Sole-sourced contracts for Iraq still at issue, monitoring board says

The International Advisory and Monitoring Board (IAMB) on the Development Fund for Iraq (DFI) has received an audit on the country's oil export sales during the first half of this year, a United Nations spokesman reported today.

The IAMB said it would draw conclusions on the audit "after due consideration" of the audit reports presented by the firm KPMG.

The Board had previously voiced concern about the use of non-competitive contracting using DFI resources. Today, the IAMB said the United States Government had provided information on audits of sole-sourced contracts by the Defence Contract Audit Agency.

The US, the Board said, had also agreed to commission a special audit of sole-sourced contracts to determine, among other issues, whether any of those contracts had not been audited.

The IAMB is comprised of representatives of the United Nations, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the Arab Fund for Social Development. The audits of the DFI - the resources of which come mainly from the proceeds of petroleum export sales and are to be for the benefit of the Iraqi people - were conducted under the authority of a Security Council resolution on Iraq.

Meanwhile, donors to a separate reconstruction fund for Iraq ended their meeting today in Tokyo welcoming the progress made so far in disbursing funds to rebuild the war-torn country.

Nearly all of the $1 billion committed to the International Reconstruction Fund Facility for Iraq (IRFFI) has been allocated to priority projects approved by a review board, and the donor committee voiced appreciation that despite security challenges, many of the projects are moving forward.