Safra customs post (Diyala): Integrity Commission operations, duties cut by estimators and IQD 6 billion of collections held in a private bank (from 2017 to 2020)

The Safra customs post, about 75 kilometres north of Baquba in Diyala, collected duties on goods coming from the Kurdistan Region. In March 2017 MP Furat al-Tamimi said the Diyala Provincial Council had leased the post's parking yards to an investor in breach of Law No. 21 of 2013 on the sale and lease of state property; the council chairman, Ali al-Daini, called the lease legal and said it had been cancelled after truck drivers protested. On 24 January 2018 the Integrity Commission said 14 operations at the post had recovered or stopped the loss of more than IQD 1.5 billion and led to 53 arrests, and that receipts for fees taken from drivers in the council's name had been seized. On 26 March 2018 it said estimators had cut the duties on loaded trucks, and IQD 865 million was returned to the treasury after the goods were assessed again. On 9 February 2020 it found IQD 6.04 billion collected at Safra for the dissolved provincial council held in a private bank in Baquba, against Finance Ministry rules; a judge seized the money.