Local charities may have siphoned off Pakistan flood aid, says Oxfam
NEW DELHI (AlertNet) - International charity Oxfam has launched a probe after discovering that aid money meant to help Pakistanis hit by last year's devastating floods may have been "misappropriated," an official from the group said on Monday.
Last year’s floods decimated entire villages from the far north to the deep south of the country, disrupting the lives of more than 18 million people in a disaster aid workers say was bigger than the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami in terms of displacement, crop and infrastructure damage, livelihood loss and recovery needs.
"During our normal auditing process, we discovered some financial irregularities and suspect that some aid money may have been misappropriated," said Tahseen Alam, Oxfam GB's communications officer for South Asia.
"About two percent of the Oxfam's total flood response is currently unaccounted for," she said, adding that the missing money may have been siphoned off by local charities, funded by Oxfam to help implement relief projects on the ground.
Since the floods began in July last year, Oxfam has poured in $56.8 million to provide clean water, sanitation facilities, shelter and food to almost two million flood-hit Pakistanis.
The floods, sparked by unusually heavy monsoon rains, caused Pakistan's mighty Indus river to burst its banks, inundating one-fifth of the country and forcing thousands to flee.
The disaster is estimated to have caused around $10 billion in damages. Hundreds of thousands of acres of crops were destroyed and roads, schools and bridges have been decimated in the provinces of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, in the north, and Punjab and Sindh in the South.
Alam said Oxfam is taking the issue of unaccounted funds very seriously and has called in professional services firm PricewaterhouseCoopers to conduct an "independent, external financial audit".
The probe would be completed within a month, she said, adding that Oxfam would suspend funding to the local charities under investigation until then.
"Oxfam's priority is to ensure that donors' money is spent effectively and that it provides the support expected and committed to poor people in Pakistan," said Alam. "We will use every means possible to recover any lost money."
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