UN watchdog faults Iraq's handling of oil wealth

[cal04]

An Iraqi mechanism set up to help track Baghdad's use of its oil wealth suffers from poor management, flawed accounting systems and weak internal controls, a U.N. watchdog agency reported on Thursday.

A draft audit report prepared by Ernst & Young for the International Advisory and Monitoring Board (IAMB) and covering oil exports for the second half of 2005 criticized a broad range of government efforts to account for oil sales and Baghdad's use of the proceeds.

Oil is the country's main source of hard currency needed to rebuild after years of war, and the energy sector is struggling to recover from years of mismanagement and U.N. sanctions that were lifted after the U.S.-led 2003 invasion.

More recently the oil sector has suffered from sabotage and poor maintenance, but the audit made clear that it also suffers from mismanagement that has left the door open to smuggling and corruption.


INCOMPLETE RECORDS, INEFFECTIVE CONTROLS

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N10180512.htm

[Vincardog]

1. Smuggling and corruption another successful project brought to you by aWoL

[ShockediSay]

2. "door open to corruption?" - - yaoughta see the US oil lobby

lawyers having their way with our so called democratically elected representatives