MOBILE DEVICES
Free Headline Alerts     
Worldwide Web WorldTribune.com

  breaking... 


Monday, February 15, 2010     FOR YOUR EYES ONLY

Palestinian authorities raid government coffers, former official says

RAMALLAH — After nearly two decades of Western largesse, the Palestinian Authority continues to be rife with corruption.   

Officials said an investigation has determined that senior PA officials, particularly aides of chairman Mahmoud Abbas, were embezzling millions of dollars in foreign aid. They said much of the stolen money was provided by the United States to reform the government and the security forces.

"Unfortunately, Abbas has surrounded himself with many of the thieves and officials who were involved in theft of public funds and who became icons of financial corruption," Fahmi Shabaneh, a former PA anti-corruption chief, said.


Also In This Edition

On Jan. 30, 10 senior Fatah members submitted their resignation for what they said was the refusal of the movement to implement resolutions by the Revolutionary Council, Middle East Newsline reported. They said the resolutions, passed in August 2009, called for transparency in Fatah's budget.

"We have six legitimate demands that we issued to the Fatah Central Committee including implementation of the resolutions of the Sixth Conference, in addition to revising the region's seven committees and correcting financial affairs," Revolutionary Council member Khazem Thuqan said. "We have submitted our resignations to Central Committee member Mahmoud Al Aloul as all parties failed in dialogue."

Shabaneh, appointed by Abbas in 2006, attributed most of the corruption to the ruling Fatah movement. Forced out in 2009 after exposing high-level corruption, Shabaneh said Fatah stole $3.2 million in U.S. funds to help the party in 2006 elections, won by the opposition Hamas movement.

"In his pre-election platform, President Abbas promised to end financial corruption and implement major reforms, but he hasn't done much since then," Shabaneh told the Jerusalem Post on Jan. 28.

The anti-corruption investigation by the General Intelligence Service was said to have uncovered scores of PA officials who became rich off the government coffers. Shabaneh said senior Fatah operatives who arrived in the West Bank in 1993 with little more than pocket money soon became millionaires.

"Some of the most senior Palestinian officials didn't have even $3,000 in their pocket when they arrived," Shabaneh said. "Yet we discovered that some of them had tens, if not hundreds, of millions of dollars in their bank accounts."

Neither Abbas nor Prime Minister Salam Fayad, a former World Bank official, has halted corruption within the PA, Shabaneh said. The former anti-corruption chief cited Abbas' aides, most of them leftovers from the late Yasser Arafat, and responsible for much of the high-level embezzlement.

The PA has launched an investigation of one of Shabaneh's accusations. The investigation focused on an Abbas aide shown nude in a 2008 video and trying to trade his influence for sex with an unidentified woman. The aide, Rafik Husseini, chief of Abbas's office, has remained in his post.

PA corruption, which included fictitious land deals and sexual scandals, has become the leading complaint among Palestinian constituents in the West Bank, Shabaneh said. He said Hamas, in control of the Gaza Strip since 2007, has exploited rising discontent and was poised to overthrow the Fatah-led regime in Ramallah.

"Had it not been for the presence of the Israeli authorities in the West Bank, Hamas would have done what they did in the Gaza Strip," Shabaneh, now a GIS commander responsible for the Jerusalem area, said. "It's hard to find people in the West Bank who support the Palestinian Authority. People are fed up with the financial corruption and mismanagement of the Palestinian Authority. As long as the same corrupt guys are running the show we shouldn't expect real changes."



About Us     l    Contact Us     l    Geostrategy-Direct.com     l    East-Asia-Intel.com
Copyright © 2010    East West Services, Inc.    All rights reserved.