13.1 |
Resources
•
Implementation
had been undermined by the lack of physical monitoring
due
to the
security situation.
•
Weaknesses
in the DFID Office in Basra had contributed to the problems
within
the SIESP.
The Office had been set up “hastily under pressure from UK
and
locally to
show a DFID presence”. It had proved very difficult to recruit
staff for
Iraq,
leading to the appointment of staff with “little or no experience
in managing
programmes
or staff”.
•
The DFID
Office in Basra had established “good controls” over
SIESP
finances.
The Office’s decision to close the employment generation
component
immediately
after its initial assessment had saved £3m (the amount
remaining
in the
employment generation budget).
700.
Of the £3m
that had been spent, the IAD estimated that over £2m had been
spent
in a way
“that did not meet [the SIESP’s] objectives”. The lack of physical
monitoring
made it
difficult to be more precise.
701.
In May 2006,
DFID conducted an internal review in order to determine the
extent
of the
loss from the SIESP employment component.436
The review
concluded that:
•
£254,105
had been spent on projects where there was clear evidence of
full
or partial
misuse of money, based on monitoring by DFID staff.
•
£296,187
had been spent on projects where there was “no
clear evidence
of either good
use or misuse of money (because there
was no monitoring
information
on file) but where anecdotal evidence from interviews suggested
that
some
percentage of the projects were not successfully
completed”.
•
£1,021,223
had been spent on projects which DFID was “reasonably
confident”
had been
successfully completed, based on information on file (in the form
of
photographs
or visit reports) or anecdotal evidence.
702.
Dr Nemat
Shafik, DFID Permanent Secretary from March 2008, told the
Inquiry:
“We have a
zero tolerance policy on corruption and we act on it
immediately.
The then
Provincial Council was very unhappy with us as a result… But on
that,
we don’t
compromise.
“[The
SIESP] is … the only case that we are aware of, where we had a
significant
fraud,
which, given the scale of the funds that we were disbursing, and
given the
context,
is, I think, a pretty good track record.
“In the
case of the Iraq portfolio … we actually had a higher level of
scrutiny than our
normal
portfolio because of the risks involved. So we would get monthly
reporting
on risks,
security risk, staff risk, risks to our money …”437
436
Minute
Hendrie to Dinham, 19 May 2006, ‘SIESP Employment Generation
Project’.
437
Public
hearing, 13 January 2010, page 54.
561