Iraq integrity commission says Kirkuk airport 'only one percent completed'

Iraq’s Commission of Integrity (COI) has charged that renovations on an international airport in the city of Kirkuk is “only one percent completed” and will require several years to be fully functional.

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Iraq’s Commission of Integrity (COI) has charged that renovations on an international airport in the city of Kirkuk is “only one percent completed” and will require several years to be fully functional.

The project to revamp the facility in the disputed city began in late 2017.

The commission, currently investigating 167 unfinished projects in the province, said, “One of the slow projects in Kirkuk is the airport. Our assessment is showing that it is only one percent completed.” 

Rebuilding and other construction projects have often been at the center of claims of mass corruption in Iraq, which Transparency International ranks as the world's 12th most corrupted state.

“The time-frame of the project was for the airport to start its flights by the beginning of 2019, with an allocated budget of $93.5 million,” the commission added.

Provincial officials have denied the report, insisting that the airport will be open for domestic flights by the end of 2019 or early 2020.

Ali Hamady, assistant to Rakan al-Jabouri, Kirkuk’s acting governor, said in a statement, “I believe the COI report is not detailed and accurate since 95 percent of the work is finished and, just four months earlier, the project was 60 percent completed.”

The airport is located in the south part of the city and was originally recognized as an international airport in 1957. After topping the former regime of Saddam Hussein in 2003, the US military used it as a base. More recently, Iraqi officials have been pushing for it to be reopened as a modern civilian airport facility.

After the governor’s office claimed that the commission had based its reporting on information that was “not reliable” and “outdated,” the head of Kirkuk Provincial Council’s Integrity Committee, Najat Hussein, responded by saying, “The data provided by the governor’s office is far from reality.”

He continued, “The first phase is the arrivals and departures section and main entrances, which the governor’s office stated is complete. The second phase is to complete a 250-meter road, a new hall, and installation of radar systems which will take about two years to finish.”

“Despite our continued requests for information regarding the status of the airport and other projects, the governor’s office gives us no response,” he complained, stating that over 100 such requests had gone unanswered.

Baghdad installed Governor Jabouri in October 2017 following the attack and military takeover by Iraqi forces and Shia militias that pushed Kurdish Peshmerga forces from the province and other disputed territories. The actions came as a result of the Kurdistan Region’s independence referendum, held the month before.

Editing by John J. Catherine