Ministry of Education staff health insurance contract: IQD 41 billion paid to Ard al-Watan Insurance and recovered by the court; former minister and officials sentenced (from 2019 to 2022)

In March 2020 the Federal Integrity Commission opened an inquiry into the Ministry of Education's staff health insurance contract, after complaints of compulsory deductions from salaries; an unnamed Commission source said the minister, Suha Khalil Hussein (Suha al-Ali Bek), was barred from travel. An annex to the contract with Ard al-Watan Insurance Company provided for IQD 41 billion to be paid to the company from a ministry fund. In June 2020 the Supreme Judicial Council said the Rusafa anti-corruption investigation court had returned the full IQD 41 billion to the ministry and was waiting for Parliament to lift the immunity of a member accused in the case. The Central Anti-Corruption Criminal Court sentenced the former contracts director to three years and the insurer's managing director to one year (November 2020); the former minister to one year, suspended, under Penal Code Article 331 (13 December 2020); the former budget accounts director to three years for taking money to pass the contract (March 2021); and a former undersecretary, the head of internal control and the minister's secretary to one year each, suspended (June 2021). In September 2022 a Syrian national who paid a bribe received ten years in absentia.