South Sudan urges donors deliver aid faster

March 22, 2007 (JUBA) — South Sudan has asked donor countries to speed up delivery of aid designed to help rebuild its devastated infrastructure and create a peace dividend after two decades of civil war.

Following a January 2005 peace deal, $4,5-billion was pledged to Sudan by donors, who were meeting in the south on Thursday. After the deal they also put $400-million in a Multi-Donor Trust Fund (MDTF) to monitor its expenditure.

“The official public statistics indicate that only 61 percent has been paid into the MDTF and only 14% of the total pledges have been spent during the last two years,” south Sudan President Salva Kiir told donors.

He also criticised the speed of actual implementation of programs, even when the cash was available. “A lot is desired to expedite the implementation of MDTF-funded projects,” said Kiir.

“Currently it is the government of Southern Sudan who takes the heat for the delays,” he said. Many worry those unimpressed with slow reconstruction and aid will return to war.

At least two million were killed and four million driven from their homes during Sudan’s north-south war, Africa’s longest.

“We think that donor pledges are on track, but that delivery is slow, not just of the MDTF but everything,” said Ishac Diwan, the World Bank representative for Sudan and Ethiopia. The Bank is one of the main partners directing the MTDF.

Diwan said that processing cash through MDTF structures was bureaucratic but less open to corruption.

Kiir has cracked down on corruption in his new southern government, which suddenly found oil revenues of up to $1,3-billion at its disposal as part of the deal.

This week the immunity of the south’s finance minister was lifted so he could be questioned by an anti-corruption commission.

And South Sudan’s army spokesperson Kuol Diem Kuol said one of the top six officials in the southern army, Isaac Mamur, had been arrested for irregularities.

According to an official document shown to Reuters by Kuol, the charges were “importing guns, pistol pouches and ammunitions into the South as well as cars without the authority of headquarters.”

Southern finance ministry official Aggrey Tisa Sabuni told Reuters that Sudanese people hoped for faster aid delivery from donors, “…but given the capacity to deliver in Sudan, they are going in the right direction.”

With no formal banking structures and too few skilled workers in the southern government’s ministries, the capacity of authorities to receive and spend the money has been limited.

(Reuters)