I was wondering why the international response to this flood was less than other natural disaster around the world including 2005 earth quake which had $5billion in internation aid.
- There was massive fraud, corruption by goverment in distributing and diverting the aid meant for rehabilitation of the victims of 2005 eartquake. If any if u remember lots of items donated were being sold in the market in lahore and isloo.
- WOT: NATO/US and the other media have been accusing the army/isi of playing double game.
- Danish cartoon reaction in pakistan,Shahzad NYC case, mumbai 26/11 and recent remark of Cameron, FaceBook reaction etc. generated lots of negative press about pakistan.
Still the largest donors are US,UK,AUS,GERMANY etc. where is our "islamic brother nations" (i wrote this before noticing that SA had donated $100m, i stand corrected!) or for that matter our “All weather friend” china ?(which btw has the world’s largest reserve of $2Trilion). Note all the western economies are in deep trouble still they donated generously!
I hope we dont start burning US flags and chanting “death to amreeka”!
For pakistans sake army/isi should stop fking around playing good terrorist, bad terrorist game! There is only one kind of good terrorist, dead one!
http://news.asiaone.com/News/Latest%2BNews/Asia/Story/A1Story20100814-232081.html
LONDON - More than 300 million pounds (S$640 million) of aid to help rebuild parts of Pakistan after the 2005 earthquake was diverted to other projects, a British report said Saturday.
The Daily Telegraph newspaper, citing unnamed senior Pakistani officials, said there were fears this diversion of funds would put off foreign donors from giving money to help 20 million people currently affected by heavy floods.
“There’s reluctance, even people in this country are not giving generously into this flood fund because they’re not too sure the money will be spent honestly,” opposition leader Nawaz Sharif told the newspaper.
The Daily Telegraph said more than 300 million pounds of aid for the 2005 earthquake, which killed more than 73,000 people, has yet to be handed over to Pakistan’s Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority (ERRA).
It cited one senior ERRA official as saying they were told in March 2009 that 12 billion Pakistan rupees (S$191 million) was being diverted from their budget to other government projects.
“When we have the money we will pay you,” the unnamed official said that ERRA directors had been told. “All the money was given by Western governments, but they said ‘we have so many other problems’.”
In June this year, ERRA staff were again told their budget was being cut, from 43 billion rupees for 2010-2011 to just 10 billion, the newspaper said.
The paper also said it had visited the town of Balakot, where 5,000 people were killed in the earthquake. Despite a promise to rebuild it on a new site, no new roads had been completed nor had building construction begun.
Pakistan’s finance secretary, Salman Siddiq, denied any foreign aid funds had been diverted and told the paper: “No cuts were imposed last year.”
Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said Saturday that 20 million people had been affected by the worst floods in the country’s history, for which the United Nations has appealed for US$460 million dollars in aid.