Three key projects covering infrastructure and health in the Southern Iraqi oil hub of Basra have come to a standstill for years due to long delays by contractors, an official was reported on Wednesday as saying. 

The projects have a combined value of around 130 billion Iraqi dinars ($90 million) and two of them were awarded nearly 10 years ago, Basra’s Governor Haidar Abadi said. 

He told Iraq’s Shafaq News network that the largest project for infrastructure and water sewage works was awarded to an Italian company in 2012 and is worth nearly 83 billion dinars ($57 million). 

The second project was won by a Lebanese firm in 2018 for the construction of a large hospital with a value of 41 million dinars ($28 million) while the third project worth about $5 million was awarded in 2011 for the construction of a 19-km road. 

“The three projects have been stalled although we consider them a strategic projects…we are in the process to hand them over to serious contractors,” Abadi said. 

(Writing by Nadim Kawach; Editing by Anoop Menon)

(anoop.menon@refinitiv.com)

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