Missing in action

Edwin Starr said it best when he sang: “War. Huh. What is it good for? Absolutely nothing, uh huh”.

However, it appears Mr Starr may have been proved wrong by current events in Iraq. You see, apparently war is not good for absolutely nothing. Apparently it is particularly good for fraud, abuse and waste of taxpayers money.

A US auditor, bearing the rather fancy title of Special Inspector General for Iraqi Reconstruction (lets call him Sigir for short shall we?) has uncovered some rather worrying goings on in the spending of money earmarked for the rebuilding of Iraq, which was of course necessitated after it was bombed into next week by the US.

Anyway, Sigir, during the course of three audits, has reached some startling conclusions. The first two audits found that there was evidence of potential fraud regarding funds including oil revenue and assets seized from Saddam Hussein’s government. The third audit probed the use of close to US$18 billion of US taxpayer’s money for reconstruction projects in Iraq.

Sigir found that of nearly US$120 million in cash paid out in south-central Iraq, more than US$7 million remains unaccounted for and payments totaling around US$89 million do not have the correct paperwork. Sigir’s report also accused managers responsible for the cash of “simply washing accounts” in a bid to make the books balance.

Additionally, more than 600 transfers of more than US$23 million were made using the wrong form; a contractor was paid twice for the same job; 10 payments of more than US$300,000 submitted for cancelled contracts; and two payments officers leaving Iraq with balances of more than US$700,000 without clearance.

You dirty rat

Life can change very quickly. One minute you’re riding high on the crest of a wave and the next you’re branded a failure and a disgrace. But enough about the Australian cricket team. Our tale of quickly changing circumstances concerns our trans-Tasman friends, the New Zealanders. One minute they were rightly celebrating one of their countryman’s successes in being better than everyone else at knocking a small ball into a small hole, the next minute they’re staring at their telephones in disbelief wondering why they no longer work.

Unfortunately after a freak series of events, NZ’s telecoms system ‘collapsed’. It all started when some innocent rats were innocently gnawing at what they may have mistaken for a tasty bit of cheese, but later turned out to be a fibre-optic communication cable and major part of the country’s telecoms infrastructure. Not a major problem in itself, as services were routed through other parts of the network. But unfortunately at around the same time, a Telecom New Zealand worker accidentally damaged another crucial cable elsewhere in the country. With two cables damaged, the country’s telecommunications network collapsed, resulting in disruption to the EFTPOS network and closing the NZ stock exchange for five hours.