Shafaq News- Karbala
Iraq'sKarbala refinery employed hundreds of foreign workerswithout valid permits and awardedmultimillion-dinar service contracts under suspected legal, administrative, andfinancial violations, MP Rabie Al-Mousawi told Shafaq News on Tuesday.
Al-Mousawi, a member of Parliament's Oil,Gas and Natural Resources Committee, said he spent more than three monthsreviewing documents before referring the file to the Integrity Commission, thePrime Minister's Office, the Federal Supreme Court, the Ministry of Labor, andother relevant authorities, urging a comprehensive investigation into thealleged violations and any misuse of public funds.
The documents indicate that 807 Indianworkers, 149 Iranians, 40 Pakistanis, and other foreign nationals are employedat the refinery without employment visas. They also show that the companyemploying them has not been registered with the Ministry of Labor for the pasttwo years and that its Iraqi workforce likewise remains unregistered, whichAl-Moussawi described as a violation of Iraq's labor and social security laws.
He also questioned several contracts linkedto the refinery, including a cleaning contract worth about 100 million Iraqidinars (around $76,000) a month, arguing that the condition of the facilitydoes not justify its value. He further criticized an employee transportationcontract valued at about 8 billion dinars ($6.08 million) annually, saying theOil Ministry could provide the service directly at a lower cost.
The refinery's operating contract is valuedat approximately 22 billion dinars ($16.72 million) per month and is separatefrom the cleaning, transportation, and procurement agreements. Al-Mousawicalled for all of the contracts to undergo scrutiny by the relevant oversightbodies.
Locatedabout 40 kilometers west of Karbala, the refinery is one of Iraq's largeststrategic refining projects. Construction began in2014 under a South Korean consortium led by Hyundai Engineering &Construction at a cost of about $6.5 billion. The facility spans roughly six million square meters,processes 140,000 barrels of crude oil per day delivered through a pipelinefrom Basra, and is the first refinery in Iraq built to Euro 5 environmentalstandards.
According to official figures, the refineryproduces about nine million liters of gasoline each day, alongside four millionliters of fuel oil, three million liters of kerosene, eight million liters ofheavy fuel oil, 1,000 metric tons of asphalt, 750 metric tons of liquefiedpetroleum gas, and 360 metric tons of solid sulfur. Water is supplied from theTuwayrij area, while four on-site power-generation units with a combinedcapacity of 200 megawatts provide the electricity needed for its operations.
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