By Alastair MacdonaldSun Apr 30, 1:56 PM ET
A senior U.S. official said on Sunday Gulf Arab states and other foreigners should help Iraq build new power stations, as U.S. investment in the electricity sector winds down after three years of reconstruction aid.
But some $20 billion of investment may be needed to start meeting all Iraq's electricity demand, and there is no quick end in sight to chronic shortages of power that are among the biggest complaints of the Iraqi public.
Touring a new, U.S.-built power plant that provides some 6 percent of the power now available on Iraq's grid, U.S. diplomat Daniel Speckhard said the new government was "well positioned" for a "transition to self-reliance" in electricity, funded from state revenues generated largely from the export of oil.
"We're not doing new construction projects," Speckhard, who oversees reconstruction efforts for the U.S. embassy, told reporters invited to the 325-megawatt gas-turbine power station at Taza, near Kirkuk, 250 km (150 miles) north of Baghdad.
He added the U.S. government was funding training and maintenance programs for a power system capable at present of supplying only about half the country's needs and was seeking further money for this from Congress.
But, in keeping with overall U.S. strategy three years after invading, the emphasis was now on encouraging Iraq to fund its own reconstruction through oil sales and on pressing other governments and international institutions to provide aid.
"There is now a donor coordination working group for electricity," Speckhard said. "We're looking forward to Japanese lending, we're looking forward to World Bank lending."
"Gulf countries could do a lot more in the area," he added. He noted some estimates put the cost of doubling Iraq's generating capacity to meet demand at about $20 billion.
Japanese donors are involved in overhauling a major power station at Mussayyib, just south of Baghdad, he said.
U.S. FUNDS ENDING
Washington has allocated nearly $20 billion to helping reconstruction in Iraq, but programs are due largely to end this year and an unexpectedly large portion has gone on security costs, prompting criticism in Iraq and the United States about the effectiveness of the project.
U.S. officials have criticized failures of oversight, waste and corruption in the management of the aid budget.
Engineers working at the Tuza power plant, which has its own police force to guard it from insurgent attacks, said sabotage had not directly affected the plant, built over two years under U.S. control at a cost of $178 million.
But thousands of kilometers of power lines stretching across the country as well as the gas pipelines supplying the plant from the nearby Kirkuk oil field are vulnerable.
A concentration of insurgent attacks on power lines to Baghdad, where up to a third of Iraqis live, limited residents of the capital to just six hours of electricity a day last week, Speckhard said, against a national average of 13 hours.
Residents in Kirkuk, by contrast, told Reuters they had almost uninterrupted power at the moment.
U.S. officials say peak generating capacity has almost doubled since the invasion and they have ensured a more even distribution than under Saddam Hussein, when the capital had few power cuts and some provinces had little power at all.
But demand has also risen, hitting a peak of 8,845 MW last summer compared with peak generating capacity of 5,400 MW -- of which more than half can be kept off-line by sabotage and maintenance problems.