US involved in losing 13 billion in Iraqi "fake" projects, document
US involved in losing 13 billion in Iraqi "fake" projects, document
Monday, August 22, 2016 4:26 AM
Baghdad/ Iraq TradeLink:
Iraqi Financial Auditing Divan disclosed how the biggest US donation was spent without "tangible" results on the lives of the Iraqi people.
The donation, 13 billion dollars, was granted during the period from 2004 to 2006.
Iraqi auditing reports said that half of this donation was spent on "fake" projects and the other half without complete receipts or documents.
The US side was responsible for the granting the projects, as well as supervision and follow-up, the reports said.
According to Iraqi official documents, the donation was spent on 16946 projects connected in rehabilitating Iraqi infrastructure.
The fact-finding report of the Divan pointed that a number of contractors who had the ability to have and implement projects without following legal procedures or supervision from the Iraqi or the US sides.
The report pointed in figures and percentages of the Iraqi organs that benefited from the US donation and the volume of the allocations granted to them, including Iraqi defence ministry which got 110 projects with the amount of 855 million dollars.
Iraqi Interior Ministry submitted documents for 406 projects with the amount of 751 million dollars, but no information is available on the projects or any document that the projects were officially received or handed to the ministry, the report added.
Iraq Electricity Ministry has the greater share in the loss of the donation, where about 2.5 billion dollars were allocated to implement 377 projects, but the only implemented ones were 24 with the cost of 400 million dollars.
The ministry claimed that the other projects were not implemented due to "lack of subsidiary station s for electricity connection", the report said.
On the other hand, more than 24 million dollars were spent to rehabilitate the generation efforts of Mosul's Dam, it was reported.
Iraqi Judicial System was one of the organs that benefited from the US donation with the amount of 10 million dollars for rehabilitating the new building of Karkh Court, as well as 2.5 million dollars for the building to protect the witnesses, but the Higher Judicial Council denied reports on rehabilitating the Higher Criminal Court with a cost of more than 20 million dollars, it was said.
The report, prepared in 2008, pointed that "the ministries have no knowledge of the implemented projects or the volume of the spent amount, as well as the incompatibility of technical standards of these projects".
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