Hundreds of lawyers took to the streets across Iraq today to protest against widespread corruption and unemployment in demonstrations inspired by anti-government uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia.
The demonstrations in Baghdad, Karbala, Kut, Ramadi and Amara came a day after Iraq's anti-corruption chief said ministers frequently covered up corruption in their departments.
In the capital, around 500 people, mostly lawyers but also including some tribal sheikhs, called for the government to open up so-called "secret prisons" to scrutiny and give detainees access to legal counsel, for it to better combat corruption and for increased numbers of jobs.
"This demonstration will not end until our demands are met," Kadhim al Zubaidi, spokesman for the Baghdad lawyers' guild, told AFP.
"We want lawyers to be protected, the corrupt to be fired, and more jobs for the Iraqi people."
Protesters held up a banner which read, "Lawyers call for the government to abide by the law and provide jobs for the people," and "The government must provide jobs and fight the corrupt."
Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have both alleged that Iraqi security forces maintain secret prisons, where detainees are not given access to lawyers and subjected to physical abuse, charges Iraq's government denies.
About 500 lawyers and others turned up at two separate demonstrations in the city of Kut, southeast of Baghdad, to protest against the lack of basic services, such as electricity, water and sewage systems.
Sajat Hussein, a 30-year-old protester who joined about 200 others outside the Kut city court, said: "This demonstration expresses the will of the Iraqi people, not just lawyers, demanding that the governor and city chief raise the level of services."
One protester at the other demonstration said the street outside his home resembled a marsh after rain because of inadequate sewerage facilities.
Iraq's infrastructure for basic services such as water and electricity have been suffering from the aftermath of the 2003-US led invasion and two decades of war and UN sanctions that came before. Corruption has been a persistent problem since dictator Saddam Hussein was ousted in the invasion.
In an interview with AFP on Wednesday, Iraq's anti-corruption czar said that instead of fighting graft Iraq's ministers preferred to hide departmental corruption.
Meanwhile, in the shrine city of Karbala in southern Iraq on Thursday, about 200 lawyers and other demonstrators called for jobs, better services and their full food rations.
Rabia al-Masaudi, the head of Karbala's lawyers' guild, mocked the $12 that the government has been giving out each month to families in lieu of rations that included cooking oil, rice, flour and sugar.
"We reject this amount of money," he said, adding that MPs were getting paid $11,000 a month, while many of the six million families nationwide who depend on government rations were being paid $12 a month in place of their full supplies.
Small demonstrations also were held in the western city of Ramadi and Amara in the south.
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
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