Corruption eats into Somalia’s food aid

[N.O.R.F]

Corruption eats into Somalia’s food aid

 

Matt Brown, Foreign Correspondent

 

Last Updated: March 02. 2009 9:30AM UAE / March 2. 2009 5:30AM GMT

 

BURAO, SOMALIA // In a dimly lit warehouse behind the bustling market in this northern Somali town, white plastic sacks full of sorghum are stacked nearly to the ceiling.

 

Most of the 200 or so bags of grain have the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) logo on them. Some are from the United States Agency for International Development and have the words, “Not for sale or exchange” written on them.

 

However, all of this food, intended as handouts to some of the world’s neediest people, is for sale. Corruption is adding to the already catastrophic food crisis here in Somalia, where three million people, or one-third of the population, are dependent on food aid.

 

In south and central Somalia, where nearly 20 years of war has ravaged the country, warlords commonly steal food aid and use it to control the population. Here in the more stable northern region, where many have sought shelter from the fighting, some of the food is stolen by corrupt officials looking to make a profit.

 

“There is corruption,” said Asha Essa, who lives in a camp for displaced people on the outskirts of the town. “I have seen the officials selling our food aid in town.”

 

The displaced people who live in this dusty, sprawling camp of stick and plastic tents lament the fact that they have to buy the food that should be given to them. Many cannot afford to pay the US$7 (Dh25) for a 25kg bag of sorghum. Rising food prices and hyperinflation have put even basic food out of reach for the most vulnerable.

 

“There’s no food,” said Ali Gouled, a camp resident. “When they bring rice, people take it to town. It flies away from here like a bird.”

 

Hassan Bilaal, a programme assistant for the WFP, said 80 per cent of the grain sold in Somali markets had been intended as food aid. He said corruption is partly to blame, but much of it is sold by the aid recipients themselves so that they can earn money to buy sugar and tea and other basics.

 

“If a family gets two bags of sorghum, they will sell one,” he said.

 

Besides corruption, inflation, rising food prices and war, Somalia has been hit with one of its worst droughts in decades. This collection of calamities in the past year has caused what many consider to be the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. Somalia is the WFP’s second largest operation in the world, after Sudan. Malnutrition rates among children here are up to 20 per cent, the WFP says.

 

“Malnutrition is very common in Somalia,” said Gerardo Romay, a programme officer with WFP. “It is very critical and it is everywhere.”

 

The people living in the camps are supposed to receive food donations at the beginning of each month consisting of rice, sorghum, maize, beans and vegetable oil. But the people living in this camp say they have not been fed for three months.

 

“All of us, we are hungry,” said Arfi Ainashe, who has watched four of her eight children die. “The food is not sufficient.”

 

The war in southern Somalia is complicating relief efforts. Somalia has been embroiled in near constant fighting since 1991, when Siad Barre, the dictator, was overthrown by warlords. The warlords then turned against each other in a struggle for control of the country. In 2006, an Islamist movement briefly came to power, but was ousted by Ethiopian forces. The Islamists have waged a guerrilla war ever since.

 

The Ethiopians remained in Somalia until January. After their pullout, the Islamists have continued their war against African Union peacekeepers. At least 11 AU troops were killed in a battle last week.

 

The refugees here in northern Somalia have lived through more than two decades of displacement. They fled to Ethiopia in the 1980s when the Barre regime launched a civil war against the northern Somaliland region. When Ethiopia faced its own war in the eastern ****** region, the Somalis went back home, where they have continued to live in squalid camps.

 

They hack out a meagre existence in the flat, dry scrub brush. Many raise livestock or work as labourers in town to earn extra money to buy back the food rations that are being sold in the market. The global food crisis last year made life particularly tough even for these resilient people that are used to hardship.

 

“This year has been the hardest,” Mrs Ainashe said. “We have had no water. The food prices have gone up. It is a harsh life.”

 

mbrown@thenational.ae

 

http://www.thenational.ae/article/20090302/FOREIGN /719607519&SearchID=73346847469152

[Paragon]

There is corruption,” said Asha Essa, who lives in a camp for displaced people on the outskirts of the town. “I have seen the officials selling our food aid in town.”

 

The displaced people who live in this dusty, sprawling camp of stick and plastic tents lament the fact that they have to buy the food that should be given to them. Many cannot afford to pay the US$7 (Dh25) for a 25kg bag of sorghum. Rising food prices and hyperinflation have put even basic food out of reach for the most vulnerable.

 

“There’s no food,” said Ali Gouled, a camp resident. “When they bring rice, people take it to town.

It flies away from here like a bird.”

Like a bird indeed. Shame this happens, but the misfortune is that the business of stealing and selling food aid has been evolving for the last twenty years of the Somali civil war. It needs effective control, monitoring and distribution from the top to bottom. But where corruption comes from the top, the plight of these poor refugees will always remain as deem as the store in which their food is hoarded.

 

Good luck to them but good governance will sure help. Hope changes come soon with the expected elections.

[N.O.R.F]

^True. The one who is supposed to be helping the poor is shifting the food to his own warehouse!

[Nephissa]

Making profits out of the starving people! Wala hawla wala quwata..! Sometimes I wonder if we are a nation of selfish individualists. Haram Walahi. Even when Somalia was Somalia there were well-known wholesalers that used to import expired and/or empty anti-TB capsules, imagine doing that to your own people for a quick cash!!!! Somalidu lafahay ka bukaan. Caafimad, ya Rabi, Caafimaad..

[Haneefah]

The food aid system itself is completely flawed and ineffective - a system that maintains the vicious cycle of dependency in Africa. It's not as if years of process evaluations have not suggested the adverse impact. But who cares? Frustrating!

 

What the people need instead is capacity building - empowerment, and skills development to reach self-sufficiency. They need to be assisted with ways in which they can earn their own livelihoods and grow their own food. The region is stable, land is abundant, and the people can be hardworking, and capable - why should they wait around and starve for couple of kg of grain which is unlikely to even reach them.

[Goodir]

^The system wasn't designed to end the hunger problems in the world. UN's WFP would have instantly gone out of commission and so would millions of cadaan farmers. It was intended to offer a day's worth of cup of shaah for the needy. Africa needs to boyscout such systems if it plans to get out of the mess. I once heard Haiti was a well producing rice country and its citizens now depend on similar handouts. Go figure.

 

This level of corruption is nothing new to us. Really. We have already nudged it up one level once we introduced to the world the concept of anarchy is habitable. Anarchy is the new democracy. Vote for your Klan Warlord or Klan Cimamadlord. No life or law to be honored and obeyed. No system to be feared or regarded as supreme. To complicate a bit further, we call ourselves Muslims, yet Islam goes against anarchism and stateless entity. For almost twenty long years, Somalia run in anarchy basically because some skinny Moryaan refused to give up his power and fame over stable state. Selfishly gaining few million dollars and daring to risk his life and that of everyone in the country. Stealing a country from eight million people is much more corrupt than a load of rice going to few hundred dying Somalis. One is not better than the other but one is definitely a lot worst than the other.

[Haneefah]

^ I agree, it wasn't designed for such purpose.

 

As for Somalis, imaanku markuu dadka ka tago, wax kasta ka filo.