Coll 54/2 'Middle East (Official) Committee: Working Party' [‎287r] (573/642)

IRAQ CENTRAL DEVELOPMENT BOARD
Paragraph 2 (1) , The limiting of the Boards finance to loans from
the T^ternatiohal Bank is a serious defect.
I agree with the Embassy's proposal for widening its field of
revenue.
Paragraph 2 (2 )
There is no reason why the Board should not be enabled to
entrust Ministries or departments with the execution of certain minor
projects* In these, it should have power to assign money for the
Ministry or Department concerned* This seems to follow from the
proposed inclusion in the Board of the "Capital Works Budget".
Recruitment of exports should be channelled through the Board.
Paragraph 5 I agree.
Paragraph 3 (4) . If it is inevitable that, during the life of the
Railway Agreement, it is not possible to include railway development
in the Board, some means must be found of co-ordinating general and K
railway development, e.g. a scheme such as the building of the new
Bagdad railway station might not be a high priority.
Paragraph 3 (5) .
The Finance Minister must be a member of the Board.
The difficulty of having ’the Minister concerned as an ex-officio
member of the Board’, appears to be that in some projects this may
entail having more than one Minister on the Board, and so over-weighting
the Board with political members. I would sooner see the Ministers
concerned called in as Consultants only.
I dislike the idea of having the Prime Minister as Chairman
of the Board. He is powerful and ephemeral, and a new Prime Minister
might conceivably reverse some or many of the Boards previous decisions.
Anything, however, is better than detailed control by the Council
of Ministers and if this can be avoided by including the Prime Minister
and the Minister concerned, then it is better to do so.
Paragraph 2 (6) . I agree.
I think that, for the sake of continuity, some system of
retirement by rotation of independent members should be devised.
Paragraph 2 (7) .
Murray and I merely mentioned that in the Persian Seven-Year
Plan there was a technical board. I hold no special brief for it.
The Bagdad suggestion of Technical Committees seems Just as good.
The main points which should be settled are:-
(a) Increasing the revenue sources of the Board;
(b) To get the reaction of the International Bank to the
proposed draft. (For this, it seems necessary to ensure
that Ali Mumtaz contacts the Bank at Washington);