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IRAQ'S CORRUPTION
العربية
Cases

Ghost employees, double salaries and pension fraud in the public payroll (from 2015 to 2021)

Iraq's public payroll (millions of employees and pensioners) has repeatedly been found to include fictitious names and people drawing more than one salary. In February 2021 Finance Minister Ali Allawi was quoted by the official newspaper al-Sabah as saying that over 300,000 "ghost employees", about 10% of the payroll, were being paid. In November 2020 the Interior Ministry's Federal Intelligence and Investigations Agency said it had dismantled a forgery network of 29 accused (17 of them employees) inside the National Pension Authority that was draining about IQD 30bn a month.

Period
From 2015 to 2021
Sector
Public payrollCivil service and pension payrolls
Kind of case
Official statement or estimate
Jurisdiction
Federal Iraq

How the money moved, according to the sources

This account is the one given by the sources listed on this page. It is not the finding of a court.

Fictitious or duplicate entries in payroll and pension databases, forged pension files, and multiple salaries drawn by the same person, enabled by weak biometric controls and complicit staff.

What happened

Periodic biometric audits and arrests; no consolidated official figure of recovered salaries is on record.

Open questions

  • Official results of the 2020 to 2021 payroll audit and later biometric "unified salary" project.
  • Court outcomes of the 2020 pension forgery network (29 accused).

People and companies

The table lists everyone this case names, with their legal status on the date shown. A status in this case does not carry over to any other case, and an accusation is not a conviction. How to read the status.
People and companies
NameRole in the caseLegal statusDetailAs of
Ali Allawi
علي علاوي
Minister of Finance (from 2020 to 2022)Not charged as of the date of writingSource of the 300,000 estimate.25 September 2026

Sources

These are the documents on which this case rests. Each quote is given in the language of the document.
  1. Daraj / NIRIJ investigative network29 December 2020Press reportTier D

    "هيئة التقاعد" العراقية: "فضائيون" ينهبون شهرياً 30 مليار دينار

    شبكة تزوير في هيئة التقاعد الوطنية، مؤلفة من 29 متهماً
    Original
  2. BasNews (citing al-Sabah)7 February 2021Press reportTier D

    Over 10% of Public Servants in Iraq are "Ghost Employees": Government

    The ‘ghost employees’ make up 10% of the total number of people on government’s payroll in Iraq
    OriginalArchived copy

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