 Quake-stricken Pakistan heaved a sigh of relief on Sunday after world donors pledged almost $6 billion, and vowed in return to account for every cent as it distributes the aid to survivors of last month's huge tremor. Pakistan, seen as one of the most corrupt nations in a recent global survey, secured over $3 billion in fresh pledges at a donor conference on Saturday, taking the total to $5.83 billion, after the United Nations complained of a weak initial response. "It will help change the lives of millions of people stricken by the tragedy," the News newspaper said in an editorial on Sunday, having headlined its front-page story: "Finally, world conscience shaken and stirred. Hope wins the day."
| I think the world conscience was stricken and stirred when the earthquake occurred, but that agencies were reluctant to donate because of the sure knowledge the money would be raked off by the handful. |
The October 8 quake killed more than 73,000, mostly in the remote Himalayan region of Pakistani Kashmir and in North West Frontier Province, and left hundreds of thousands homeless. Fears had grown of a second calamity as winter closes in, threatening people living high in the mountains without proper shelter.
| People who refuse to leave their mountain fastnesses for fear someone's gonna come sniffin' 'round their wimmin... |
International aid banks and countries more than doubled their pledges at Saturday's conference in Islamabad, exceeding Pakistan's target of $5.2 billion, after U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan came to plead for more money. But in announcing their pledges, mostly in the form of soft loans, several donors, including the biggest, spoke of the need for proper accounting and for all of the cash to be spent on the survivors and on rebuilding their lives and communities.
| As a lovely young maiden once observed to me: "Nebbah hoppen, G.I."... Well, maybe she wasn't a maiden. In fact, I'm sure she wasn't, now that I think about it. |
Proper accounting systems do not yet exist in Pakistan to publicly track the aid money right down to district and village level, international aid group Oxfam said on Sunday. "Those kind of systems ... have not yet been established and they could be established," Oxfam's South Asia coordinator, Ben Phillips, told Reuters by phone. "There are methods that work and there should not be any reason for not giving money."
| "Oh, yasss, sahib! We are using Islamic accounting system!" |
Pakistan lies near the bottom of Transparency International's 2005 Corruption Perceptions Index, ranked 144th beside Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Paraguay, Somalia, Sudan and Tajikistan.
| With all that money to skim, I'm sure the pols and holy men will be working overtime to move them even further down the list. |
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