Washington’s aid chief warned in a visit to the country that the purse strings may be cut for Pakistan’s long rehabilitation effort ahead if the government cannot prove that it is spending money properly. “It will require a demonstration of real transparency and accountability and that resources spent in Pakistan get results,” Rajiv Shah told the AP.
As Washington demands more transparency from Pakistan, a UN agency has launched an unusual appeal for relief funds to be sent directly to a Pakistani or Swiss bank account — with none of the usual monitoring safeguards.
It’s a sharp departure from UN protocol that has raised concerns in the international aid community as concerns mount over rampant corruption in Pakistan, and whether it may be preventing the money from going where it’s needed most. The press release by the UN’s obscure International Telecommunication Union asks donors to wire money to the National Bank of Pakistan or Switzerland’s UBS AG to “assist the flood-affected victims” and rebuild telephone networks — but offers no specifics on concrete projects.
ITU’s request affects only a tiny fraction of the total aid for Pakistan. But it touches on corruption fears raised in particular by the United States, which has provided the largest portion of the $800 million pledged for Pakistan’s flood relief.
ITU spokesman Sanjay Acharya defended the appeal, which was made at the request of the Pakistani government. “We cannot possibly say ‘No, we don’t trust you,”’ Acharya said. For the Pakistani account, he said, “it’s their responsibility. We can’t monitor that.”
Reports indicate that millions of dollars regularly disappear into Pakistani officials’ pockets, and the country’s politicians score among the worst in polls by corruption watchdog Transparency International.
In Islamabad, Information Ministry secretary Najibullah Malik promised that all money would be distributed transparently.
But some analysts expressed grave reservations. “It’s like the Nigerian or Ivory Coast messages asking for help, when they give you the bank account,” said Riccardo Bocco, a professor at Geneva’s Graduate Institute. “It looks quite funny. I don’t know if it’s a new practice in the UN world, but I doubt it.”
ITU’s appeal is highly unusual because the UN has placed a heavy emphasis on monitoring in recent disaster relief efforts.
Money from public aid appeals rarely goes straight to governments.
Normal UN appeals are “clearly defined,” said Elisabeth Byrs, a spokeswoman for the UN’s aid coordination office OCHA, whose money requests are accompanied by a detailed breakdown of planned operations.
She wouldn’t speak specifically about ITU, and said that generally for the UN “each project has a cost, and we add up all of these to form the appeal.” But the ITU’s plea for money is separate from the United Nations’ $459 million consolidated appeal for Pakistan, and the agency functions as a largely independent body within the UN system.
Acharya conceded that details were still hazy on the two funds his agency was promoting. The “Prime Minister’s Flood Relief Fund 2010” is under the direct control of the Pakistani government, while money in the ITU account in Switzerland will be disbursed with the help of Pakistan’s Ministry of Information Technology, he said.
Pakistani Information Minister Qamar Zaman Kaira recently reported that the prime minister’s account has received 1.4 billion rupees ($16.2 million). He said some people have donated by handing checks to the prime minister.
“We would like the people to donate generously,” Kaira said.
Meanwhile, Malik praised ITU for asking donors to help in rebuilding telephone networks, and said Pakistan needed foreign financial assistance. Officials are completing an assessment of damage caused to the networks, and the “money given to Pakistan will be used in a transparent manner,” he told the AP on Wednesday.
Along with the government, local and international agencies and the US military, a number of Islamist groups have been providing aid to flood victims. One is alleged to be a front for Lashkar-e-Taiba, the group blamed for the 2008 attacks in Mumbai, India.
America has been the most generous contributor to the flood aid, rushing in emergency assistance to support a vital ally in the war against Al-Qaeda and Taleban. But rebuilding homes, roads, livelihoods and vital infrastructure will cost billions of dollars, and there are questions over who will pay.
The Pakistan government says about $800 million in emergency aid has been committed or pledged so far. But there are concerns internationally about how the money will be spent by the government, which has a reputation for inefficiency and corruption.
Before the disaster, the US had pledged to spend $7.5 billion over the next five years for projects including improving schools and hospitals, building dams and helping the country generate electricity.
Shah said much of that package would now be spent on flood rebuilding. Teams are still assessing the damage to figure out the exact costs.
Meanwhile, Pakistan battled Wednesday to save areas threatened by more devastating flood waters as the United Nations warned that 800,000 people in desperate need of aid had been cut off by the deluge.
The UN launched an urgent appeal Tuesday for more helicopters to deliver aid to those people reachable only by air, after floods triggered by a torrent of monsoon rains washed away bridges and vital access roads.
“As monsoon floods continue to displace millions in southern Pakistan, an estimated 800,000 people in need across the country are only accessible by air,” the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said.
“These unprecedented floods pose unprecedented logistical challenges, and this requires an extraordinary effort by the international community,” said John Holmes, UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator.
Global pledges have topped $700 million, but Pakistani and international relief officials have raised concerns about the slow pace of aid and Islamabad has warned that total losses could reach $43 billion.
Some 4.5 million people remain in urgent need of shelter, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said Wednesday.
Another two million left homeless by the floods were due to have received shelter materials such as tents and plastic sheets within the next couple of days, the IOM said.
Officials warned yet more Pakistanis could be affected in the fertile southern plains of Sindh province, which face the risk of further flooding in the next few days as the major Indus river threatens to burst its banks.
“Hyderabad and large surrounding districts are still facing a threat,” Sindh’s irrigation minister Jam Saifullah Dharejo said.
In Kotri, a western suburb of Hyderabad, the river had swelled from its normal width of 200 to 300 meters to almost 3.5 km, local army spokesman Asad Ahmad Jalili said.
Pakistan officials are in talks with the International Monetary Fund in Washington amid reports Islamabad is asking the fund to ease the terms of a loan worth nearly $11 billion.
