Is the media getting tougher on corruption in aid?

Written by: Olesya Dmitracova

REUTERS/Antony Njuguna " name="mainimage" border="" width="193" height="163">

Irish rock star Bob Geldof (L) looks at Biniam Alemu, a malnourished two-year-old boy living with AIDS held by his mother at Dilla hospital, 360km from the capital Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, May 2003. Geldof, who organised the world's biggest rock concert in 1985 to raise funds to help starving Ethiopians, was visiting the country to highlight a looming humanitarian crisis.
REUTERS/Antony Njuguna

This past week hasn't been great for the reputation of the aid world. Media reports have alleged misuse of aid in Somalia, Ethiopia, Afghanistan and El Salvador on a fairly grand scale.

Charities must be fearful that governments and the public will increasingly question how much of their donations actually go to help those hit by conflicts, natural disasters and poverty in developing countries.

On Tuesday, the New York Times gave a sneak preview of a U.N. Security Council report sayingas much as half the food aid sent to Somalia is siphoned off by corrupt transport contractors, armed groups and local aid staff.

The problems are so serious the report recommends the Secretary-General should open an independent investigation into the operations of the World Food Programme (WFP) in Somalia, and suggests the food distribution system should be completely rebuilt, according to the paper.

It's not the first time such claims have surfaced, and WFP has dismissed earlier charges after its own internal investigations. But the controversy looks set to rumble on, as the report is due to be presented to the Security Council next Tuesday.

Somalia is also in the spotlight after Reuters reported that the U.N. Ethics Committee has upheld complaints by a former employee of the U.N. Development Programme who said he suffered retaliation from the organisation for alleging its Somalia programme was corrupt.

ETHIOPIAN FAMINE

Staying with the Horn of Africa, the BBC said last week that millions of dollars in foreign aid for victims of the 1984-5 Ethiopian famine were pocketed by rebels to buy weapons.

Former rebel leaders told the BBC they posed as merchants in meetings with charity workers to get aid money and used the cash to fund attempts to overthrow the government of the time. A former commander for the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) estimated that $95 million out of a total of $144 million donated by Western governments and charities was channelled into the rebel fight.

Another rebel, Gebremedhin Araya, said he handed over the money he received to TPLF leaders, including Meles Zenawi who went on to become Ethiopia's prime minister in 1991. Meles, who is still in office, has declined to comment on the allegations, the BBC said.

Rock singer and anti-poverty campaigner Bob Geldof - who helped raise awareness of the Ethiopian famine - has dismissed the claims in the BBC report.

"If that percentage of money had been diverted, far more than a million people would have died," he told The Times newspaper. "It's possible that in one of the worst, longest-running conflicts on the continent some money was mislaid. But to suggest it was on this scale is just bollocks," he added.

An official at Christian Aid, a charity mentioned in the BBC report, was similarly emphatic.

"Christian Aid categorically refutes that aid money it supplied in April 1984 to buy grain to feed the starving in Ethiopia was diverted by rebels to purchase weapons," Nick Guttmann, head of humanitarian division at the aid agency, wrote in a letter to The Times. "That hundreds of thousands were saved from starvation is evidence that the funds were used appropriately."

DONORS AT FAULT?

Meanwhile, the Independent newspaper has pointed the finger at potential misuse of aid in Afghanistan, reporting on Sunday that a British commander has ordered a major investigation into contracts awarded by coalition forces, worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

Up to $600 million of aid intended for reconstruction projects is spent on security each year, the paper quoted Afghan government sources as saying. The U.S. Congress is probing allegations of a protection racket in which security firms, paid to protect routes for coalition forces, pay off local warlords and the Taliban, it added.

Only a quarter of the aid money channelled into Afghanistan stays in the country, according to aid organisations there, the paper said. And while Britain has spent millions of dollars in the last two years providing seed to farmers to encourage them to grow wheat instead of opium, there have been allegations of people pocketing cash by giving out cheap seeds and adding rocks to sacks, the paper reported.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai said on Monday he would announce new anti-corruption decrees soon, and that Western countries should do more to clean up their own aid contracts. U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, in a news conference with Karzai, agreed Washington needed to take better steps to oversee billions of dollars in contracts.

The World Bank may be thinking along similar lines following a Wall Street Journal article on El Salvador describing a scandal over why a $250 million loan the bank made to the government last year was never accounted for.

"If the World Bank really wants to help El Salvador, maybe it should offer to audit [former President Tony] Saca's books. That would be a giant step toward development," wrote Mary Anastasia O'Grady.

PRESSURE FOR MORE SCRUTINY

This flood of stories about corruption may be a coincidence, or it could be a sign the media is getting tougher in its scrutiny of aid.

These reports certainly come at an interesting time, when the pressure is growing on aid agencies to be more accountable about how their funds are used.

In February, Transparency International (TI) launched a handbook to help aid groups combat practices that stop help from reaching the needy.

"The objective is to give aid agencies a very practical, hands-on tool," Marie-Luise Ahlendorf, co-author of the handbook, told AlertNet. "It's a compilation of good practices and tools to help agency staff both at headquarter and field level to prevent corruption in their operations."

At the same time, TI admitted it has no way of knowing how endemic corruption is in the global relief effort, and so will find it hard to know how successful its guide has been in preventing it.

What do you think? Is corruption in aid getting worse? Or is the media just getting better at reporting it? What should be done to prevent corruption happening and to expose it when it does?