Focus on Oil-For- Food Programme

In a small underground store, Soran Raouf Majeed scoops a handful of rice out of a sack and shaking his head, lets it fall on the floor. Then he picks up a bar of soap, sniffs it and snorts with disgust. “The soap is just a turnip. You could sell all this box and not buy a turnip.” Soran, a food agent in the northeastern Iraqi city of Sulaymaniyah, told IRIN that the quality of goods he distributed under the Oil-For-Food programme was terrible. Each person in Iraq receives a quota of rice, sugar, milk powder, flour, ghee or cooking oil, lentils, beans, soap and washing powder. The programme, which sees 65,000 mt of food distributed a month in Iraq’s three northern governorates, was administered by the United Nations until November 21. The Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) and local governments took over the programme after 21 November. But Soran said nothing had changed and the quality of most things was so bad, people constantly complained. “Only the man at the top has changed. If the supplies stay the same then it won’t mean anything.” However, UN officials responsible for the programme said the food was not substandard. "The food may not be the highest grade, but it is perfectly sound, fit and nutritious. The World Food Programme (WFP) always uses standard quality control tests to ensure its commodities are fit for human consumption," spokeswoman for WFP Iraq, Mia Turner told IRIN from Cairo. Soran was convinced the Kurdish north of Iraq had always received the worst food as he had seen what areas such as Saddam Hussein’s home territory of Tikrit had got. Many times he had asked WFP to improve the supplies. “Now it is up to the CPA to do something about this,” said Soran. Under the UN-administered Oil-For-Food programme, Saddam was allowed to export much of Iraq’s oil to buy food and humanitarian aid for his people. Starting at the end of 1996 to alleviate the effects of years of international sanctions against Iraq, the programme expanded to cover virtually every area of the economy, dealing with items ranging from electrical spare parts and truck tyres to the rice given out to families once a month. But complaints over the quality of food are leaving a bad taste. Soran said some of the cooking oil smelt so badly of fish that people refused to take it and he had a pile of cans sitting rusting in his store. “I can’t even give it away.” In Arbil the complaints are the same. Food distributor Woshar Sabir told IRIN that he too had not received tea and infant milk for several months and sugar was in short supply. He said the change to a new organisation running the programme had made no difference. “It’s still the same bad old materials.” He said many people took their rations, sold them and bought better quality items or other things. Eventually he hoped the programme could be phased out and people would be able to buy their food with their own money. Soran Majeed said if the situation continued to improve in Iraq, he believed food distributions could end within 18 months. He suggested that as a transitional scheme, the government fixed prices for food staples and continued to sell them through the existing network of food agents. Jamal Mirza Aziz, the Deputy Minister of Relations and Cooperation for the Kurdistan Regional Government in Sulaymaniyah, told IRIN that food distributions could end within a year in the north of Iraq. “We will need the rations until the agricultural sector is rehabilitated. But Kurdistan is very productive and has many resources so it won’t take too long.” He believed it was good to transfer the programme to the CPA and local authorities. “We want to implement it by ourselves because we know our needs, we know what the priority is so we can do it better.” So far he had found the CPA very helpful and they were working together successfully. Soran Saed of development NGO Norwegian People’s Aid, told IRIN in Sulaymaniyah that the food distributions should be phased out within two years as it made people reliant on the state for support. “Maybe in Mongolia it’s not possible to feed people but in Kurdistan it’s fertile and rich and can support it’s people. However, while food handouts will continue for some time yet, other projects funded through the Oil-For-Food Programme have a less certain future and this is causing concern for NGOs. Marinka Baumann, programme coordinator for Swedish NGO Qandil, told IRIN in Arbil that they simply didn’t know what impact the changeover of the Oil-For-Food Programme would have. “Is it going to carry on working? Is there going to be something to replace it? Is the UN coming back? Is the money that’s available going to be used where it’s needed? So much is unknown.” She said there was concern in the north that part of the $3 billion left over in the UN’s Oil For Food coffers gets returned to the north for development projects. On 31 December the UN announced the transfer of US $2.6 billion in surplus funds from its now-defunct "Oil-For-Food" programme to the Development Fund for Iraq. This was the fourth such transfer since the Security Council called for the action in May when it adopted resolution 1483. The first transfer of $1 billion was made two days after the resolution passed. As Oil-For-Food contracts were reviewed and prioritised, a second billion was transferred in October and a third in November. Philip Peturs, the executive director of NGO Kurdistan Reconstruction Organisation, said he was worried that contracts for humanitarian work would not be available any more. With local authorities taking over the programme in the north, he feared that government ministries would be used instead of NGOs. “There are a lot of gaps that remain through (Security Council Resolution) 986 and things it didn’t cover, especially in newly liberated areas.”