Construction of Primary Healthcare Centers Reported Essentially Complete, but Operational Issues Remain
Abstract
In March 2004, the U.S. Army issued a contract to Parsons Delaware, Inc. Subsequent task orders under the contract provided for the design and construction of 150 primary healthcare centers (PHCs). Two years later, the U.S. Government terminated the PHC task orders; the PHCs throughout Iraq were in various construction phases. In SIGIR's report, "Management of the Primary Healthcare Centers Construction Projects" (SIGIR-06-011, 4/29/2006), SIGIR reported on the need for a strong management team, in cooperation with the Iraq Ministry of Health (MoH), to complete the partially constructed PHCs. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' Gulf Region Division (GRD) and the U.S. Embassy's Iraq Transition Assistance Office (ITAO) managed the program to complete the PHCs. The objectives of this report are to show the costs and outcomes of efforts to complete the PHCs, the extent to which completed PHCs have been transferred to the MoH, and the operational status of the PHCs. SIGIR recommends that the U.S. Ambassador and the Commanding General, Multi-National Forces-Iraq, jointly direct a U.S. Government study -- obtaining the Government of Iraq's participation and/or input to the extent possible -- to do the following: (1) provide transparency on the current status of PHCs and assess the cost and benefits of potential actions to address identified PHC operational and sustainability problems, and (2) identify actions the U.S. Government could undertake to help ensure that the benefits expected from the PHC program are realized and the investment will not be wasted. In commenting on a draft of this report, the Embassy concurred with the recommendations and stated that it was working to accomplish them. GRD did not address the recommendations, but disagreed with numerous statements in the report. The comments are addressed where applicable in the report.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Apr 29, 2009
- Accession Number
- ADA508318
Entities
People
- David Childress
- David R. Warren
- Richard Mcvay
- Whitney Miller
- Ziad Buhaissi
Organizations
- Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction