Racing the Deadline: The Rush to Account for Iraq’s Public Funds

This report, the sixth in a series from Iraq Revenue Watch, criticizes the timetable set by the International Advisory and Monitoring Board (IAMB) for review of expenditures by the Coalition Provisional Authority's Development Fund for Iraq (DFI).

According to the report, "Under its current mandate, the IAMB has less than three months to account for $7.3 billion of DFI expenditures made by the U.S. led Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA). Unless the Board is able to work beyond June 30, there is no way it can provide an accurate and public accounting for so much money."

Furthermore, the report concludes that "the delay and absence of IAMB oversight of the CPA is particularly worrying in light of recent reports by inspector generals at the Pentagon, USAID, and the General Accounting Office noting pervasive violations of contracting procedures in the allocation of U.S. and Iraqi funds for the reconstruction of Iraq."

These problems are only exacerbated by the lack of Iraqi involvement in the IAMB, the report notes, bringing into question the legitimacy of the IAMB's operations in the eyes of the people it was designed to serve.

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