UK Committee Accuses EU of Bungling $18bn Aid
August 9, 2000 - 0:0
LONDON British MPs Tuesday expressed their "exasperation" at the European Commission for failing to deliver $18 billion worth of aid programs to disaster-struck countries.
The cross-party international development committee accused the Brussels-based Commission of Massive Financial Mismanagement in dealing with an "untenable" backlog of promised humanitarian assistance.
There was "no record" of how or where money was spent for short-term emergency aid delivered to more recent disaster areas such as Mozambique, Kosovo and Ethiopia, it said.
Committee Chairman Bowen Wells said the European Union's aid policies were determined more by political priorities than poverty alleviation.
"We are exasperated with the failure of the commission to reform its development activity effectively," he said in releasing the MPs' report.
The committee singled out the response to the hurricane Mitch disaster that swept through El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Honduras, causing floods and mud slides and leaving almost 7,000 people dead.
Nearly two years on, EU officials have spent "not a single penny" of the aid package allocated for reconstruction in Nicaragua, wells said.
The report also described a distribution program in Karachi in Pakistan where the funding situation became so "dire" that the director of a nongovernmental organization had to take out a personal loan to pay staff salaries.
"The EC is living on borrowed time the commission should give up its addiction to half-measures and have the courage to reform for the benefit of the world's poor," the committee said in its conclusions.
It called for urgent reform of the European community humanitarian office, a single development budget and a payment code of conduct for the EC. Existing policy was "at best useless and at worst dangerous," it said.
The report follows European Commissioner for External Relations Chris Patten saying that reform of aid management was "absolutely crucial." Britain's International Development Secretary Clare Short, who has also been outspoken in criticizing the commission's failure, likened the EU's executive as a "Monstrous Kafka Novel" saying it had a bureaucratic culture which cannot move.
Two months ago, she warned that time was running out for the EU to make concrete improvements in its aid program, saying that unless there was substantial progress in the next two years, member states would intervene.
(IRNA)
The cross-party international development committee accused the Brussels-based Commission of Massive Financial Mismanagement in dealing with an "untenable" backlog of promised humanitarian assistance.
There was "no record" of how or where money was spent for short-term emergency aid delivered to more recent disaster areas such as Mozambique, Kosovo and Ethiopia, it said.
Committee Chairman Bowen Wells said the European Union's aid policies were determined more by political priorities than poverty alleviation.
"We are exasperated with the failure of the commission to reform its development activity effectively," he said in releasing the MPs' report.
The committee singled out the response to the hurricane Mitch disaster that swept through El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Honduras, causing floods and mud slides and leaving almost 7,000 people dead.
Nearly two years on, EU officials have spent "not a single penny" of the aid package allocated for reconstruction in Nicaragua, wells said.
The report also described a distribution program in Karachi in Pakistan where the funding situation became so "dire" that the director of a nongovernmental organization had to take out a personal loan to pay staff salaries.
"The EC is living on borrowed time the commission should give up its addiction to half-measures and have the courage to reform for the benefit of the world's poor," the committee said in its conclusions.
It called for urgent reform of the European community humanitarian office, a single development budget and a payment code of conduct for the EC. Existing policy was "at best useless and at worst dangerous," it said.
The report follows European Commissioner for External Relations Chris Patten saying that reform of aid management was "absolutely crucial." Britain's International Development Secretary Clare Short, who has also been outspoken in criticizing the commission's failure, likened the EU's executive as a "Monstrous Kafka Novel" saying it had a bureaucratic culture which cannot move.
Two months ago, she warned that time was running out for the EU to make concrete improvements in its aid program, saying that unless there was substantial progress in the next two years, member states would intervene.
(IRNA)