Iraq to get only 500 million dollars before power handover: World Bank

[Barrett808]

DUBAI (AFP) - Iraq will only receive some 500 million dollars out of the 33 billion pledged by donors up to the June 30 deadline for the handover of power, a senior World Bank official said.

"The total package we are trying to commit by June 30, which is our target, is over half a billion dollars which is a reasonable chunk of money," said John Speakman, the World Bank's senior private sector development specialist, Middle East and North Africa.

Security problems, the fact Iraq is still occupied and the need to ensure the huge sums were not misspent meant the disbursement had to be limited, Speakman told AFP ahead of Saturday's donor meeting in Abu Dhabi organised by the UAE finance ministry on behalf of the bank, the United Nations Development Group (UNDG), IMF and other agencies.

"We are talking about very huge sums of money and there is a huge danger that these sums will be misallocated, misspent or not dealt with in a transparent way and that could undermine all future attempts to reform the Iraqi economy because it would set things up in the wrong way."

In Baghdad, Iraq's interim minister of planning and development cooperation, Mehdi al-Hafidh, said last week that he hoped 3.5 billion dollars would be allocated this year for reconstruction.

(more)

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20040225/wl_mideast_afp/iraq_rebuild_donor_world&cid=1514&ncid=1480

[hatrack]

1. Gosh, you'd think somebody wanted Iraq to fail!

Oh, never mind!