Interview with Deputy Minister of Planning

Abdul Zahra Waheed al-Hendawi, the Deputy Minister of Planning, spoke to IRIN in Baghdad at a time when security issues continue to weigh heavily on reconstruction efforts. But al-Hendawi was optimistic that progress would be made. The ministry handles reconstruction funding for Iraq, especially that from donor countries and future funding expected from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. QUESTION: What is the Ministry of Planning (MoP) doing now? ANSWER: We have two types of reconstruction funds in Iraq now, one from the donor countries and one from the United States. There is a US office in Baghdad to handle the US $18.4 billion disbursed directly from the American administration. Our office is the one working directly with the Iraqi government to be responsible for disbursing the money from donor countries to the ministries. In this regard, we have established two international fund boxes, one run by us, the other by the United Nations. Q: How much money is coming from the donor countries? A: Since last October, we have been involved in getting the donor countries to commit $33 billion at the Madrid donor conference and at the Abu Dhabi donor conference. We are optimistic about the future, that stability in Iraq will bring more donors. At the Tokyo donor conference on 13 October [2004] we received new donors, including the European Union, Iran and Kuwait. Iran and Kuwait donated $10 million each. Q: We understand that so far only 6 percent of the reconstruction money has been spent in Iraq, both American and donor country money. Why is that? A: There is some delay in some of the countries giving their money to us. They don't follow through on their promises. Only the Americans have followed through so far. Only $1 billion has been collected of the total $33 billion [that has been pledged]. We presented a list of 727 priority projects and asked for the funding to be put forward. They should be carried out in 2004 and 2005. The cost of these priority projects is about $4 billion, but up to this moment we can't see if the real intention of the countries is to give this money or not. Q: Why do you think it is taking so much time to get the money? A: It may be because of the security situation. [But] we are hopeful we can convince the donor countries to accelerate their payments. We made a national strategy for Iraq for 2004-2007. We haven't released the information yet, but, in general, this strategy includes everything Iraq might need in terms of reconstruction in the coming years. Q: What is your top priority? A: Our top priority is for security needs, and we are also still concentrating on basic needs like electricity, sewage, water supply, transport, health and education, human rights and women. We have to focus on the basic infrastructure, because it hasn't been fully repaired in the 17 months since Saddam Hussein was toppled. Q: People complain that their electricity and water still don't work all the time. How do you respond? A: We have had much success and I'm not just saying that because I'm a government official. For example, the Americans donated $5 billion for the electricity sector. We can say we improved the development of electricity supplies, but the sabotage and attacks on high-tension wires caused us problems. The resistance focused on the oil and electricity centres. This is the reason for the [power] cuts, so we have to focus on the security situation. We want to increase the number of police and modern vehicles to look specifically for saboteurs. We will also have helicopters to patrol the electric lines and protect the network. Q: What else will you focus on besides security? A: The country has a large number of jobless people, so we have a plan to absorb them into the workforce. We believe this [unemployment] is also caused by the security situation. The increase in the number of jobless people means the situation will get worse and worse. We're trying to do our best to coordinate with other ministries and use money from donor countries to get people working on reconstruction. In this case, we will provide opportunities for people. Q: What is the first project you have done? A: Whichever project we do, it will create jobs for people who are out of work. For this reason, the MoP wants foreign investment. We have made two conditions for those who want to invest money here. The first condition is to offer as many jobs as possible in Iraq. The condition is to use the most up-to-date technology when building new systems in Iraq. Q: Do you work with any NGOs or aid agencies on reconstruction since many of them have done water and sanitation projects and the like? A: We have no coordination with the NGOs except to register them. Coordinating with them is the job of the other ministries. We know they are working with the ministries of health, labour and social affairs and education, for example. If we talk about the process of reconstruction, we can't say they [NGOs] have made many big projects. We know they repaired some small schools or added wings to school buildings. But in general, when the explosion happened at the United Nations in August 2003 that killed 22 people, it affected the job of the United Nations and the NGOs and most of them left. Q: How do you feel about how long it seems to be taking to get reconstruction projects going? A: Actually, we are optimistic and hopeful that the donor countries will play a great role in rebuilding our country. We know there is a delay, but many people are exaggerating the security situation and making it an excuse to delay payment of the money they offered. Some countries allocated 60 percent of their donated money for the security situation meaning that the [funds left over for the] original projects will be nothing. How can you allocate that much money to security and get anything completed? Q: Are you worried that reconstruction projects will be duplicated? A: There must be coordination between us and the American Projects and Construction Office (PCO) and the NGOs. Otherwise, there will be an overlap. The first step we want any NGO to take, or any group, is to coordinate with us on projects. If things go as we expect and we get the money on time, we believe we could complete all of the 727 priority projects by the end of 2005. We will start these projects as soon as they give us the money. We have only $1 billion of the total, so we won't be able to finish without more money. Q: What's happening now with other countries forgiving Iraq's debt payments? A: We're asking other countries now if they can cancel our debt payments or decrease the amount we owe. We need this to happen, because our current debt is $120 billion. It is a huge amount. We're doing this in addition to encouraging these countries to fulfil their promises in investing in our country. There is a huge effort from the United States to help us with this, but so far no one has made a decision.