NGO blows whistle on food aid swindle
JAKARTA (JP): A Bangkok-based group has accused the government of President B.J. Habibie of abusing international food aid to bolster the electoral chances of certain political parties.
The Southeast Asia Council for Food Security and Fair Trade said in a statement received on Saturday that it found the Indonesian government had retargeted the food aid away from rural areas to urban groups "in an attempt to pacify unrest and maintain political support for the upcoming elections".
It quoted Philip Clarke, head of the World Food Program mission in Indonesia as telling the council's fact-finding mission that Indonesia was not suffering a food crisis.
"We're used to Africa, and we didn't find those conditions of hunger here," said Clarke. "So we should probably wind up and go back to Africa, where we belong," he said.
Indonesia's financial collapse led to it becoming the world's largest recipient of international food aid in 1998.
The council, a network of 10 non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and research institutes, sent teams of investigators to East Timor, Central Java and East Kalimantan.
The investigators saw evidence of corruption and incompetent distribution of food aid, the statement said.
The team concluded that food aid was being used for political rather than humanitarian reasons, and believed that relief should be targeted at countries with a real food crisis, such as North Korea.
It also found that Indonesia's food problems and related unrest would not be solved through aid, but rather by creating jobs and sustainable industrial and agricultural sectors.
Lawsuit
In Kediri, East Java, Antara quoted chairman of the People's Sovereignty Party (PDR), Latief Burhan, as saying on Saturday that he is considering taking legal action against those who have been accusing the party of practicing "money politics" ahead of the elections.
The Urban Poor Consortium (UPC) has accused PDR and the Golkar Party, of abusing a US$800 million poverty alleviation program for their election campaigns.
On Sunday about a 100 people saying they were of the urban poor demonstrated at UPC's office in East Jakarta saying UPC was "against people's economy," the agency reported. They rejected UPC request for a dialog and dispersed. The office was tightly guarded since morning by security personnel following harassment through phone calls.
UPC also accused PDR of taking advantage of Rp 6.5 trillion (US$802 million) of government money earmarked for the poor.
PDR is widely associated with Minister of Cooperatives and Small Enterprises Adi Sasono, who denied any formal link despite huge party adverts carrying his portrait.
UPC coordinator, Wardah Hafidz, told a media conference on Wednesday that Golkar and PDR had used some of the World Bank- funded social safety net funds to help promote their parties.
The social safety net program is a World Bank-channeled fund aimed at helping millions forced to live below the poverty line because of the economic crisis of the past two years.
A number of non-governmental organizations complained to the World Bank in February that only 30 percent of the $2 billion in the fund in the fiscal year to March 31 had been disbursed by December.
On May 20, the World Bank approved two loans totaling $1.1 billion for Indonesia, after Jakarta agreed not to use the money until after the June 7 elections.
One $600 million loan is to help strengthen the safety net program, while the other, for $500 million, will support economic reforms, the World Bank said.
Responding to concerns about the fund, the government promised not to use World Bank funds to finance the budget until July.
The World Bank had delayed approving the loan, which was expected earlier, until it obtained assurances the money would not be touched until after the elections.
Fears have been expressed that Golkar would use the fund to get a campaign edge in the elections. (emb/byg)