BAGHDAD (AFP) — Iraqi Trade Minister Abdel Falah al-Sudani has resigned amid allegations of corruption and embezzlement linked to the nation's food assistance programme, the prime minister's office said on Monday.
"The prime minister has agreed to accept the resignation of Abdel Falah al-Sudani, the minister of trade," it said in a statement.
Sudani, a member of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's Shiite Dawa faction, had already been questioned by parliament over claims relating to imports for Iraq's food rationing programme.
The minister was accused of importing expired commodities -- sugar -- and procuring illegal contracts as well as failing to fight corruption in his ministry.
Sudani's resignation comes as Maliki and other top officials in his government have called for more efforts to combat the rampant graft that makes Iraq's one of the world's most corrupt countries.
Earlier this month more than 100 PMs signed a petition calling on parliament to sack the Sudani.
Last week he underwent a grilling in parliament at Maliki's request before the premier officially accepted his resignation.
"Parliament was not satisfied with the answers," according to Sabah al-Sadi, head of the Council of Representatives of Iraq's Integrity Committee.
Maliki's office said: "The trade minister submitted his resignation on May 14, but the prime minister delayed his acceptance in order to give parliament a chance to question him first in the name of the law and the constitution."
Iraqi media have reported that two of Sudani's brothers, one who worked for the ministry and one who headed the Iraqi Grain Board, were arrested on April 30, in southern Iraq's Samawa city. Six more wanted trade officials remain at large.
Anti-corruption officials and the Iraqi army went to the ministry's offices in central Baghdad on April 29 to detain the nine people on corruption charges, according to a New York Times report a few days later.
Their attempted roundup triggered a 15-minute gunfight between the military and the minister's security team. Only the minister's spokesman, Mohammed Hanoun was detained, the report said.
The ministry operates a nearly six-billion dollar annual budget that provides a monthly public food distribution programme for Iraqis. It also manages the import of grain, seeds and construction materials.
Iraq's food rationing system was established in 1995 as part of the United Nations oil-for-food programme following Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990.
The public distribution programme has been plagued by mismanagement and corruption since the 2003 US-led invasion.
Watchdog group Transparency International ranked Iraq in 2008 as the world's third-most corrupt country only behind Somalia and Myanmar.
Born in 1947, in Iraq's oil-rich city of Basra, Sudani, holds a doctorate in biochemistry. He became an exile in Britain at the end of 1970s before returning after the fall of Saddam Hussain.
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