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Over 500 families have moved into the newly opened Shekhan camp for internally displaced people (IDPs) in northern Iraq over the past week and hundreds more will move in in the coming days.

The camp has been constructed by a consortium of humanitarian partners with the support of multiple donors and will eventually provide shelter forsome 1,000 displaced families.

The International Organization for Migration (IOM), with funding from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, contributed the lead technical role in camp design and construction, and provided the internal electrical network, gravelled roads, prefabricated buildings for administrative offices and a health center, and private kitchens for each family, including sinks and electrical connections.

IOM will also staff and manage the camp primary health care centre, which will be handicap accessible, and will provide psychosocial support to displaced families, particularly women and children. Activities will include psycho-social consultations, individual and group counselling, and opportunities for sports and recreation, including a playground area.

IOM also provided transport for displaced families to get to Shekhan, in coordination with the Dohuk Governorate Bureau of Relief and Humanitarian Affairs (BRHA), and a UNHCR multi-functional team, which jointly carried out the process of family selection. Most of the families were living in unfinished and abandoned buildings in Dohuk Governorate.

Shekhan was built under the guidance of Dohuk Governorate BRHA. Partners included IOM and the International Humanitarian Partnership, Technisches Hilfswerk and Action Against Hunger. UNHCR held a coordination role. The camp is now fully operational and will be officially handed over to Dohuk Governorate BRHA in mid-May.

Dohuk hosts the most IDPs of all Iraq governorates. Shekhan camp is the 16th IDP camp in the area administered by Dohuk Governorate and two additional camps are under construction. But there is still insufficient housing for the displaced population.

The 5-Miles IDP Camp in Basra, a Story of Social Cohesion

The opening ceremony of new shops managed by internally displaced persons in the popular al-Asri market, 5 miles off the city of Basra, marks a story of success.

Following a fire in a community of displaced people in Tannoma District, 300 families (2,000 people) who had lost everything, settled down in a camp in the proximity of the market since August 2014.

The governorate and the United Nations provided basic services such as shelters, water and sanitation, and schools. The UN Development Programme (UNDP) helped boost job skills and entrepreneurship through training. As they regain their livelihoods, they now show signs of recovery.

“The reconstruction of the souk, which we are inaugurating today, will help the displaced restart their lives, and is pivotal to building social cohesion in the 5-Miles neighbourhood,” said Lise Grande, the UN Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General and UNDP Resident Representative in Iraq. “With the hope of resuming normal life, many go on with their new economic activities in the camp’s environment,” she added.

UNDP is spearheading the UN support programmes to generate employment and income for the displaced and their host community, addressing potential competition on the labour market and the stress on camp neighbourhoods. Country-wide the UNDP’s livelihoods programme has reached to some 14,000 vulnerable people in 2014.

By Wassim Bassem for Al-Monitor. Any opinions expressed are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Iraq Business News.

Souk al-Shorja is Baghdad's oldest market. It was established in the late Abbasid period about A.D. 750 and was first called Souk al-Rayahin then Souk al-Attarin. It is part of the historic area that includes the Abbasid palace on the Tigris River and the Khulafa mosque on al-Jumhuriya Street. "Shorja" means "salty water" in Arabic, and there was once a well where the market is now.

This market has remained throughout this period and later, and preserved the style of its shops, stores and squares that still swarm with shoppers and merchants.

Modern shopping malls in the Iraqi capital cannot compete with Shorja. It consists of a series of overlapping souks that preserved their traditional and popular character. It offers food and conventional household goods and more specialized items for religious occasions and holidays. Traditional spice dealers sell all kinds of spices, sugar, tea, grains and sweets.

There are several ways in to the market. Al-Monitor used the Rashid Street entrance, the narrow alleyways no more than three or four meters (10 or 13 feet) wide. Some of them are part of the market, which still preserves its old structure and has not seen any radical changes over the decades.

The activities in this market are not limited to wholesale and retail activities, but include various other transactions and importing and exporting business. It bustles with traders, shopkeepers, street vendors, shoppers, industrialists, brokers, owners of shipping companies and observers.

By Shelly Kittleson for Al-Monitor. Any opinions expressed are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Iraq Business News.

The road to the front line runs close to the Syrian border, through Yazidi towns once occupied by the Islamic State (IS) and bombarded by airstrikes.

Peshmerga fighters allied with various other forces say they will move forward as soon as the president of the Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) authorizes them to do so.

Meanwhile, several members of the Yazidi ethno-religious minority expressed bewilderment to Al-Monitor about the halt of the offensive in late December 2014, after major gains were obtained with the help of US airstrikes, when over 3,000 square kilometers (1,864 square miles) in the Sinjar area were reportedly taken back from IS in less than 48 hours.

The Sinjar area in northwestern Iraq was hurled into the international spotlight last year when the peshmerga withdrew during an attack by IS, leaving the Yazidis, deemed "devil-worshippers" by IS, at the extremist group's mercy.

