Same contractor who was under investigation 4 years ago for ties with al-shaabab is continuing to distribute Aid in Somalia on behalf of USAID and WFP

Somalia famine aid stolen, UN investigating

click here for story @ http://www.stuff.co.nz/

Sacks of grain, peanut butter snacks and other food staples meant for starving Somalis are being stolen and sold in markets, an investigation has found, raising concerns that thieving businessmen are undermining international famine relief efforts in this nearly lawless country.

The UN's World Food Program acknowledged for the first time that it has been investigating food theft in Somalia for two months. The WFP strongly condemned any diversion of "even the smallest amount of food from starving and vulnerable Somalis."

Underscoring the perilous security throughout the food distribution chain, donated food is not even safe once it has been given to the hungry in the makeshift camps popping up around the capital of Mogadishu. Families at the large, government-run Badbado camp, where several aid groups distribute food, said they were often forced to hand back aid after journalists had taken photos of them with it.

"They tell us they will keep it for us and force us to give them our food," said refugee Halima Sheikh Abdi. "We can't refuse to co-operate because if we do, they will force us out of the camp, and then you don't know what to do and eat. It's happened to many people already."

The UN says more than 3.2 million Somalis - nearly half the population - need food aid after a severe drought that has been complicated by Somalia's long-running war. More than 450,000 Somalis live in famine zones controlled by al Qaeda-linked militants, where aid is difficult to deliver. The US says 29,000 Somali children under age five already have died.

International officials have long expected some of the food aid pouring into Somalia to disappear. But the sheer scale of the theft calls into question the aid groups' ability to reach the starving. It also raises concerns about the ability of aid agencies and the Somali government to fight corruption, and whether diverted aid is fueling Somalia's 20-year civil war.

"While helping starving people, you are also feeding the power groups that make a business out of the disaster," said Joakim Gundel, who heads Katuni Consult, a Nairobi-based company often asked to evaluate international aid efforts in Somalia. "You're saving people's lives today so they can die tomorrow."

For the past two weeks, planeloads of aid from the UN, Iran, Turkey, Kuwait and other countries have been roaring into Mogadishu almost daily. Boatloads more are on the way. There is no doubt that much of it is saving lives: the AP saw hungry families lining up for hot meals at feeding centers, and famished children eating free food while crouched among makeshift homes of ragged scraps of plastic.

WFP Somalia country director Stefano Porretti said the agency's system of independent, third-party monitors uncovered allegations of possible food diversion. But he underscored how dangerous the work is: WFP has had 14 employees killed in Somalia since 2008.

"Monitoring food assistance in Somalia is a particularly dangerous process," Porretti said.

In Mogadishu markets, vast piles of food are for sale with stamps on them from the WFP, the US government aid arm USAID, the Japanese government and the Kuwaiti government. The AP found eight sites where thousands of sacks of food aid were being sold in bulk. Other food aid was also for sale in numerous smaller stores. Among the items being sold were Kuwaiti dates and biscuits, corn, grain, and Plumpy'nut - a fortified peanut butter designed for starving children.

An official in Mogadishu with extensive knowledge of the food trade said he believes a massive amount of aid is being stolen - perhaps up to half of recent aid deliveries. The percentage had been lower, he said, but in recent weeks the flood of aid into the capital with little or no controls has created a bonanza for businessmen.

The official, like the businessmen interviewed for this story, spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid reprisals.

The AP could not verify the official's claims. WFP said that it rejected the scale of diversions alleged by the official.

At one of the sites for stolen food aid - the former water agency building at a location called "Kilometer Five" - about a dozen corrugated iron sheds are stacked with sacks of food aid. Outside, women sell food from open 50-kilogram sacks, and traders load the food onto carts or vehicles under the indifferent eyes of local officials.

Stolen food aid is the main reason the US military become involved in the country's 1992 famine, an intervention that ended shortly after the military battle known as Black Hawk Down. There are no indications the military plans to get involved in this year's famine relief efforts.

The WFP emphasized that it has "strong controls ... in place" in Somalia, where it cited risks in delivering food in a "dangerous, lawless, and conflict-ridden environment."

WFP said it was "confident the vast majority of humanitarian food is reaching starving people in Mogadishu," adding that AP reports of "thousands" of bags of stolen food would equal less than 1 percent of one month's distribution for Somalia.

