Construction Jobs for Iraqis Set to Spike

The United States has spent about $2 billion for construction projects in Iraq but is employing only about 8,000 Iraqis, a number the head of the reconstruction contracting office says will rise to 50,000 by July 1.

Retired Adm. David Nash, the director of the program-management office overseeing the $18.6 billion in reconstruction funds allocated for Iraq, said Monday the pace of awarding contracts is going to pick up considerably in the next six weeks and with it the number of Iraqis who are hired.

Nash told United Press International one company showed up to work in Iraq with 800 Egyptian employees. Nash told them to go home and directed the company to hire Iraqis instead. "We're getting really focused on getting Iraqi employees," he said.

U.S. officials estimate Iraq suffers from at least 30 percent unemployment. The numbers are difficult to measure because there is no unemployment insurance and the economy was virtually shut down after the war.

Nash's goal is to have hired 50,000 construction laborers by July 1, the day the Iraqi government assumes sovereignty.

Keeping those 8,000 on the job at all has been a struggle in the last month. By April 10, when the security situation was at its worst, Nash said, only about one-quarter of the Iraqis with jobs in the construction sector showed up for work. The number has climbed back to about 75 percent of what it was before the security situation deteriorated -- both in Fallujah, with the killing of four American security guards in late March and the subsequent U.S. siege of the city, and in Najaf, Karbala and Baghdad with the uprising of a militia loyal to the cleric Moqtada Sadr.

In late April the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) funneled $500 million from the Development Fund for Iraq (DFI) into emergency security projects. The DFI is a CPA-managed, U.N.-sanctioned account currently worth approximately $7 billion.

Nash's office has come under attack for the slow pace of contract awards. Only $4 billion of the $18.4 billion he oversees has been spent so far, about half on construction projects and half on materiel and services such as weapons and uniforms for the military and oil equipment.

Nash said Monday the pace of spending is going to increase dramatically in the coming weeks, with another $3 billion in construction awards made and $3 billion in materiel.

The CPA, Nash's organization and the military also are pooling efforts to accelerate small reconstruction projects in at least seven cities. The projects range from a children's theater and playground in Mosul to water-treatment plants in Fallujah and Ramadi, road repairs in Baquba and landfills in Baghdad. Forty such projects worth $130 million have been contracted so far, employing almost 2,000.

The attitude toward providing work for Iraqis has shifted considerably over the last year. In August, a CPA spokesman told reporters that the CPA was trying to create jobs for Iraqis but was concentrating on developing a demand economy that would generate employment naturally.

The sector of the economy yielding the most jobs by far for Iraqis is the security sector. There are more than 200,000 Iraqis serving in the new police force, civil-defense force, security protective service and army. Another 3,600 Iraqis are employed constructing barracks, offices and training ranges for those forces.

Baghdad is netting the largest share of reconstruction money of any of the 18 provinces with $3 billion and 229 projects scheduled. Basra is next with $1.8 billion and 203 projects. Ninewah province -- home to Mosul, the large oil city in the north -- is getting $1 billion for 216 projects.

From: http://www.insightmag.com/news/2004/05/16/World/Construction.Jobs.For.Iraqis.Set.To.Spike-682984.shtml