IRAQ - Graft At The Power Ministry.

The former electricity minister, Muhsin Shlash, and several other current and former senior government officials have been charged with corruption or ordered to appear before judges. This was the newest development in an investigation which began two years ago. The cases, referred to an Iraqi court by the Commission for Public Integrity, accuse officials from various departments of misdeeds ranging from stealing money and accepting kickbacks to assigning millions of dollars to phantom rebuilding contracts, commission officials said on Aug. 12.

Shlash is a professional engineer who until recently ran the Electricity Ministry, a department which has received billions of dollars in reconstruction money over the past three years but has made far less progress than expected. Shlash was recruited from exile in Canada to take over the ministry in May 2005. He served for a year - failing to raise electricity production above pre-war levels - then left the country when the new government of PM Nuri Kamal al-Maliki replaced him on May 20.

The commission, set up by the US occupation and now run by the Iraqi government, has been actively investigating corruption since 2004, looking into hundreds of cases. In that time, 36 former or current senior Iraqi officials have been charged or ordered to appear before Iraqi judges, who under Iraq's system also serve as investigators.

There are concerns, however, that the commission has become politicised, often pressing cases without enough evidence and mostly targeting officials from previous governments. Most of the 36 officials accused have served in the administration of Iraq's interim PM, Ayad Allawi, or his successor, Ibrahim al-Ja'fari. During the election in December 2005 Allawi, among others, said the inquiries were an effort to slander his administration.

Ali al-Shabot, a spokesman for the Commission for Public Integrity, said many of them were out of government or out of the country. A handful were still employed by the government, he said, adding that they would be arrested if they were not granted immunity.

One of the accused officials who would be immune to prosecution unless the House of Representatives (parliament) lifts that protection is a Sunni Arab MP, Nashan al-Jabouri. On Aug. 12 he was quoted as saying: "We've asked for information regarding the work of several high officials in the government now", including the current under-secretary of the Ministry of Electricity and under-secretaries of planning, defence, finance and communications.

The latest allegations come after years of speculation about where $3 bn in reconstruction and oil money have gone. UN sponsored audits in recent weeks have criticised the Iraqi and US governments for allowing accounting errors of up to $1 bn to become routine. In June, in one of many examples, the Iraqi authorities said they were investigating possible kickbacks in connection with more than $300m in purchases of defective helicopters, machine guns and armoured personnel carriers by the Defence Ministry's former procurement chief. Shlash is being investigated over charges of sweetheart deals for contractors.