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UN Puts on Hold More Humanitarian Contracts Signed by Iraq
The United Nations Security Council committee monitoring the sanctions against Iraq has placed more humanitarian contracts on hold than it released, according to statistics released Tuesday by the UN office running the oil-for- food program.
The Office of the Iraq program reported that during the week leading up to May 11, the UN Security Council committee on Iraq released 24 contracts valued at 42 million US dollars.
During the same period, the committee placed on hold another 24 contracts valued at 238.4 million US dollars, bring the total value of held contracts to some 3.7 billion US dollars. The sharp increase was largely attributed to a single contract in the electricity sector valued at 147 million U.S. dollars, according to the report.
The office report said that members of the UN committee often site the lack of technical specifications and potential dual use as reasons for placing a contract on hold. The new "holds" placed this week included contracts for diesel locomotives, FM radio transmitters, water pumps, generators and laboratory equipment, according to the report.
Those released covered the purchase of buses, firefighting equipment, raw materials for the production various medicines, trailer trucks and excavators.
Under the U.N. Security Council resolution establishing the oil- for-food program, 66 percent of earning goes to fund the country's humanitarian needs and 30 percent is directed to the compensation committee which pays claims arising from Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait. The remainder goes to pay the costs of U.N. operations in the country.
Iraq has been under stringent sanctions ever since its 1990 invasion of neighboring Kuwait.
Iraq has repeatedly demanded that the United Nations lift the stringent sanctions, and accused the United States and Britain of impeding the implementation of the oil-for-food program by putting on hold vital contracts Iraq signed with foreign countries.
The oil-for-food deal, launched in late 1996, is now in its ninth phase running from December 6 to June 3.
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