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Re: Banned Goods



Hi Ramsey and others,

Thanks for your comments.  You also ask:

> Does 
> anyone know why less than 50% of approved contracts
> make it into the country?

So that people know, the data to which Ramsey's
referring can be found on the UN Office of the Iraq
Programme's website at
http://www.un.org/Depts/oip/latest/basicfigures.html

The second table (accurate to 31 March 2001 when I
look at it now) reveals that, although $17,477 +
$3,830.8 = $21,307.8 million of contracts (approved by
the Sanctions Committee + approved under the "green
lists"), only $12,082.7 million (56.7%) have reached
Iraq.

I don't know have a good sense of why this particular
number is the one that we see.  Contracts, under the
best of circumstances, take time to arrive.  In Iraq's
case, there are a number of reasons why delays
lengthen.  These include:

1. a company may not start producing a "non green
list" contract until it's approved as they won't want
to produce something that may not be approved.

2. uncertainties in the approval process may cause
reputable companies to stay away, leaving less
reputable companies willing to take the sort of
gambles that "oil for food" forces on them.

3. the Iraqi government will select companies from
politically favourable countries - not always the most
commercially viable companies.

Finally, one feature of the "oil for food" programme
is that the amount of money available has grown from
very small quantities initially to larger ones
currently.  The first table on the OIP page above
shows that Iraq only earned $20.7 billion over the
first six phases (three years) of the programme.  The
remaining $24 billion or so have come in the past year
and a half.  

While I have not seen data that show how arrivals
break down by date approved, I would imagine that
almost everything approved under the first six phases
has arrived; things approved under the more recent
phases are probably in various stages of trickling in.

While I don't have a more precise picture than this, I
do hope that this helps somewhat.

Best wishes,


=====
Colin Rowat
274 Vanderbilt Ave., #2
Brooklyn NY 11205
USA
(m) 917 517 5840
(f) 707 221 3672

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