Oil Ministry in crisis, experts say

 

Nidhal al-Laithi

 

Azzaman, March 22, 2006

 

Iraq’s oil ministry, mired in corruption, is facing a serious crisis, experts said.

 

They said the ministry lacked “effective leadership” and the officials in charge were only keen to attain personal gains.

 

The accusations come as exports have plunged to nearly half their level before the 2003 U.S. invasion and fears that the ministry may not be able even to pay for fuel imports.

 

“The Iraqi oil sector currently suffers from the absence of an effective leadership, bad administration, retreat in output and has become a fertile ground for corruption,” said Fadhil Jalabi, an Iraqi oil expert and head of the London-based Energy Center.

 

Shamkhi Faraj, a senior ministry official, agreed.

 

“The country is ruined and these officials are working to achieve their personal wishes,” he said.

 

Another senior official, refusing to be named, was even blunter in his criticism, saying: “The conditions have reached the worst stage one can imagine.”

 

Jalabi said officials put in charge of the oil sector, the country’s mainstay, were being selected on factional and sectarian grounds rather than efficiency.

 

Officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Iraqi oil was being sold at “a high discount” on international market raising suspicions that senior officials were involved in return for hefty commissions.

 

“There is no justification at all for these discounts at a time prices and demand are soaring,” Yahya Saeed, an Iraqi researcher at the London School of Economics and Political Science, said.

 

The ministry needs to raise nearly $500 million a month to cover fuel imports, but the officials said allocations for imports were running out.

 

They said if the ministry halts imports the current fuel crisis will exacerbate, leading to popular discontent and anger across the country.