IRAQ: A flailing Iraq reconstruction effort that has been dominated for more than three years by US dollars and US companies is in the process of being transferred to Iraqis, leaving them the challenge of completing a long list of projects left unfinished by the Americans.
While the handover is occurring gradually, it comes as US money dwindles and American officials face a September 30th deadline for choosing which projects to fund with the remaining $2 billion of the $21 billion rebuilding programme. More than 500 planned projects have not been started, and the US lacks a coherent plan for transferring authority to Iraqi control, a report released on Tuesday concludes.
In some cases Iraqis are having to take over projects from American construction firms that were removed from them because of poor performance. For example, in Nasiriyah, about 300 miles southeast of Baghdad, the Iraqi firm Al-Basheer Co was recently given a prison construction contract that a huge American conglomerate, Parsons Global Services Inc, lost. Parsons was six months overdue with the project and had completed only a third of it.
"This is the fourth quarter" of the US-led reconstruction, said Stuart Bowen, special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, whose office is issuing the report. "The Iraqis are going to have to develop their own system."
As the handover proceeds, there are questions about exactly what it is the Iraqis will inherit and how a government itself plagued by graft can restore confidence in a rebuilding programme that has been dogged by corruption allegations from the start.
Bowen's report makes clear that while the rebuilding campaign has achieved some successes, hundreds of jobs remain incomplete and many key projects remain in limbo.
The US has completed 82 per cent of its planned projects, having spent $15 billion. Those funds have brought oil and electricity production above prewar levels. They have given 5 million more people access to clean water. And they have paid for more than 1,200 security facilities, such as fire and police stations.
The reconstruction programme however is also littered with notable failures. A project to create more than 140 primary health care centres has resulted in 20 so far. Baghdad residents still have only about eight hours of electricity per day, less than they did before the war. And a crucial oil pipeline that could have brought the fledgling Iraqi government nearly $15 billion in badly needed revenue remains more than two years behind schedule.
Some projects will be left for the international community to fund or for the Iraqi government to finance with oil revenue. The US will continue to spend money on reconstruction in Iraq through the US Agency for International Development, but the flow of funds in future years is expected to be a fraction of what it has been.
Bowen's office has referred 25 cases of suspected criminal behaviour to the Justice Department, and it has 82 more open investigations into alleged fraud, corruption, bribery, kickbacks or gratuities.
A handful of reconstruction officials and contractors have already pleaded guilty to charges related to their misuse of reconstruction funds.
Some of the biggest US companies have come under intense scrutiny too for their performance in Iraq. Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root, Bechtel Corp and Parsons have each received more than $1 billion worth of reconstruction work but have been criticised for not finishing key jobs.
Now all three are wrapping up their reconstruction work and heading home.