« Liberation Theology | Main | United States and South Korea »
April 10, 2005
Water in Iraq
$10 billions to get the water system running? Why do I feel that these people are taking the Americans for a ride? Iraq has a population of 25 million to Afghanistan's 28 million. Afghanistan's entire government budget for 2005 is only $4.75 billion.
Millions Said Going to Waste in Iraq Utilities
A coalition memo says water, sewage and power facilities rebuilt with U.S. funds are falling into disrepair. Iraqis say they need more money.
By T. Christian Miller, Los Angeles Times
April 10, 2005
The Ministry of Public Works estimates that it would cost as much as $10 billion to provide clean water to most Iraqis. Facing rising security costs, the U.S. has slashed the budget for water projects from $4.3 billion to less than $2.3 billion — with further cuts planned.
The ministries say they simply do not have enough money to maintain their current dilapidated systems, much less operate new ones.
"The main problem we suffer is our budget. There's simply not enough for our needs," said Mahmoud Ali Ahmed, the head of Iraq's water distribution system. "The money does not exist for the maintenance and rehabilitation of existing projects."
Afghans Get No Guarantees on Reconstruction Budget
Friday April 08, 2005 (1741 PST)
About 93 percent of Afghanistan's recently adopted $4.75 billion budget for the coming year will come from foreign donors, and less than a quarter of that will be controlled by the government.
The arrangement dates to early 2002, when Afghanistan's fledgling interim authority lacked the capacity to administer large-scale aid projects. In his opening speech to the forum Monday, Karzai, who became Afghanistan's first democratically elected president in October, said circumstances had changed.
"The Afghan government, as the ultimate body accountable to the Afghan people, must also be better informed about, and play its due role in, steering the development process," he said. "The government must become the anchor for a more integrated, transparent and accountable development effort."
Karzai and other government leaders have also expressed concern that many of the 2,400 nongovernmental organizations registered in Afghanistan might be wasting international funds by providing their Western staffs with unnecessarily large salaries and perks, and that other nongovernmental organizations are simply private, for-profit companies claiming nonprofit status to get tax exemptions that allow them to win government contracts at the expense of Afghan firms.
Posted by mrl at April 10, 2005 11:08 AM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://csua.berkeley.edu/~mrl/mt/mt-tb.cgi/13
Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Water in Iraq:
» bankruptcy credit from bankruptcy
bankruptcy [Read More]
Tracked on October 11, 2005 12:07 AM