.Iraq refuses to take over reconstruction projects
WASHINGTON | Iraq’s national government is refusing to take possession of thousands of U.S.-financed reconstruction projects, according to a report by a federal oversight agency.
The Iraqi government’s action is forcing the United States either to hand the projects over to local Iraqis, who often lack the proper training and resources to keep the projects running, or commit new money to an effort that has already consumed billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars.
The conclusions, detailed in a report released Friday by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, include the finding that of 2,797 completed projects costing $5.8 billion, Iraq’s national government had, by the spring of this year, accepted only 435 projects valued at $501 million. Few transfers to Iraqi national government control have taken place since the current Iraqi government took office in 2006.
The report says that of the 2,797 projects declared completed, besides the 435 projects formally accepted by Iraq’s central government, 1,141 have been transferred to local Iraqi authorities.
Examination by the inspector general’s office, headed by Stuart W. Bowen Jr., has found that a number of individual projects are crumbling, abandoned or otherwise inoperative only months after the United States declared that they had been completed.
Although Bowen’s latest report is primarily a financial overview, he said in an interview that it raised serious questions on whether the problems his inspectors had found were much more widespread in the reconstruction program.
The process of transferring projects to Iraq “worked for a while,” Bowen said. But then the new government took over and installed its finance minister, Bayan Jabr, who has been a continuing center of controversy in his various government posts and is formally in charge of the transfers.
“After Mr. Jabr took over, that process ceased to function,” Bowen said.
In fact, in the first two quarters of 2007, Bowen said, his inspectors found significant problems in all but two of the 12 projects they examined after the United States declared those projects completed.
So far, the United States has declared that $5.8 billion in American taxpayer-financed projects have been completed, but most of the rest of the projects within a $21 billion rebuilding program that Bowen examined in the report are expected to be finished by the end of this year. Some of that money also is being used to train and equip Iraqi security forces rather than finance construction projects.
Kansascity
The Iraqi government’s action is forcing the United States either to hand the projects over to local Iraqis, who often lack the proper training and resources to keep the projects running, or commit new money to an effort that has already consumed billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars.
The conclusions, detailed in a report released Friday by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, include the finding that of 2,797 completed projects costing $5.8 billion, Iraq’s national government had, by the spring of this year, accepted only 435 projects valued at $501 million. Few transfers to Iraqi national government control have taken place since the current Iraqi government took office in 2006.
The report says that of the 2,797 projects declared completed, besides the 435 projects formally accepted by Iraq’s central government, 1,141 have been transferred to local Iraqi authorities.
Examination by the inspector general’s office, headed by Stuart W. Bowen Jr., has found that a number of individual projects are crumbling, abandoned or otherwise inoperative only months after the United States declared that they had been completed.
Although Bowen’s latest report is primarily a financial overview, he said in an interview that it raised serious questions on whether the problems his inspectors had found were much more widespread in the reconstruction program.
The process of transferring projects to Iraq “worked for a while,” Bowen said. But then the new government took over and installed its finance minister, Bayan Jabr, who has been a continuing center of controversy in his various government posts and is formally in charge of the transfers.
“After Mr. Jabr took over, that process ceased to function,” Bowen said.
In fact, in the first two quarters of 2007, Bowen said, his inspectors found significant problems in all but two of the 12 projects they examined after the United States declared those projects completed.
So far, the United States has declared that $5.8 billion in American taxpayer-financed projects have been completed, but most of the rest of the projects within a $21 billion rebuilding program that Bowen examined in the report are expected to be finished by the end of this year. Some of that money also is being used to train and equip Iraqi security forces rather than finance construction projects.
Kansascity
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