January 30, 2005: Inspector General Finds That $8.8 Billion in Iraqi Funds Handled by CPA Cannot be Accounted for

Stuart W. Bowen. [Source: PBS]A report completed by Stuart W. Bowen, the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, finds that $8.8 billion of the $20 billion in Iraqi funds that the Coalition Provisional Authority spent between April 16, 2003 and June 28, 2004 is unaccounted for because of inefficiencies and bad management. “Severe inefficiencies and poor management” by the Coalition Provisional Authority has “left auditors with no guarantee the money was properly used,” the report says. The reports says that in once case, it’s possible that thousands of “ghost employees” were on an unnamed ministry’s payroll. “CPA staff identified at one ministry that although 8,206 guards were on the payroll, only 602 guards could be validated,” the audit report states. “Consequently, there was no assurance funds were not provided for ghost employees.” [Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, 1/30/2005, pp. 16 ; CNN, 1/31/2005] Two years after the release of this report, the inspector general will tell Congressman Henry Waxman (D-Ca) that the $8.8 billion figure was in fact too low because his investigation was limited to funds disbursed to Iraqi ministries between October 2003 and June 24, 2004. Bowen will tell Waxman that he believes that the lack of accountability and transparency actually extended to the entire $20 billion spent by the CPA. [US Congress, 2/6/2007, pp. 16 ]