Kurdishaspect.com - By Baqi Barzani
Where is our national oil heading to and who is pocketing the revenues?
To further widen my horizons on the corruption plague, I got compelled to expand my journeys throughout Kurdistan. My ongoing independent research has exceedingly assisted me in further developing my factual understanding of the state of affairs in Kurdistan as well as divulging scores of obscure KRG’s hypocritical exploits that continues to affect the lives of ordinary Kurdistani citizens. For decades, despite public knowledge, the status quo has maintained wordlessly. Optimistically, some imperative corrective/preventive measures will be taken now by the concerned authorities or the general public.
In part one this topic on burgeoning corruption, I had indicated briefly to the black, huge oil smuggling business in Iraqi Kurdistan. Here are some additional facts and details:
Private foreign oil drilling firms from XXX countries have been dynamic inKurdistan since 1991. I prefer to avoid citing their names. With cooperation and coordination with KDP and PUK, they did their job, got paid and left for different reasons. Since then, oil has been smuggled out of Kurdistan. At the outset, a strategic joint agreement between PUK and KDP was sealed regarding the trading and sharing of oil revenues. It lasted for a while, it ceased for a while, and then all over again, it was renewed and it carries on till now. Both parties are well conscious of the facts and figures, but abstain deliberately from releasing the statistics to the general public. Realities will soon someday come to light, especially when the general public starts questioning them...
PUK controls the lion's share of oil trade in and around Sulaimaniya, while KDP has the whole oil wells in villages, cities and surrounding Duhok and Hawler governorates under its full clout.
Oil in Bazian refinery, Dola Bakra, Koyeh, and Khaneqin, which is in PUK sphere of influence, directly ends up in the hands of Islamic Republic of Iran. PUK has signed numerous secrete trade agreements with Iran in 2003, 2006, 2010. Since 2003, Iran has constantly tried to boost its ties and strengthen its grip in the governorate of Sulaimaniya. Official Iranian cultural and trade centers can visibly be noticed in city center in Sulaimaniya as of Feb.5, 2011.
As for KDP: Iranian oil tankers also illicitly transport Kurdistan oil from wells located in Kavro Gosek, Perdesht, Barda Rash, Shivashav, ( between Hawler and Duhok highway) en route to Hawler,-Sulimania- Bandare Abbas port. The cost of oil for a 24-foot flat tanker sold to Iran by KDP is currently at rate of 6500 US $. According to the feedback from employees working there, some 1,000 (One thousand) tankers are filled and transported on a daily basis from these four regions alone to Iran. Just these 4 regions. Due to the sensitivity of subject matter, KDP has been very cautious in appointing only top confidante members of Barzani tribe in running and overseeing capacities in such sites.
Owing to the close relationship between KDP-ANKARA, oil refined from or round Zakho district is sold merely to Turkish Private and state refinery companies for a reduced rate of 5000 $ per a 24-foot flat tanker, as per a mutual accord reached between KDP-Ankara in 2003. Some 4000 tankers depart Kurdistan en route to Diarbakir, Ankara, Istanbul and Izmir through Ibrahim Khalil Customs Facility every day. We are talking hundreds of millions per annual.
The names of the Iranian oil companies purchasing Kurdistan oil consist of: Milat, Nokan, Kaivan and Paivand, the four major ones.
More intriguing is that all these oil tankers and containers have the word” IRAQIOIL” inscribed on them, another way to put the realities out of public sight. KRG authorities claim recently that they have allowed discrete oil companies to resume exploring and extracting oil in Kurdistan region newly. Let me rectify a misrepresentation here. The entire story is nothing more than another distorting approach. KRG is lately making the announce public because they can no longer rebuff or conceal these surfacing truths. Oil trade resumed in 1991.
Is Duhok governorate really the talked-about Duhok?
I paid a visit to the governorate of Duhok, which is also under the influence of KDP. I was under the impression that at least Duhok has undergone rapid economic development. The truth of matter is except for a set of luminous, luxurious complex buildings that is also owned by senior KDP elite, nothing has actually changed. Major roads are still unpaved; the public suffer from water and electricity shortages, and continue to whine about Government lack of involvement. Fabrications about booming economy and reconstruction efforts by KRG are only implied to multiply commercial profits by drawing more worldwide investment and obtaining more political mileage.
It is time for accountability, for some serious answering and questionings, for uprooting the corruption plague, for eradicating these social and economic injustices, for reforming, for bettering Kurdistan, enacting some serious ant-corruption laws, changing the life of every one, and for spending the public funds on public welfare!!
No comments:
Post a Comment