Muthanna needs ID150 billion – reconstruction committee

MUTHANNA / IraqiNews.com: The budget of Muthanna province does not suit the needs of Muthanna province in terms of the current projects, the chairman of the local council’s reconstruction committee said, noting that the province needs ID150 billion. “The budget allocated for the province is not enough for establishing one giant project,” Rasoul Radi Abu Hasna told IraqiNews.com news agency. “The province’s budget for this year is 66 billion Iraqi dinars, the province received only ID 36 billion which is not enough to set up one giant strategic project such as the great sewage projects whose cost ha reached 135 billion Iraqi dinars while we have only ID35 billion,” he explained. “A total of 600 schools and 48 clinics were established throughout Muthanna as well as other health projects, including the establishment of a hospital with 400 beds in Samawa city and another one in al-Rumaithiya district, in addition to two more hospitals with 200 beds each in al-Khudr and al-Warkaa districts,” he noted. “The diagram of the reconstruction level in the province indicates that the reconstruction percentage in the rural area is bigger than the city for implementing the big sewage project,” Abu Hasna said. “The Muthanna sewage project is a giant project and it needs time and patience,” he continued. “The lack of sufficient money is considered one of the most important obstacles facing the reconstruction and development sector in the province,” he said. Meanwhile, president of the follow-up committee of the Muthanna council, Faleh Sari, told IraqiNews.com news agency that “the supervising role of the committee was not efficient for the lack of the necessary infrastructure, in addition to the vague laws.” “The overall projects realized in the province are full of mistakes and some of them were referred to the executive authority due to allegations of financial and administrative corruption,” deputy chairman of the services committee, Mahdi Jawad Mohammad al-Zerafi told IraqiNews.com news agency. Muthanna, 280 km south of Baghdad, shares borders with Saudi Arabia. Its capital is Samawa. It was the first Iraqi province where security responsibilities were transferred from the Multi-National Forcea (MNF) to the Iraqis. On July 13, 2006 British, Australian, and Japanese forces handed over security responsibility for Muthanna province to Iraqi forces. SH (I)/SR 1