Sawsan Ramahi Corruption in the Palestinian authority
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Middle East Monitor Special Report
Corruption is endemic in the Palestinian Authority, the private
sector and NGOs. It is spreading across all sections of Palestinian
society.
A report prepared by the European Union stated that financial
corruption in the PA led to the “loss” of aid amounting to around
€2 billion, which was transferred to the West Bank and Gaza Strip
during the period 2008 to 2012. London’s Sunday Times reported
that there is great imbalance in the spending and management of
European money in the Palestinian territories.
The report was written after EU monitors visited Jerusalem, Gaza
and the West Bank and told of their inability to confront “high-level
risks” such as “bribes and misuse of aid”. The newspaper also
reported that the EU may take measures to reduce the budget
allotted to the Palestinians or, at least, monitor more closely the
money being transferred.
This is not the first report regarding the corruption of the
Palestinian Authority, as it has been accused of corruption since its
establishment. Many examples have come to light of Palestinian
officials accused of corruption, both during the late President
Yasser Arafat’s time in office and under the regime of current
President Mahmoud Abbas.
On August 15, 2003, Al-Quds Al-A
atah members.
Close PA members
The circle involved in systematic corruption was made up of
senior leaders in the PA and Fatah. The many scandals of such
officials and those close to Abbas have been exposed and seen
as symbols of financial and political corruption, nepotism, bribery,
smuggling and theft.
Of course, these scandals were not limited to the theft of money
belonging to the Palestinian people; they put the lives of citizens
at risk, as transactions involving stale flour and medicine past its
use-by date were discovered, as well as the exploitation of official
positions and diplomatic passes for smuggling operations.
The Israelis arrested Rawhi Fattuh, who was the personal
representative of PA President Mahmoud Abbas, and who was
also the interim PA leader after Arafat’s death. He was caught
smuggling mobile phones in his car from Jordan to the occupied
West Bank. The Israeli customs authorities found 3,400 state of
the art handsets in the car, valued at over $400,000.
Shortly after that scandal, Palestinian sources revealed an official
document proving that Ahmed Qurei, the PA’s chief negotiator,
was in receipt of $3 million transferred from the PLO account,
along with two other unknown persons.
Certainly, Palestinian corruption has been facilitated by Israel, as
it is a joint effort with benefits and losses, but it is unfortunate that
there has been an attempt to portray the issue as an Israeli plot
against the struggling Palestinians, as if the Palestinian authorities
and officials are helpless. Such attempts underestimate the minds
of the people. The corruption filling the PA is not a simple or
limited matter and has become a burden suffered by the citizens;
corruption will continue to overwork and exhaust the people, as
well as weaken the position of the PA in the sight of aid donors.
It is also unfortunate that the corruption scandal will reduce the
sympathy of the Arab people towards Palestinian issues. This will
dry-up the flow of funds and donations.
Authorities do not usually base the rules of their behaviour on
the ethics of individuals, but base them on institutional rules and
regulations. Today, the Palestinian Authority lacks all kinds of
authority and monitoring, legislative, executive and judicial. There
is no monitoring of, or accountability for, executive authority.
As long as there are no institutions monitoring the behaviour
and actions of the Palestinian Authority, corruption will continue
until it turns into an even more destructive force that affects the
authority’s branches and agencies, making it impossible to stop. In
order for us to avoid such a devastating situation and to put a stop
to the rampant expansion of corruption in the PA, and because
the PA will not monitor its own corruption, civil society must take
appropriate steps to do so. The independently-owned media must
uncover and expose corruption as long as the official Palestinian
media outlets are neglecting their role in this regard.
Michael Theurer chairman of the European Parliament's Committee on Budgetary Control.
Europe' Unaccountable Palestinian Aid
http://online.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702303456104579489243465971348
The EU is today the largest donor to the Palestinian Authority, which relies mainly on foreign donations. But European lawmakers have a duty to ensure that EU funds aren't diverted from the noble purpose for which they're intended.
In its report, issued in December, the European Court of Auditors revealed major dysfunctions in the management of EU financial support to the Palestinian Authority, and called for a serious overhaul of the funding mechanism.
Among other things, the court criticized the absence of any conditions for EU aid to the Palestinian Authority, an approach that reduces the potential leverage of the EU to push for more reforms from the Palestinian Authority. This is a surprising exception to the EU's famous "more-for-more" principle, according to which the EU offers stronger partnership and more incentives to countries that make more progress toward democratic reforms. This principle applies to every other recipient of EU aid in the world. In other words, the Palestinian Authority is the only body that receives EU funds regardless of its human-rights record or economic performance.
The court also revealed that, since 2007, "a considerable number" of Palestinian Authority civil servants in Gaza have received their salaries partly funded through EU aid—even though they "were not going to work due to the political situation in Gaza." How exactly does this contribute to peace-building? And how can the EU preserve its credibility back home when it pays salaries to people who don't work, while millions of European citizens are unemployed?
The court also found that the EU paid insufficient attention to the fungibility of the funds it provided to the Palestinian Authority. There is reason to believe that EU financial assistance has allowed the Palestinian Authority to use its own general budget to support terrorist or criminal activities.
The Palestinian Authority, for example, allocates a significant portion of its budget to paying salaries to Palestinian prisoners convicted of terrorism offenses. These salaries are up to five times higher than the average salary in the West Bank. Prisoners also receive large grants from the Palestinian Authority. According to the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in 2012 the Palestinian Authority's payments to convicted terrorists in Israeli prisons and to the families of deceased terrorists (including suicide bombers) together accounted for more than 16% of the annual foreign donations and grants to the budget of the Palestinian Authority. In February this year the Palestinian minister for prisoners' affairs announced that €30 million will be allocated to current or former prisoners in 2014.