Sugar for the ration: contracts questioned by Parliament (from 2011 to 2014) and a 2020 sentence over a USD 62.4 million contract

In August 2011 MP Alia Nassif said the Basra office of the Integrity Commission had opened an investigation into a Ministry of Trade contract with Zahrat al-Jibal Company for 100,000 tonnes of sugar at prices well above international levels, signed by a committee that included the ministry's inspector, undersecretary and adviser. On 22 August 2013 MP Jawad al-Shuhaili of Parliament's integrity committee said a ship damaged by a truck bomb at Umm Qasr on 17 August 2013 carried 25,000 tonnes of sugar for the April 2013 ration that did not meet specifications, supplied by a company he called Ataarid; the committee referred the file to the Integrity Commission, asking for the arrest of the owner, Mohammed Shaker, whom it accused of trying to blow up the ship, and committee chair Bahaa al-Araji sent the papers to the Public Prosecution. In January 2014 the committee said the ministry paid one exclusive supplier one and a half times world prices; the ministry cited London price indices. On 23 January 2020 the Integrity Commission said a former director general of the State Company for Foodstuff Trading had been sentenced in person over a contract for 50,000 tonnes of sugar worth USD 62.4 million.