Somali government spokesman Abdirahman Omar Osman said the government does not believe food aid is being stolen on a large scale, but if such reports come to light, the government "will do everything in our power" to bring action in a military court.

The AP investigation also found evidence that WFP is relying on a contractor blamed for diverting large amounts of food aid in a 2010 UN report.

Eight Somali businessmen said they bought food from the contractor, Abdulqadir Mohamed Nur, who is known as Enow. His wife heads Saacid, a powerful Somali aid agency that WFP uses to distribute hot food. The official with extensive knowledge of the food trade said at some Saacid sites, it appeared that less than half the amount of food supplied was being prepared.

Attempts to reach Enow or his wife for comment were not successful.

Businessmen said Enow had several warehouses around the city where he sold food from, including a site behind the Nasa Hablod hotel at a roundabout called "Kilometer Four."

Three businessman described buying food directly from the port and one said he paid directly into Enow's Dahabshiel account, a money transfer system widely used in Somalia. WFP has no foreign staff at the port to check on stock levels or which trucks are picking it up; it relies on Somali staff and an unidentified independent monitor to check on sites.

The men said they would buy in bulk for US$20 (NZ$24) per sack and sell at between US$23 and US$25 - a week's salary for a Somali policeman or soldier.

Until last week, there were daily battles in the capital between Islamic insurgents and government forces supported by African Union peacekeepers. Suicide bombers and snipers prowled the city.

WFP does not serve and prepare the food itself. After the deaths of 14 employees, WFP rarely allows its staff outside the AU's heavily fortified main base at the airport. It relies on a network of Somali aid agencies to distribute its food.

Gundel, the consultant, said aid agencies hadn't learned many lessons from the 1992 famine, when hundreds of thousands died and aid shipments were systematically looted, leading to the U.S. military intervention.

"People need to know the history here," he said. "They have to make sure the right infrastructure is in place before they start giving out aid. If you are bringing food into Somalia it will always be a bone of contention."

In the short term, he said, aid agencies should diversify their distribution networks, conduct frequent random spot checks on partners, and organize in communities where they work - but before an emergency occurs. "It's going to be very, very hard to do now," he added.

At the Badbado camp, Ali Said Nur said he was also a victim of food thefts. He said he twice received two sacks of maize, but each time was forced to give one to the camp leader.

"You don't have a choice. You have to simply give without an argument to be able to stay here," he said.

- AP

Haiti: Moving On From Here

this story from HuffingtonPost

It's been an extraordinary year in Haiti. On this, the one year anniversary of the earthquake, we find time to reflect on what has been and what's to come. Besides the pain and suffering there have been great moments of joy and hope. Yesterday, much of the media is focusing on what has not been done and what is claimed to be the failure of the international community. We have been working in Haiti for years before the earthquake and our view is different. Of course there have been frustrations but we are proud of what we have accomplished.

Together we have distributed millions of dollars in food and medicine, built health clinics, homes, one of the largest Cholera Camps in Haiti and in October opened our new Secondary School, the Academy for Peace and Justice. We are proud of our work and have spent nearly every dollar donated directly helping the people. Along the way and through all of the basic relief activities we met Rapheal Louigene, the hardest working Haitian we have ever met, and that's saying something.

Rapheal works for another great man Father Rick Frechette at St. Damiens hospital in Port-au-Prince. After long days providing care Rapheal would talk about the Port-au-Prince he knew as a kid. A city filled with tree-lined streets, working infrastructure and beauty, his
fondest memories were of going to see movies in the old colonial theaters downtown. All of those theatres collapsed in the earthquake and Rapheal dreamt of rebuilding them. In our spare time we built our own movie theatre in four days on a hill above a tent camp, the
first theater to be built since the earthquake (and the only functioning movie theater in Haiti). While it may seem frivolous in the face of such tragedies, it has proven that bringing joy and light and laughter is also an important part of the healing process. We spent months after the earthquake trying to heal the massive wounds at our hospital what we left behind from those wounds were deep scars.

Now, one year on, we are beginning to fix those scars and bring a country back to its feet.

Watch the full movie below and feel free to pass it on.

SUN CITY PICTURE HOUSE from David Darg & Bryn Mooser on Vimeo.

To support our work in Haiti please make a donation to www.apjnow.org

www.suncitypicturehouse.com

With Haiti in Ruins, Some U.N. Relief Workers Live Large on 'Love Boat'

International Shipping Partners

The lavish Harbor Lights Lounge aboard the Sea Voyager, a cruise ship chartered by the U.N.'s World Food Program to house some of its relief workers in Haiti.

