Plus:
*KRG to merge electricity, natural resources ministry…
*…Ashti Hawrami to head new Energy Ministry
*Central, region governments to restart oil law talks early June
*Iraq dedicates $40M for refugees…
*…Gets nowhere at debt conference
*Much more…
The Iraqi government has moved, demoted or fired more than a dozen people within the southern Iraqi oil sector this month as domestic and international union officials decry their treatment.
This week reports surfaced that South Oil Co. Director General Abdul Jabbar Lauby was removed from the head of Iraq’s largest and most productive state oil company, as well as the head of the South Gas Co. and Iraqi Oil Tankers Co.
United Press International is told that the leadership at the top of the South Refineries Co. will be removed as well, Ben Lando reports for UPI.
Lauby was offered a position as adviser to the Oil Ministry but reportedly has not accepted the position. Phone calls and e-mails to the ministry were not returned.
“It’s something up to the government,” said Hassan Juma’a Awad, president of the Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions.
He said 11 people from the South Refinery Co. were demoted or fired. Eight were union members, including the vice president, the central committee manger and the secretary of culture and information, Awad said. The three administrative staff include the director general’s secretary, and administration and finance officers.
He said he expects more jobs shuffled or lost, including his, adding, “While Shahristani is in power, it will happen.”
Iraqi Kurdistan’s ministries of Electricity and Natural Resources are to be merged, and current oil chief Ashti Hawrami is likely to be named minister. Sources here told United Press International that Hawrami is the front-runner for the soon-to-be-established post of KRG minister of energy.
Iraq is currently considering resupplying Jordan with oil at preferential prices, Iraqi Vice President Tareq Hashemi said, Hani Hazaimeh reports for The Jordan Times. The Iraqi government will review the matter under the terms set by a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed by both countries in August 2006, said Hashemi in a meeting with private sector representatives, stressing his government is keen to activate the deal to serve the interests of both countries.
The Iraqi central and Kurdistan regional governments will resume negotiations over the oil law and key issues in early June, UPI reports.
The Iraqi government has donated $40 million for the United Nations World Food Program to enable it to proceed ahead with plans to aid millions of Iraqi refugees, a WFP statement said, Marsi Abutareq reports for Azzaman.
A United Nations conference on Iraq ended Thursday with a declaration encouraging debt forgiveness, but without commitments from Iraq’s biggest creditors, The Associated Press reports.Iraq has at least $67 billion in foreign debt — most of it from loans by Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar during Saddam Hussein’s rule. The United Nations Compensation Commission says that separately, $28 billion remains to be paid for Iraq’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait. Iraq sets aside 5 percent of its oil revenue to meet the compensation claims.
Some prominent journalists have agreed with Scott McClellann, the former White House press secretary, who in his new memoir, “What Happened,” said the national news media neglected their watchdog role in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, calling reporters “complicit enablers” of the Bush administration’s push for war, Brian Stalter reports for The New York Times. Katie Couric, the anchor of “CBS Evening News,” said on Wednesday that she had felt pressure from government officials and corporate executives to cast the war in a positive light. Jessica Yellin, who worked for MSNBC in 2003 and now reports for CNN, said on Wednesday that journalists had been “under enormous pressure from corporate executives, frankly, to make sure that this was a war presented in a way that was consistent with the patriotic fever in the nation.”
##
I am sure Jabbar al Lueby’s recalcitrance contributed mightily to his own demise as DG of the South Oil Company, however, replacing him will be far more complicated than just appointing another man, even a very qualified man. Assuming that his replacement as DG stands, I hope he takes the Advisor job with the MoO as there is no one in Iraq, who can contribute more to standing up a functional MoO; something that has failed to happen under several Ministers, in the 5 years subsequent to the fall of Saddam. Whatever else Jabbar may or may not be today, he was the glue that held South Iraq’s oil and electricity sectors together for several months following March 2003. I know first hand in those early days following March 2003 that his ability to communicate with Coalition Officials, his leadership of the South Oil Company employees, his ability to coordinate with management of the Refinery and power companies and his connections with local tribal leaders were key components of the relatively quick restoration of power and oil production in the South. He seemed to be everywhere at once in a very hazardous environment. During his movements he received no personal security assistance from the Coalition. His politics are not currently correct, and he is known for being strong willed, self-centered and uncooperative unless forced. Having said that, in my mind he should be a national hero in Iraq. He survived and thrived, while helping a lot of others do likewise; this in a very dangerous area during very dangerous times where political power kept shifting. I am not saying he may not have done things that are illegal under Iraqi law or pass the smell test to those of us accustomed to Western standards of ethics, however, in 2003, he was the right man in the right place at the right time. Baghdad can take his title from him, but taking his power will prove more problematic, as he has markers from a lot of people up and down the chain among the power brokers in the South.
This is the fate for those who cooperat with accupation this the first followed by other all those wiled doges will meet the same future