ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Political tensions and instability in the Kurdistan Region have helped corruption thrive, undermining efforts at greater transparency in finances, according to the head of the Integrity Committee.

Judge Ahmed Anwar, who is assigned by parliament to fight corruption in Kurdistan, said at an Erbil conference Thursday that confronting endemic corruption has proved to be more difficult in the face of political rivalries. He said this had preserved an environment where indicting officials for graft had been increasingly challenging.

"Confronting corruption in the current political environment which is loaded with tensions and rivalries has not been an easy task; it's like working in a minefield," said Ahmed, who called for the removal of legal immunity for elected officials charged in corruption cases.

"Unfortunately, the parliament itself has made it difficult to prosecute officials who have immunity, even if there are valid suspicions of embezzlement," he added.

The judge said so far over the year they had succeeded to bring 42 legal charges against individuals and government offices, whose trials are still pending.

He also said the majority of officials had agreed to declare their private wealth before and during their terms in office, a move which the committee contends will make it difficult for elected officials to use their offices for personal benefit.

There are no specific statistics available for the Kurdistan Region regarding the level of corruption but Iraq has repeatedly topped the list of the least transparent nations in the past decade. Widespread corruption has made it almost impossible for the government to run the country.

According to the Corruption Perception Index (CPI) reported by Transparency International, Iraq was the least transparent country in 2007 of the total of 178 nations listed in the index, followed by Afghanistan and Somalia.

Iraq has gradually fallen in the list, but it was still in the top 15 most corrupt nations in 2015, according to the index.

Several high profile arrests have been made over the years in connection with corruption both in Iraq and the Kurdistan Region, but no convictions have so far been reported.

On April 13, the head of the Kurdistan Region's Central Bank, Adham Karim, and his deputy were arrested on charges of corruption. Karim was taken into custody as part of a probe into an alleged illegal bond trading scheme that may have cost the cash-strapped government more than one billion dollars.

The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has struggled to limit bureaucratic corruption, often with little success due to ineffective court procedures, complicated tribal makeup of the Kurdish society and lack of public means to sustain its anti-corruption plans, according to critics.

In late November the KRG signed an agreement with the UK-based Ernst and Young, one of the largest professional and financial firms in the world, to audit the region’s oil and gas finances.