For the United Nations World Food Program, it was a moment of satisfaction: the U.N.'s flagship relief agency announced on its Web site on March 19 that two gleaming passenger ships had docked in ravaged Port au Prince harbor.

What the Web site announcement did not disclose was that the vessels were intended to house not homeless Haitian refugees, but employees of the U.N. itself. Nor did it publicize the cost of leasing the ships: $112,500 a day. Nor did it mention that one of the vessels is owned by a company closely linked to the government of Venezuelan strongman President Hugo Chavez.

Another thing not mentioned: Even U.N. staffers regularly refer to one of the ships as "the Love Boat."

Then the WFP apparently had second thoughts about the whole announcement.

A slideshow photo essay had shown the two vessels, the Ola Esmeralda and the Sea Voyager, at berths near the earthquake-shattered Haitian capital. Then the photos and the story disappeared, not only from the home page but apparently from the WFP's public news story Web archive. The official explanation from a WFP spokesman: "Photos, text and video material are regularly being added and removed from WFP's Web site as stories are refreshed, restructured and replaced."

Click here to see the original story.

For whatever reason, WFP had decided that less was more when it came to publicizing the presence of the two vessels.

But that did not change the fact of their presence. And even while deep-sixing its previous publicity, the use of the ships as accommodation for many of the U.N.'s international staff was passionately defended in a telephone interview with Fox News by Edmond Mulet, head of the Haiti peacekeeping contingent, known by its acronym MINUSTAH, and also Special Representative in Haiti of U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. (Ban's Special Envoy to Haiti is former President Bill Clinton.)

"It is the least we could do for them," Mulet, a former Guatemalan diplomat, told Fox News about the U.N. staffers. "They are working 14, 16 hours a day. The place was pulverized. Living conditions are really appalling."

In a city where much of the housing was destroyed by the earthquake, U.N. staffers' amenities aboard the two passenger ships include laundry service, catered food, hot showers and beds with fresh linens for subsidized rates of $40 per day for WFP staffers, and half that for officials of MINUSTAH.

Accommodation aboard the two ships could best be described as comfortable if not luxurious — and far better than conditions a few hundred yards from their moorings, where hundreds of relief workers, some 9,000 U.N. peacekeepers and police, and huge numbers of Haiti's 9.5 million people are sleeping in tents or on bare floors — or worse — after the devastating Jan. 12 earthquake.

Mulet says the use of the shipboard cabins by U.N. personnel is "strictly voluntary," and many decide not to use them. "Not all the cabins are full," he declares. (Mulet himself says he lives in the U.N.'s major military camp with the predominately Brazilian peacekeeping forces.)

Moreover, others aid workers in Haiti, including those who work for non-government organizations, are also free to sign up for shipboard space, he says: everything is on a "first come, first served" basis.

Additionally, the ships are used as reception areas for visiting dignitaries, including, recently, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio ("Lula") da Silva.

The mass of Haitian civilians, however, are not among those invited to stay. "I think they understand," says Mulet. "They have gone through the same trauma themselves. They know we are there to provide shelter for them."

Mulet compares the situation to what occurs when "oxygen masks come down in a falling plane. The first thing you do is put them on yourself."

"You have to be in good shape in order to help the Haitians."

Even in some official documents, U.N. staffers refer to the Sea Voyager, the first of the vessels to reach Port-au-Prince, as the Love Boat.

A good name for the other vessel, the Ola Esmeralda, might be the Double Your Love Boat, not for its luxuries, but for its cost to WFP. While not luxury liners — the Ola Esmeralda is a reconditioned, 40-year-old passenger ship — neither of the two vessels could be called a cheap date.

The WFP is renting the 286-foot, 5,000-ton Sea Voyager (capacity: about 220 passengers) for $35,000 per day, plus a whopping additional $5,000 daily for fuel. Total for 90 days: $3,600,000.

If every cabin were full, the average daily cost to the U.N. for the fully-loaded Sea Voyager would be about $181.81 per passenger — minus the $40 or $20 paid by each U.N. staffer who stays in a cabin.

The 480-foot, 11,000-ton Ola Esmeralda — which now operates directly under the administrative auspices of MINUSTAH — is renting for $72,500 per day, all costs included.

