Fuelling suspicion: the coalition and Iraq's oil billions

www.christianaid.org.uk ^ | 06/04/2004 | Christian Aid

[GLH3IL]

The US-controlled coalition in Baghdad is handing over power to an Iraqi government without having properly accounted for what it has done with some $20 billion of Iraq's own money, says a new report published by Christian Aid.

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An audit, reportedly critical, of the coalition’s handling of Iraqi revenues is not going to be delivered until mid-July – after the coalition has ceased to exist.

Christian Aid believes this situation is in flagrant breach of the UN Security Council resolution that gave control of Iraq’s oil revenues and other Iraqi funds to the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA).

‘For the entire year that the CPA has been in power in Iraq, it has been impossible to tell with any accuracy what the CPA has been doing with Iraq’s money,’ said Helen Collinson, head of policy at Christian Aid.

Resolution 1483 of May 2003 said that Iraq’s oil revenues should be paid into the Development Fund for Iraq (DFI), that this money should be spent in the interests of the Iraqi people, and be independently audited. But it took until April 2004 to appoint an auditor – leaving only a matter of weeks to go through the books.

Early reports of the audit indicate strong criticisms of the CPA’s handling of Iraq’s money. But the CPA is not going to be around to be held accountable.

In the run-up to the handover, nearly $2 billion of Iraq’s money has been hastily allocated. The new Iraqi government will be committed to these spending decisions.

Iraq’s oil represents huge potential wealth. With half of the population still unemployed, the Iraqi people need to be able to see that the oil revenues are being spent to alleviate poverty and to improve their lives.

[jedi]

If that money does not get down to the streets, then the Iraqi people starve.

They are not starving.

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