Revelation that Aid Minister ignored UN requests for food aid disturbing

international | miscellaneous | press release

Thursday August 04, 2005 14:52

by SF

Thereal story of Niger is not how great "we" are for saving the starving Africans - but how the rich did nothing until it was too late.

4th August 2005

Revelation that Aid Minister ignored UN requests for food aid disturbing

Sinn Fein Councillor Killian Forde has described as “disturbing” the
revelation that Overseas Aid Minister Conor Lenihan ignored at least four
separate requests by the UN’s food aid section for funding of famine relief
in Niger over the past 10 months. He said if Minister Lenihan wasn't
capable of managing his overseas aid brief he should be dismissed.

Councillor Forde said, “Two of these requests were made when Ireland was an
Executive Board member of the UN World Food Programme, a position they were
elected onto and entrusted by other UN members to prevent food shortages
becoming famines. This they failed utterly to do.”

Councillor Forde, a former overseas aid worker, said “The Ethiopian famine
of the mid 80’s caught the world by surprise, since then millions has
rightfully been spent developing sophisticated tracking mechanisms to
forewarn on impending food crisis’s. The news that four specific requests
for assistance by the UN’s World Food Programme were ignored by Minister
Lenihan is disturbing and makes a mockery of the hard work and money that
has been incurred developing ‘Early Warning Systems’ to prevent occurrences
of starving kids as we have seen from Niger.

“The fact that Ireland had a seat on the Board and therefore a unique
viewpoint on the long lead in time of this famine only compounds this
scandal.”

Killian also pointed out that, “under the Conor Lenihans tenure Irelands
donation for famine prevention to the UN has slipped and in 2004 Ireland
lagged far behind smaller European countries with even the impoverished
African State of Malawi contributing more.”

Councillor Forde added that, “Ireland has a long and proud tradition of
delivering great aid programmes, being generous and swift in our response.
This Government has a clear choice - it can either allow that proud
tradition to be sullied by its current policies under Minister Lenihan or
the Taoiseach should dismiss Minister Lenihan if he has been acting alone
in his mismanagement of his overseas aid brief."