New school repair project starts in the south

Work has started on repairing 200 schools in southern Iraq as part of a US $79 million project to renovate more than 1,000 schools across the country under the supervision of the Ministry of Education (MoE) and the US Army Corps of Engineers. But despite efforts to reduce the number of contractors after problems with the first round of renovations last year, complaints over shoddy workmanship continue, along with allegations of fraud and corruption. Iraqi companies are carrying out work assigned by three US companies. In this, the second round of repairs since the US-led war in the country in April 2003, the US companies involved are Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR), an affiliate of Halliburton and already in Iraq to work on oil infrastructure; engineering company Washington Group International; and Environmental Chemical Corp. International, a security company in Iraq. "We wanted to improve the learning environment for as many children as we could," a US official said in a press briefing. American company Bechtel Corp. last autumn repaired hundreds of schools amid complaints from local employees and local contractors that construction contracts were bought and sold for high prices, frittering away much of the money meant for the schools. Bechtel denied the claims. This time, the MoE is signing off on the list of schools being repaired and the US Army Corps of Engineers will approve the final work before contractors get paid, said the US official, who works for the programme run by the Project and Contracting Office. It is disbursing the funds from the overall reconstruction budget for Iraq. "We are aware of the concerns raised by the work done by Bechtel. We will focus on making sure there are not a lot of layers of subcontractors," the official said. "The MoE was concerned that we follow a different tack." Education officials are comfortable with the "scope of work" being done at the schools, the official said. Najdad Abdul Aziz, chief engineer at the ministry, agreed. "They have new contractors, so they asked us to help them work with the governorates," Aziz told IRIN. "We named the schools we thought were most suitable for renovation." Schools are classified in four categories, the worst being slated for demolition, the best needing no work at all, the US official said. Many schools in categories two and three are on the list for renovation, he said. But already, a former Project and Contracting Office employee, Mohammed al-Amir, has complained that some work done on schools was substandard. Aside from poor workmanship, some of the work was completely unnecessary, he told IRIN. Al-Amir took pictures of many of the schools in southern Iraq where work has taken place to try to document his claims. "It's all a fraud. Everywhere you go, there is fraud and corruption," al-Amir claimed. In some cases, subcontractors took pictures of schools where repair work was done last autumn and presented them as if they had done new work, he said. In one "before" and "after" document al-Amir said he took from the Project and Contracting Office, photos side by side have the names of different schools in them. In other cases, subcontractors repainted buildings that had already received a fresh coat of paint last autumn. Floor tiles were pulled up and replaced at one school. At another one, one foot of brick fencing was added to a wall that was already at least six feet high, according to al-Amir and the pictures he took. "This will cost millions of US taxpayers' dollars if they keep entering schools that are already fixed and putting the money in their pockets instead," al-Amir said. Environmental Chemical Corp. official Rick Ebel said the company is looking into al-Amir's claims. But when asked if he thought subcontractors had committed intentional fraud, Ebel said, "I don't think so at all, but we have initiated a formal process in the schools he is talking about to address these issues." Overall, $12.6 billion of the original $18.4 billion approved by the US Congress in November will be used to rebuild Iraq's infrastructure, schools, electrical plants and so on. Another $3.4 billion will be used for security and law enforcement, to foster economic development and to get more jobs going, according to figures from the Project and Contracting Office.