Total for 90 days: $6,525,000. Average cost per passenger per day (the vessel accommodates 470 plus crew): about $154.25, minus the staff contributions.

Over the lives of their respective 90-day initial contracts, that brings the total outlay for the ships to $112,500 per day, or $10,125,000, minus the staff shares.

Each of the boats also has a number of single-month renewal options in its contract, which will push those totals higher. A WFP spokesman says, however, that the organization's aim is to end its charter of Sea Voyager at the end of April. That would bring the total rental cost of that vessel to $4,800,000, minus staff contributions.

In the case of the Ola Esmeralda, no such end date has been set so far.

How expensive are those charter rates? When compared to the cost of the MINUSTAH peacekeeping operation, they may not seem huge. Even before the earthquake, MINUSTAH was one of the U.N.'s more expensive peacekeeping operations, with a budget estimated to exceed $611 million this year. Post-earthquake, the MINUSTAH budget for its next financial year is expected to rocket past $700 million.

In the case of Sea Voyager, though, it is slightly less expensive than it might be otherwise. According to Niels-Erik Lund, president of International Shipping Partners of Miami, the firm that brokered the Sea Voyager charter with WFP, his firm is donating commissions and technical management fees of $25,000 per month back to WFP as relief aid for Haiti.

Fox News was unable to determine whether a similar arrangement exists for Ola Esmeralda.

According to the rate card offered by the company that operates Ola Esmeralda, when filled to capacity in the most expensive cruise season, the ship earns about 334,000 Venezuelan bolivars, the local currency unit, per day. At official exchange rates, that would amount to about $77,800 — or slightly more than its WFP paycheck — provided that Ola Esmeralda could enjoy 100 percent occupancy at home.

Click here to see the rate card | Click here to see the total number and types of cabins involved

Translation to U.S. dollars at official exchange rates are misleading, however; the Chavez government maintains an artificially high exchange rate to keep down local inflation, among other things. At the unregulated (or black market) rate, the bolivar buys far fewer dollars.

Using that unregulated rate, Ola Esmeralda in high cruise season would earn about $49,124 per day — far less than the WFP is paying.

Click here to see Ola Esmeralda's domestic revenue potential.

But even those calculations are deceptive. In the 90 days of the initial WFP contract, only 13 days (or 14.44 percent) are part of Ola Esmeralda's high season. The remaining 85.45 percent would earn the vessel only $55,403 per day, at the most expensive low-season fares, and the official dollar-bolivar exchange rate. Total revenues: about $66,600 daily — still not bad.

But at the more realistic unregulated exchange rate, the revenues at home would be much lower: about $42,000 per day — or about $2,737,500 less than WFP is paying over the same 90 days. And there is no guarantee it would have such 100 percent occupancy back in Venezuela.

Plus, WFP pays in hard currency, not bolivars.

The question is, who is getting the U.N.'s money?

According to a WFP spokesman, the owners of both ships are American firms — which is true as far as it goes. In the case of Sea Voyager, according the International Shipping Partners' Lund, the company that owns the vessel is Voyager Owner LLC of Miami. The company that controls that firm, he says, is an international firm, the Clipper Group. Once based in Switzerland, the Clipper Group is now headquartered in the Bahamas.

In the case of Ola Esmeralda, the ownership issue is even more interesting. The ship owner, according to WFP, is a Miami company called Lighthouse Ship Management LLC. But in fact, as of the end of January 2010, the registered owner of the Ola Esmeralda, according to official ship registries, is a Venezuelan company, Servicios Acuaticos de Venezuela, C.A., or Saveca.

Click here to see the Ola Esmeralda's registration.

On its Web site, Saveca claims to be a firm "dedicated to the design, modification, set up and operation of activities related to passenger transportation, floating lodging facilities and similar activities." Its main focus, according to the Web site, is "service and support vessels for the oil industry and hospital or medical assistance vessels."

Some of its top officials, however, have different backgrounds. Three of five senior Saveca officials named on the corporate Web site are retired Venezuelan naval or Merchant Marine officers.

Saveca claims on another page on the Web site to have close ties, an "alliance," with a Venezuelan shipyard, Dianca, that is owned by the radically anti-American government of Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez. The president of Saveca, Tomas A. Marino Blanco, a formal naval officer, is described, among other things, as a former international marketing and development manager of Dianca.

