WFP preparing to hand over distribution

Every month, Hikmat al Bashir goes to his neighbourhood food distribution outlet in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, shows a ration card and picks up basic necessities as part of the food distribution process run by the World Food Programme (WFP). Under the former UN Oil-for-Food Programme, the ration included rice, flour, sugar, chickpeas, tea and milk and this has continued since the agency took over the distribution earlier this year after the US-led coalition started bombing the country to depose its leader Saddam Hussein. Under United Nations sanctions in place since 1991, Iraq was allowed to sell crude oil to buy food for its people. In a US $10-billion-per-year operation, an estimated 27 million people, virtually everyone in the country, received food and other basic necessities under the programme. "It's very organised. I go on the 9th of the month to receive my food. Other neighbours go other days of the month," al Bashir told IRIN in Baghdad. However, the procedure may change in November when the newly-setup Ministry of Trade is supposed to take over the food distribution job from WFP, the agency's regional director, Torben Due, told IRIN in Baghdad. Agency workers took over the programme in April to make sure people continued to receive food as US, British and Australian soldiers battled Iraqi troops and the food agency is now in discussions with the ministry as to how and when the takeover will proceed. “We stepped in and did most of the work to avoid a food crisis,” Due says. “What we’re doing is handing responsibility back to the Iraqis.” WFP has delivered more than 1.8 million mt of food since it started five months ago. Money from the former Oil-for-Food account, at least US $1 billion, according to Due, is now in the “Iraq Development Fund” administered by the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) that is running Iraq. WFP workers are busy renegotiating contracts to make sure enough food is available for distribution until June 2004. In the last five months WFP observers have checked to make sure food is actually getting to the people it’s supposed to help. “We know food is getting out to the population, because we have observers who go out and interview families to make sure they’re getting it,” Due said. But theft and looting have also been a problem, especially at warehouses around Basra, in the south, where much of the food is unloaded off ships. According to Due, looters have come into warehouses, or have held up trucks on the road, each one loaded with some 20 mt of food. Although there are no figures on the amount stolen, Due said it was a very small quantity. “The situation was very bad two months ago, and it’s still not ideal, but it’s less now than it was,” he explained. In the Kurdish-dominated north, a temporary Ministry of Finance and Economics will oversee distribution, according to sources there. Northern Iraq has been running its own affairs since a no-fly zone was established in 1991. About 60 percent of Iraqis depend completely on the Oil-for-Food Programme for basic food necessities, according to CPA estimates in May. Another 30 percent have food ration cards, but they also have other means of income, according to estimates.