Maysan power officials allegedly held over 390 million dinars in pension money

MAYSAN — Three officials at a state-owned electricity transmission company in Maysan have been detained on suspicion of keeping 390 million dinars in pension contributions deducted from contract employees’ pay since 2019, Iraq’s Federal Commission of Integrity said Friday.

The three are the accounts director, his deputy and the payroll officer at the Southeastern Networks Branch of the General Company for Electric Power Transmission. The sum is about $260,000 at the official rate.

The commission said the money had been taken out of contract employees’ salaries since 2019 but was never passed on to the Retirement and Social Security Department in Maysan. It accused the three of keeping the money for their own benefit and of deliberately harming public funds.

A team from the commission’s Maysan investigations office went to the branch and arrested the three after making inquiries and auditing the branch’s accounts, the commission said. It did not name them.

An investigative judge at the Maysan Investigation Court who handles integrity cases ordered the three held under Article 340 of the Penal Code. The article sets a prison term of up to seven years for public employees who deliberately damage the funds or interests of the body they work for.

This is not the first case of missing pension contributions in Maysan. In June 2023, the commission said more than 17.89 billion dinars (about $13.6 million at the time) deducted from the pay of the governorate’s education staff between January 2015 and December 2019 had never been sent on to the state retirement authorities, according to preliminary findings. An investigative judge summoned the education directorate’s director general, its head of accounts and the employee who issued its checks under the Penal Code’s embezzlement article.

The latest case follows a series of corruption cases in Iraq’s electricity sector. On Oct. 27, the commission said a court had ordered the detention of Muthanna’s former electricity distribution director and 12 employees over 6.15 billion dinars (about $4.7 million at the time) spent in 2024 on electrical equipment, much of which was never used or installed.

In August, the Central Anti-Corruption Criminal Court jailed the Central Electricity Distribution Company’s financial director for three years for illicit gains and ordered him to repay 1.17 billion dinars and $203,000. In September, the same court sentenced the company’s director general to seven years for illicit enrichment.