According to a Venezuelan who was formerly involved in the country's port activities, Dianca is a state-owned company with a "very murky character," in a country rife with cronyism and political patronage. According to the Venezuelan source, Dianca has long had close ties with the military.

It is now directly owned, according to its Web site, by a combination of the vociferously left-wing Chavez government and PDVSA, the nationalized Venezuelan oil company that is the source of much of the Chavez government's revenues and another alleged font of cronyism and patronage.

The Saveca Web site does not directly claim that the company owns Ola Esmeralda. But another Venezuela Web site, OlaCruises.com, which does make that claim, also notes in small print that the company involved, Ola Cruises, is a "division owned and operated by Saveca."

So who is actually getting the U.N.'s gusher of ship-charter money? In response to questions from Fox News, a WFP spokesman who named Ola Esmeralda's owner as Lighthouse Ship Management LLC, also said that theOla Esmeralda charter was the first time the relief agency had ever struck a supply contract with Lighthouse.

Lighthouse appears to be what is known in maritime terms as the "disponent owner" — in most cases a middleman who has rented a boat without crew, catering or services from its legal owner — a "bare-boat charter" — then added passenger services, and re-chartered the vessel. (The crew and services could also, of course, be rented separately from the same original owner.)

Lighthouse made its first move toward getting the contract via yet another intermediary, a New Jersey-based ship brokerage named Intercontinent Chartering Corporation, or ICC. ICC is one of a dozen "panel brokers" that have long-term relationships with the World Food Program to meet its shipping needs — almost all of which are for bulk cargo vessels.

ICC vice president Jan Kruse, who says he has executed "hundreds" of contracts for WFP over his professional career, says WFP passenger charters are so rare that he can never recall the organization getting involved in passenger charters of this kind before. When WFP put out the request, he and other panel brokers both advertised the opportunity and put out the word through their contacts in the wider ship-brokering community.

In the case of Lighthouse, Kruse says, ICC was approached by another ship broker with the offer of Ola Esmeralda. He declined to name the broker. It was among ten ships, he said, that were eventually offered to WFP before the U.N. agency decided on Esmeralda. Kruse's firm had nothing to do with the final choice.

Despite WFP's assertion of Lighthouse's ownership of Esmeralda, in a telephone interview from Venezuela with Fox News, Marino Fois, general manager of Saveca, affirmed what ship registries attest: that "we are the owner" of Ola Esmeralda. Fois added that the ship is "under the management of Lighthouse Ship Management."

He referred all further questions about the ship and its contractual arrangements to Lighthouse Ship Management, and particularly to one of its officials, Fredy Dellis.

Corporate documents in the U.S. reveal that Lighthouse Ship Management's address is in suburban Miami. In fact, it has the same residential address as that of Fredy Dellis, described as one of the company's "member managers."

Dellis, a native of Belgium, is also chairman and CEO of another firm, Bloomsbury Properties International LLC, with an address that is the same as his residential address. Bloomsbury's business is described on its Web site as the "sales and marketing of high-end, luxury residences around the world," and its Web site displays properties in the Caribbean and Italy.

But Dellis also knows passenger shipping. The Web site describes him as "boasting extensive experience in the management of many international companies," and among the experience he cites is a stint as CEO of ResidenSea Ltd., a company that sold luxury condominium-style residences aboard a 630-foot Norwegian cruise ship named The World to wealthy Europeans and Americans.

According to various press reports, the World project ran into early financial problems, and Dellis eventually left the company. (The World, however, was successfully completed before his departure, and still offers floating luxury residences for sale or rent.)

Fox News sent questions to Dellis at his Bloomsbury contact numbers via e-mail and fax about Lighthouse Ship Management and its relationship to the Ola Esmeralda, Saveca, and the World Food Program, but received no reply. Voicemail messages left at his Bloomsbury number were not answered.

According to WFP, Ola Esmeralda was "the most cost effective in terms of price per cabin" among the ten ships that the organization considered for the Haiti mission.

In fact, both Esmeralda and Sea Voyager, a WFP spokesman said, "offered the best rate on a cost per cabin basis for the numbers of staff that needed to be accommodated."

And, the spokesman declared, "the intention is to end the charter arrangements as soon as suitable landside accommodation is identified."

Meantime, the $112,500-a-day clock is ticking, alongside the pier that links the Love Boat and the Ola Esmeralda to a paper trail that extends across the Caribbean, to Venezuela.

George Russell is executive editor of Fox News.