IS took many Yazidi women and girls captive and killed men en masse. Other Yazidis escaped to the mountains, where they subsequently suffered in the harsh summer heat and conditions, from which many had to be evacuated. Tented encampments still littered the mountains when Al-Monitor crossed through them on its way to the front line in late March 2015.

At the front line, ​Isa Zaway, commander of peshmerga Brigade 4, refused to say how much of the city of Sinjar had been retaken, but he did say that the “strategic points are under the control of the peshmerga.”

Taking Al-Monitor to a high point overlooking the city, which came under fire during the visit, Zaway noted that the peshmerga in the area worked “hand in hand” with the Kurdistan Workers Party, an officially designated "terrorist organization," and the People’s Protection Units, sharing information and weaponry.

By John Lee.

Iraq's Ministry of Electricity, in coordination with the National Investment Commission (NIC), have announced an investment opportunity to construct three solar power stations and one wind power station.

The plants will capacity of between 5 and 10 MW, and be situated in Diwaniya, Najaf and Missan (Maysan) provinces:

1. Diwaniya: A solar power station on a 50-donum site at Dagharah;
2. Diwaniya: A solar power station on a 50-to-60-donum site at Al- Suniyah;
3. Najaf : A solar power station on a 200-donum site at Al- Haideriyah;
4. Missan: A wind power station at Ali al- Gharbi.

Investors willing to invest in this opportunity should submit a letter of interest to the National Investment Commission by 13th May, providing a profile that contains the following:

• Project feasibility study that matches with the one arranged by the Ministry of Electricity (which can be obtained with the information confidentiality form when visiting NIC)
• Signing the information confidentiality form when visiting NIC
• Preliminary engineering plans
• Financial competency with the details of the project funding sources
• Duration and stages of project implementation
• Similar accomplished projects

The project will enjoy the following privileges:

• Tax and fees exemptions according to investment law provisions
• Ministry of Electricity, NIC and provincial governments shall undertake providing all facilitations to investor in order to obtain all licenses and approvals needed through the Ones Stop Shop in addition to providing facilitations during the implementation and operation stages
• The investor has the right to repatriate capitals, revenues and workers fees according to the CBI regulations after paying all financial dues.

For further information please contact:

• [email protected] –Attention: Mr. Ra’ad Qassem. Director General- Ministry of Electricity; or,
• [email protected]   National Investment commission,

(Source: National Investment Commission)

(Renewable Energy image via Shutterstock)

This article was originally published by Niqash. Any opinions expressed are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Iraq Business News.

Kurdistan of the South? Basra Takes Further Steps Toward Independence Inside Iraq

Those who believe that the resource-rich province of Basra would be better off as a semi-autonomus region say the time is right to make this change. Others say any such project will endanger Iraq just when the country needs unity most.

The next few months will be crucial for one of Iraq's most resource-rich provinces. For some time now there have been calls to make the southern province of Basra a region – that is, it would become more independent from the federal government in Baghdad in a similar way to Iraqi Kurdistan.

“We have noticed that this idea is more widely accepted by social and tribal leaders who were against the plan in the past,” says politician, judge and legal expert, Wael Abdul-Latif, a former governor of Basra who's been campaigning for more independence for the province since 2008. “We have started to collect the votes of those who support the creation of a region of Basra. After this we will submit a request to the Independent High Electoral Commission.”

Now volunteers say they've already collected enough signatures to put forward a request to make Basra a region – and they say that they'll submit the proposal in mid-April.

To establish a region Article 119 of the Iraqi Constitution says certain steps must be taken – this involves either a tenth of all eligible voters in the province supporting the idea or one third of the provincial council members submitting the request. After this Iraq's Parliament decides whether to go ahead with turning a province into a more independent region with a vote.

And Basra has long been a candidate for this. In fact, the first request for regionalisation was submitted in 1921. “The rationale behind the petition was based on the economic and social characteristics of Basra, such as its having a seaport and economic vibrancy,” website Al Monitor reports.

By John Lee.

Karbala [Kerbala] governorate is reportedly planning to build an industrial city to attract local and foreign capital into the manufacturing sector.

The province's deputy governor, Jassim Al-Fatlawi, has said that an agreement has been signed with the Ministry of Industry to create the infrastructure.

Karbala’s government is to allocate the land for the project, while the Ministry will install the infrastructure, including roads, sewage, water and electricity.

(Source: Emirates 24|7)

By Ahmed Mousa Jiyad.

The Minister of Oil, Mr. Adil Abdul Mahdi, made a recent statement through which he highlighted three interrelated important issues:

• the first is that Iraq “lost $14,448,146,000” since 2011 up to the end of 2014 as “compensation” payment to IOCs;
• the second he referred to article 12.5 of the long term service contracts; and
• third he attributed this to “bad planning or due to obsolete instruction or measures”.

He then concluded by stating that “this is the real corruption.., and this is due to the real absence of planning and matured management” (http://www.alitthad.com/News_Details.php?ID=27986 (31 March 2015)

In my humble view the stated amount of paid compensation is so huge that neither legal premise nor actual production could justify it. Hence, there is something seriously wrong, suspicions and scandalous, as explained below.  

