The Iraqi Oil-for-Food Program will be extended for an additional six months after the United Nations (UN) ends its administration of the scheme on November 21, 2003. Administration will be transferred to the US-led occupying authority and Iraqis, reported Washington File.
Head of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) team overseeing the shift of management Steven Mann, met with the UN Security Council Sanctions Committee to review the progress of the transition. Mann indicated that while the paycheck for Iraqi employees may be coming from a different source, the essence of the programs will remain unchanged.
From the start of the program in December 1996 until present, more than $65 billion in Iraqi oil revenues have been managed by the UN to provide food, medicine and other humanitarian goods along with replacement supplies for Iraqi utilities and the oil industry outside of the control of Saddam Hussein's regime.
"The overall goal is to build the capacity and let Iraqi officials manage these programs," the ambassador said. "We are also going to be providing advisors to help with the details of program administration, with contracts and procurement," he added.
"In the north, we will achieve the transition of roughly 100 projects worth $750 million in on-going activity from UN agencies to the coalition, which will then hand over administration of these projects to Iraqis," the ambassador said.
In central and southern Iraq, the CPA has established a mechanism that will continue the payment of contacts for shipment of food, medicine and other goods through the World Food Program (WFP), the World Health Organization (WHO), and Cotecna, the UN independent inspection agent, Mann said.
"The coalition, those (UN) agencies and the Iraqi ministries will keep the supply of goods coming which have been contracted for and prioritized in the Oil-for-Food Program. We have established a coordination center in Baghdad, jointly staffed by the coalition and Iraqi officials, which will manage these shipments and keep things moving," he said.
According to the UN, about 60 percent of the people in the southern and central areas of Iraq rely on the Oil-for-Food Program's "food basket" of rice, flour, sugar, cooking oil, beans, tea, and milk for 100 percent of their food needs.
The UN said that some $8.2 billion in goods are still in the pipeline, and an additional $2.1 billion will be in an escrow account for future orders. Those funds are being transferred to the CPA.
"The public distribution system of the food basket will continue through at least June 2004. You are not going to see any change. What happens after June 2004 with the public distribution system that is up to Iraqi officials themselves to decide," he said. — (menareport.com)
© 2003 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
