17 November 2003
U.N. Transferring Oil-for-Food Program to Iraq, CPA
Program to last at least until June 2004
By Judy Aita
Washington File Special Correspondent
United Nations -- The Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) in Iraq and Iraqi officials will extend the Iraq Oil-for-Food program for the next six months when the United Nations ends its administration of the six-year-old program November 21, a senior CPA official reported November 17.
Ambassador Steven Mann, head of the CPA team overseeing the shift of the administration of the Oil-for-Food program from the United Nations to the Iraqis and the CPA, met with the U.N. Security Council Sanctions Committee to review the progress of the transition, which is to be completed by November 21. The program provides food, medicine, humanitarian supplies, and other aid projects to Iraq.
The United Nations and its agencies, Iraqi officials, and the CPA "have made very good progress," Mann told journalists after the meeting. "Overall, it's a very positive message that I have brought to the briefing today. The message comes with thanks and appreciation for the very positive role that U.N. agencies have played in making this work for a number of years."
"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 U.N. 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 U.N. independent inspection agent, Mann said.
"The coalition, those (U.N.) 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.
"We realize that we -- the coalition -- must stay involved with our resources to help make this work. But our goal clearly is to put these programs back in the hands of Iraqi officials. That is a goal we are looking forward to and we believe we'll achieve," he said.
According to the United Nations, in the southern and central areas about 60 percent of the people 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. From the start of the program in December 1996 to now, more than $65 billion in Iraqi oil revenue has been managed by the United Nations 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. In the three Kurdish northern governates, the United Nations directly administered the program; in central and southern Iraq, the Iraqi government ran the program with U.N. support.
The United Nations says that on November 21, $8.2 billion in goods will be 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 Security Council, which created the program in 1995, decided at the end of the conflict to terminate U.N. administration of the program and hand it over to the CPA by November 21, 2003.
Mann indicated that while the paycheck for Iraqi employees may be coming from a different source, the essence of the programs will remain unchanged after November 21.
"In the entire food program, the day-to-day work on the ground is really done by Iraqi citizens, many of whom work for the United Nations agencies, certainly in the three northern governates," the ambassador said. "There are 2,600 Iraqi citizens who work for the U.N. agencies. They are not leaving Iraq. It is a similar situation in the south and center (of the country). That will continue."
In the north, many employees now working for U.N. agencies will transfer to local government offices and be paid from the Iraqi national budget, while others will be paid by project funds coming out of the Development Fund for Iraq, Mann said.
"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.
The CPA has asked the WFP to continue its involvement through June 2004, the ambassador said, but the long-term goal "is to achieve regular (Iraqi) governmental processes in the procurement and shipment of goods."
(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
This page printed from: http://usinfo.state.gov/xarchives/display.html?p=washfile-english&y=2003&m=November&x=20031117180634atia0.7124292&t=usinfo/wf-latest.html
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