Let me take and address these three issues but in a reverse order.

Absence of sound planning and good follow-up

I fully agree with the Minister regarding the absence of good and sound planning, lacking of prudent resource management and prevalence of real corruption. I would even add further that the Ministry of Oil suffers from many serious and daunting skills and capacity gaps, especially with regards to development of upstream petroleum projects and their contracts.

There are ample examples and evidence in support of the above assertions especially post 2003 period. Moreover and without hesitation I could even argue that this unfortunate profile extends beyond the Ministry of Oil to the entire country on the macro-level whether that relates to the annual state budget, the four year national development plans or the Electricity Master Plan 2006-2015, or any other efforts at ministerial, sectoral and national levels.

In many of my documented contributions and interventions I had constantly criticized what I called the “Big-bush” strategy of the bid-rounds and highlighted the weaknesses or disadvantages (for Iraq) of the basic model of the long term service contracts-LTSC.

That said and based on a comparative analysis these LTSCs are better than PSCs and, thus, they do serve best “the highest interest of the Iraqi people” principle as enshrined in the Iraqi Constitution.

Therefore, the repeated recent attempts (by the Minsters of Oil and of Finance) to attributes all these shortcomings, malpractices and financial irregularities to the type of LTSC seems to be part of a concerted orchestrated campaign to advocates and lobby for PSCs contracts; and they (the two ministers) are only releasing testing balloons to measure the reaction to their calls for converting the federal ministry of oil LTSC to PSCs similar to those of the KRG; deliberately ignoring how disadvantageous those PSCs to KR economy.

Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems (MHPS) has received an order from the Ministry of Electricity (MOE) of Iraq for refurbishment of Unit 4 (output: 200 megawatts) at the Hartha Thermal Power Station.

The refurbishment work, scheduled for completion in May 2017, requires large-scale replacement of core components of the plant's seriously degraded power generation facilities. The project is being financed through a Japanese ODA (Overseas Development Assistance) loan extended to the Government of the Republic of Iraq.

The Hartha Thermal Power Station, which incorporates both gas- and oil-fired units, is located in the city of Basra in Iraq's south. The original power generation equipment was supplied by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. (MHI) in 1980, and for more than three decades it has played a vital role in providing power to the Basra region.

But after three wars the original facilities had sustained partial damage as well as gradual degradation, so that today Unit 4 is operating at only some 40 percent of its rated capacity. The newly ordered refurbishment work will restore the unit to its original rated output as a way of contribution to Iraq's recovery.

The rehabilitation project will consist of replacing Unit 4's core equipment - boilers, steam turbines and generators - plus introducing a state-of-the-art distributed control system (DCS).

These improvements will significantly enhance the plant's reliability. Installation and other work at the site will be performed by GAMA Power Systems Engineering and Contracting, Inc., an engineering firm headquartered in Turkey.

Besides MHI's earlier involvement in the Hartha Thermal Power Plant, Hitachi, Ltd. - MHI's partner in the integration of thermal power generation systems business that resulted in MHPS's founding - also has a long track record in Iraq, having taken part in refurbishment projects for MOE at thermal power stations in Taji, Al-Musaib and Mosul.

Through the newly ordered refurbishment work at the Hartha Thermal Power Plant, MHPS will make a further contribution to restoring Iraq's domestic power supply capability. Going forward, MHPS will continue to cooperate in achieving stable power supplies and enhancing generating efficiency, as a way of contribution to Iraq's economic and social recovery.

(Source: Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems)

By Wassim Bassem for Al-Monitor. Any opinions expressed are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Iraq Business News.

Qasim al-Rubaie, a teacher from Babil province, told Al-Monitor in front of a grocery store, “You will not find any Iraqi grown vegetables and fruits. Instead you'll find imported goods from Jordan, Turkey, Iran and the Gulf countries.”

In fact, Iraqi agricultural products are not found in many local grocery stores, as if Iraq is no longer producing food products. The same applies to locally manufactured products, such as tissues, luxury items and drinks, which cannot be found in the markets. Yet, markets are overflowing with all sorts of imported goods.

This phenomenon is not new, according to Alaa Najm, a merchant. He told Al-Monitor, “The presence of domestic goods in the markets began to decline in the late 1980s. The reason for that was the former regime’s military expenditures. Then agricultural and industrial production decreased, and the government’s support for these sectors vanished, factories became obsolete and agricultural land reclamation projects no longer exist.”

Najm began traveling to China in 2003, along with hundreds of Iraqi retail and wholesale traders, to import goods at a cheap price. Because of the traders’ import activities, foreign products have become abundant on the Iraqi market, in the absence of mechanisms to protect local production, obsolete production techniques and an unimplemented customs tariff law on imported goods.

In an interview with Al-Monitor, Maytham Elaibi, an economist and academic researcher at the University of Baghdad, said that the major collapse in the domestic production of goods is attributed to “the economic policies that have failed to support factories and farm owners in making their products profitable.”

Elaibi said, “The low salaries have prompted workers to move from the private to the public sector, which increased disguised unemployment, which is unproductive.”