Cancer and environmental pollution are killing southern Iraq

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[size=52]Cancer and environmental pollution are killing southern Iraq[/size]

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 Baghdad: Omar Abdul Latif

Despite the inclusion of legal clauses in the Iraqi oil contracts that compel companies operating in the south of the country, specifically in Basra, to provide treatment services to the residents of the areas where oil and gas is extracted and provide other services in millions of dollars, what the people of those areas with “radiant nights” earn from burning gas. From the oil fields, it is cancers of all kinds and the dangerous and deadly environmental pollution that turns their cities and villages into an unbearable hell.
The Oil, Gas and Natural Resources Committee in the House of Representatives is currently moving to implement the law and to compel foreign oil companies operating in Basra and the south to pay compensation to those affected by the extraction processes and improve the services provided to them, the first of which is health, treatment, environmental and other life services, but the file seems difficult and the task It is more difficult due to the existence of “suspicions” of corruption and local complicity with those extractive oil companies. The difficulty in this, according to the committee, lies in the presence of lines and networks that control these companies.
Deputy Chairman of the Committee, Ali Al-Machkoor, explained that "there has been a great legacy since 2007 until now, as the concerned authorities, whether the ministry or the competent committee, did not use their powers to serve the public interest of Iraq or at least the oil-producing provinces."
Al-Maskoor said, in an interview with “Al-Sabah”: “The oil committees in previous sessions neglected a very important aspect; Which is the pollution resulting from emissions or extracted oil, and for this reason we find many cases of cancer in those governorates that the previous committees did not mention in any decision or legislation,” noting that “the committee began communicating with companies to reduce pollution and set new standards.” .
The deputy pointed out that Parliament seeks to push oil companies to “allocate funds to treat those affected by the oil or gas extraction operations carried out by those companies within the producing provinces,” noting that “there are discussions to make it binding on all companies.”
Nevertheless, the deputy head of the committee notes the existence of networks and lines that seek to marginalize the supervisory role over oil companies, stressing the establishment of “mechanisms to dismantle these networks, whether they are parliamentary or otherwise, in order to do justice to the Iraqi product, companies and citizens in the face of unfair licensing rounds for the people and the squandered oil wealth.”
For his part, economic expert Abdul Rahman al-Mashhadani believes that “there are areas of corruption in the file of social benefits that prevent companies from deducting part of the revenues and profits to set up projects in the oil-producing governorates.”
Al-Mashhadani told "Al-Sabah": "The contracts concluded with the winning companies in the licensing rounds in 2010 included the allocation of $5 million from each company to provide services to the people of the productive provinces, such as health and entertainment centers, hospitals and educational institutions."
The expert indicated that the companies “were subjected to pressure and harassment from some corruption heads to refer these projects to them, which prompted the companies to refrain from establishing these projects because their reputation is too great for the corrupt to participate in this file.”
Al-Mashhadani added, "Part of these sums should be allocated to address the conditions of the unemployed in the governorates whose lands were seized by these companies, especially since the government promised them lands in other places and to appoint their children to those companies, but this did not materialize."
The economic expert described the issue of great pollution in those governorates as “important,” adding that “there is a thick cloud of black clouds hanging over the southern regions due to the burning of gas in those fields, which negatively affects their people.”
The expert recommended that the House of Representatives “follow up the issue carefully, while opening this file to serve the people of the productive provinces and the great damage they have suffered from the spread of cancerous diseases and environmental pollution.”

  Editing: Ali Abdel Khaleq
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