|
|
 |
| |
| August 10, 2004 |
| |
| World Bank Plans Iraq Infrastructure Projects |
WASHINGTON - August 10, 2004. The World Bank plans to embark on its first reconstruction projects in Iraq since the toppling of Saddam Hussein by October, Faris Hadad-Zervos, the World Bank's Head of Mission for the Iraq program said on Monday, reports Reuters.
Hadad-Zervos said the projects would improve infrastructure in the
war-scarred country: "The projects are in infrastructure rehabilitation,
water and sanitation and school rehabilitation," he explained. The bank's interim reconstruction program for Iraq projects estimates the projects, which also include labor-intensive irrigation schemes, would cost between $400 and $600 million.
Hadad-Zervos said donors would review the World Bank infrastructure
projects along with other UN programs undertaken in Iraq in a coordination
meeting in Tokyo on October 12-14. A $60 million emergency school
rehabilitation project to undertake urgent repairs to some schools before
the 2004/2005 school year would be signed before the Tokyo meeting.
Preparations were also underway to award contracts soon to Iraqi printers
to publish 70 million school textbooks under a $40 million grant. "The
provision of textbooks for the school year is understandably one of the
key priorities for Iraqis," Hadad-Zervos said.
The World Bank was also lending help to ease Iraq's transition to a market
economy. The financing comes from almost $400 million deposited in a
UN-World Bank trust fund for Iraqi reconstruction set up by an
international donors conference last October in Madrid.
The World Bank's capacity building schemes had already trained 600 Iraqi
officials under a $3.6 million grant, mostly financed by the European
Union. "The nature of the bank's program with Iraq is that we have to rely on local capacity to implement our projects. This has made it necessary
for us to undertake a good deal of training with the Iraqis who have a
great degree of core capital skills," Hadad-Zervos said.
Projects could be implemented despite security concerns by the increasing
reliance on Iraqi expertise. But the return of World Bank staff to Baghdad
was still unlikely in the foreseeable future, he added. The bank's Iraq
Mission has been based in Amman since August 2003, when the international
lender withdrew its staff from Baghdad following a bomb blast at the
United Nations headquarters there. "Until we have a permissive security environment that allows us to undertake the work of the program unabated and to function efficiently in Iraq, until we do that we will continue to work outside but ready to leave to Iraq as soon as possible," Hadad-Zervos
said.
Meanwhile, The Associated Press reports that the panel investigating
"serious" allegations of corruption in Iraq's oil-for-food program hopes
to report on accusations of UN involvement by mid-2005, chairman Paul
Volcker said Monday. At a news conference releasing the committee's first quarterly report, the former Federal Reserve chairman said he doesn't know how long it will take to complete the investigation, which he estimated will cost at least $30 million over the next year. Volcker initially predicted that the Independent Inquiry Committee would produce some results on the UN's internal operation of the humanitarian program in six to eight months, by early 2005. But he said there is a massive amount of documentation to examine just in the United Nations plus critical material in Iraq and thousands of contracts.
Source: The World Bank |
| |
| |
| |
|
