News
Monday, March 29, 2010
Pakistan being denied aid over corruption worries
* Officials say corruption concerns uncalled for as they have proved in fight against Taliban
* Pakistani leaders say additional US surveillance for aid not neededDaily Times Monitor
LAHORE: On the same day Pakistani generals declared victory over the Taliban in the Tribal Areas, a girl crouched by a brackish pond and filled large metal pots with her family’s drinking water.
Farther down a dirt road pocked with gaping potholes, severed power lines snaked across farm fields overrun by weeds. In Damadola, a cluster of mud huts that once served as a stronghold for the Taliban and al Qaeda, a villager Abdul Sattar listed his community’s needs: New roads and bridges, a pharmacy, girls’ schools and above all, jobs. “The main source for the militancy has been the area’s unemployment,” Sattar said while talking to LA Times.
As the military makes inroads against the insurgency in the Tribal Areas, officials told the LA Times that the government must move quickly to launch infrastructure and social service projects that would keep extremism from taking root again.
Proof: But corruption concerns could slow billions of dollars in US aid earmarked for rebuilding, a prospect that infuriates Pakistani officials, who said they have proved themselves in the fight against the Taliban. Officials told the paper they were deeply disappointed that only $250 million had been delivered out of the $5.7 billion pledged by the US and other nations at an international donor conference in Tokyo last April.
Economic development for the Tribal Areas was expected to be a cornerstone of the five-year, $7.5-billion package of aid signed into law by President Obama in October.
The package represents a new strategy initiated by Obama that shifts the focus of billions of dollars in aid from the Pakistani military to addressing the country’s critical economic and infrastructure issues, including energy and water.
However, in revamping Washington’s development aid to Pakistan, the Obama administration wants to ensure that US taxpayer money does not get lost in the layers of corruption that still dominate Pakistani governance. Teams of US auditors will be sent to Pakistan to scrutinise whether the money is being spent on its intended targets or siphoned off by corrupt officials.
Pakistani accounting firms trained to apply US accounting standards will be hired to audit aid recipients such as Pakistani nongovernmental organisations. But Pakistan has grown increasingly wary of new oversight mechanisms, the paper said. In the case of Coalition Support Funds payments – US reimbursements to Pakistan for the cost of battling terrorism – Islamabad has fought back.
The Pakistani government has balked at issuing dozens of visas the US has sought for teams of auditors. For 2009, the US owes Pakistan about $2 billion.
Oversight: US officials say the debate over visas has held up disbursement of the funds, whereas Pakistani leaders told the LA Times that the additional oversight was not needed. The US “has to decide what’s important”, said Fauzia Wahab, a Pakistani lawmaker and spokeswoman for Pakistan People’s Party.
“If the goal is to defeat the militants and weed out al Qaeda, then you have to trust your partner, and Pakistan is delivering.”
The delays are being felt in Bajaur Agency, the paper said. “Nearly a third of Bajaur’s 600 schools were blown up by the Taliban,” said Tariq Hayat Khan, law and order secretary for the FATA Secretariat.
Half of the region’s 14 health clinics have been destroyed. It’s not uncommon to see villagers carrying an ailing Bajaur resident to a hospital several miles away, Khan told the paper. “None of the promised billions of dollars have materialised,” Khan said. “The fact is, we are being badly let down.” Army commanders said the region had been a key conduit for Taliban militants, the LA Times reported. Now, with the Taliban and al Qaeda largely flushed out of the region, Pakistani military commanders told the paper that Bajaur needed a massive infusion of aid.
Courtesy www.dailytimes.com.pk