Posted on 03/10/2007 4:48:08 PM PST by blam
Palestinian minister admits aid millions lost
By Josh Mitnick in Ramallah, Sunday Telegraph
Last Updated: 12:25am GMT 11/03/2007
A former World Bank official who is about to become the Palestinian finance minister has warned foreign donors that he has no idea where much of their money has been spent.
Salam Fayyad warned donors
In the 14 months since Hamas won elections, Palestinian finances have descended into such chaos that there is now no way to confirm whether aid is going to its stated purpose, according to Salam Fayyad, 54, who is poised to start his second stint as treasury chief once the rival Hamas and Fatah factions finalise a "unity" government.
An estimated £362.5 million has flowed into Palestinian government coffers from abroad since the election that brought Hamas to power and ushered in a period of internal conflict that came close to all-out civil war.
The European Union alone provided £59.5 million last year and sent a far greater sum directly to hospitals, power generation projects and to families in need.
Now, Palestinian Authority spending is out of control, salaries are being paid to workers who never turn up, and nobody can track where the money is going, according to Mr Fayyad.
There was no way to be certain that aid was being used as intended, he admitted. "Please write this: no one can give donors that assurance. Why? Because the system is in a state of total disrepair."
Five years ago, Mr Fayyad - who had worked at the US Federal Reserve Bank - was asked to create order out of Palestinian finances by the president at the time, Yasser Arafat. Now, he is confronting the fact that his accounting reforms have all unravelled, there is a ballooning wage bill, a yawning budget shortfall and an international financial boycott of Hamas.
Mr Fayyad conceded that until he assumed office he could not be sure of the depth of the crisis or how to fix it. He expected it to take weeks to regain enough control over Palestinian funds to restore oversight over new donations. It would take several months to begin reining in the inflated salary bill.
Hours earlier, the World Bank had published a 197-page report warning the Palestinians to control a wage bill that totals two thirds of all spending, and of a "dire'' budget deficit, estimated at £57 million per month.
Hamas refuses to recognise Israel's right to exist and is widely viewed as a little more than a terrorist faction. Last year, a ban on funding it was enforced by the EU, the US, many Arab states and international banks.
Ironically foreign aid to Palestinians increased, either carried across the border into Gaza in cash-stuffed briefcases by Hamas officials, or through a special financial channel to the office of President Mahmoud Abbas, the leader of the rival Fatah faction with whom the West is prepared to work.
As a result, Mr Fayyad said, incoming funds have been widely dispersed with no central authority to monitor them. Some have gone to people who do not appear on the Palestinian budget ledger. "Where is the control?" asked Mr Fayyad. "It's gone. Where is all the transparency? It's gone."
He said his first objective would be to make the finance ministry the sole conduit for incoming aid, and to reinstate proper audits. That meant no more financial back channels or border smuggling, he said. "It's not my intention to manage the Palestinian budget system through the brown bag." The Palestinian Authority's unchecked proliferation of government jobs - growing by 11 per cent a year - is another threat to its existence, the World Bank said. Mr Fayyad acknowledged that the problem of thousands of absentee employees was "serious", but said it would take up to five years to bring wages into line with income.
He was reluctant to say how he would do that, perhaps understandably, given that unpaid security forces have a habit of barging into government offices with guns blazing, and that gunmen recently shot up the outside of his office.
Now some of Mr Abbas's presidential guard is assigned to his premises - a stark reminder of the connection between restoring security and bringing finances under control. "This will be extremely difficult," he said. "It's virtually impossible."
Perhaps they shouldn't have trashed all those greenhouses.
Well, to confirm that the aid goes to stated purposes is very easy. As I never give to panhandlers, I am 200% sure that whatever I give them [i.e. zero] is fully accounted for and is never spent outside of its intended purpose.
Not one more American taxpayer dollar. Not one. Bastards.
Jimmy Carter blames Israel for this.
Weapons/training for local terrorists and stuffing Swiss bank accounts, that's where. ....while most American taxpayers are oblivious.
Million "lost", eh? The leaders each took their cut for their retirement fund and disbursed the rest to the terrorists. It just galls me that America is still giving money to these rodents. I thought we were fighting terrorism. It sure doesn't look like it to me.
Swiss bank account, terrorist training & weapons, payoffs for militia leaders, etc. Whatever--Everyone knows this, and (indeed) expected it. Thats why it won't deter the donors from giving billions more even one bit. After all, its in the interest of peace(es).
The aim is to keep the 95% of the paly 'citizens' in abject poverty, which they will blame, predictably, on the West and on the US in particular.
Let them rot.
Rotting is just a slow oxidation process. I say let's speed it up to complete instant oxidation!
Doo-doo topped with ribbon. This terrorist-ridden (and led) economic basketcase is headed by pilferers of international aid monies intent on hopeless, bloody internal squabbling - all the while blaming America and Israel for all of its self-imposed ills.
Though a skilled sculptor can bend clay to his will to take on the desired shape, only a foolish one would hope to do the same with old dried-out cat shit.
This is what the entire middle-east will look like without oil. A global backwater which will never be host to anything of relevance other than conflict and repression (ie the same thing it is now, except with fewer shiny toys). Democracy in the region will not cure the endemic cultural cancer that pervades it.
Today's Manhattan project should be to develop an energy alternative that can be adopted by not only America, but will gladly be purchased for adoption by the rest of the world (including the developing world, which for some ODD REASON will never include Muslim nations) by virtue of being cheaper. Bankrupt the neolithics, and, when they act up, pave them from 30,000. The liberals and their spawn, from Wilson forward, had their chance to "fix" the world. Naivety can no longer be used as an excuse - what remains is willful disregard of the cold, hard truth. Let these bastards culturally evolve or rot.
Arafat's pig of a wife, Suha.
She lives in the Hotel Bristol in Paris. Her suites there run about $15,000 per night.
Not to mention her millions spent each year on shopping, vacations, food (she really needs food), and whatever else.
Stop worrying about where the money went. JUST SEND MORE.
Why are their so many similarities between the Middle East and New Orleans?
Yea well,Carter's brain turned to mud a long time ago.
Uh...sure.
IMO, they cannot culturally evolve until they get rid of the lunatic leadership....the dusty, ugly, sunken dark eyed imams, mullas, and ayatollahs...
These neanderthals are the driving force which keeps the flock in the dark age dirt.
I tend to believe that if the muzzie leadership were removed and the threat of murder and terror were removed from the muzzie flock....islam would start dying on its own. People would leave in droves, especially the women.
....or....maybe not....
"Foreign aid" to the PA has NEVER gone to the stated purpose! It went to Arafat and his cronies, then later his successors, and finally weapons used to murder women and children.
Why is anyone surprised at this?
Mark
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.