutions of the Iraqi government, which is notorious for corruption, until Iraq is now at the top of the states where there is corruption, according to international reports. As an Iraqi citizen I have noticed a lot of indicators of corruption in that institution known as the Baghdad Mayoralty. I believe that Baghdad has not been moving towards better conditions from the last war to this day; on the contrary, the services have become very bad, the environment is neglected and hygiene is unavailable. There are the problems of drinking water have increased and the overflow of sewage because of the blockage and destruction of most of the sewage systems has become a normal and routine phenomenon on the streets of Baghdad. Ironically, no one holds the Mayoralty of Baghdad accountable, or its secretary or general directors, and no one asks them about the money allocated to the Mayoralty and how it is spent. The issue of fake projects has become normal, and the sub-contractors have become the richest people in Iraq, because they are stealing Iraq's money in the name of the Mayoralty of Baghdad, in cooperation with the staff of that institution. There is plenty of evidence of corruption in that Mayoralty, with regard to the contractors of sidewalks, cleaning and sewage, and the list goes on. There is no action by the control or integrity departments in the state, and we do not know the reason.

The manifestations of corruption in the service facilities in Iraq are countless, particularly in the Mayoralty of Baghdad, as regards planning and the implementation of all projects, especially the infrastructure projects, such as water, sewage, and cleaning works in Baghdad. The level of corruption in this Mayoralty has exceeded all limits, and the financial and administrative corruption have become very clear. We all remember the employee who fled, taking with her a large sum of money from the budget of the Mayoralty last year. This proves the lack of discipline and control in this authority. Moreover, getting an appointment in Mayoralty of Baghdad requires paying bribes to certain officials, in order to be accepted. In addition, the contracts are confirmed to a group of contractors who give part of the funds to the directors of the Mayoralty, to ensure that the contracts will remain confined to them. As for the scandal of the cleaning campaigns, all people know about it, and I really do not know how the Integrity Committee has not heard about it, so as to investigate the truth. The contractors used to remove the trash from one area and receive high fees, and then take this garbage and dump it in another area in Baghdad, only to come the next day and take it back to the original area, to receive money again, and so on. This means that the cleaning campaign will continue until the end of the world, as long as these contractors receive contracts, and as long as the control authorities take money to keep quiet.

I hail all the honorable efforts that aim at building my home, Iraq. However, the problem is that we see nothing on the ground. We only hear about these giant projects from thesenior officials concerned in these projects. Nevertheless, we are optimistic, and I would like to draw your attention to the Egyptian experiment in the field of investment. In Egypt, there is a city called 6th of October that was established in a desert area, but now it is a large center for investments. I advise the Iraqi officials to visit Egypt, to benefit from its experiment in this respect. Moreover, the population of the Egyptian capital is about 30 million; however, the electricity is available 24 hours and the water reaches the high floors, particularly given that they adopt the vertical expansion in housing. In Iraq there is a city called Al-Sabiat, so why does the state neglect building infrastructure for these areas, to encourage the citizens to build houses and settle in these areas? In this way, the municipality of Baghdad will help solve the problem of housing in these areas partially. I think that such projects are better than wasting money here and there haphazardly. I mean there should be interest shown in the new residential areas, by providing them with services and infrastructure to move to the housing projects. This is better than hasty solutions that disturb everything and affect the achievements. The more the work is organized, the more it will be smooth and fruitful.

Since the beginning of the relative calm in Baghdad, the Municipality of Baghdad has started adding some touches in modifying and renovating landmarks and areas of the city. However, despite these great efforts, there are some people who want to destroy the country, particularly the terrorists who sneak into the country through the borders that are open to every Tom, Dick, and Harry. Following every renovation and modification, there is an explosion and deliberate sabotage. Nevertheless, the Municipality of Baghdad will do the impossible, develop the city and restore the old days when Baghdad was a beautiful city. Unfortunately, with every small renovation project (we cannot say “reconstruction project,” because, we have not seen real construction yet), the government and the Municipality of Baghdad implement projects to demolish Baghdad’s landmarks, including all the statues and monuments of the city, under the pretext that it belongs to the former regime, forgetting that these landmarks belong to the Iraqi people in the first place. They have also forgotten that these statues were made by Iraqi creative artists to capture Iraqi history, even if it was under the rule of the former regime. After all, these landmarks will represent the history of Iraq and Iraqis, not a president or a certain era. Hence, we call on the Municipality of Baghdad to preserve the original nature of the city and to renovate them rather than removing everything that is Iraqi. We also urge the municipality to conduct larger projects to solve the problems of providing electricity and water that have exhausted the Iraqis. This is more important than decorating streets or painting pavements. When we provide the citizens with the basic needs, especially security, it will be important to develop and decorate Baghdad. As soon as security is guaranteed, all the other problems will ** comment truncated due to length