Tsunami aid spent on other projects
Watchdog says French aid charities were swamped with so much money they could not spend it all on 2004 tsunami relief
AID charities have been accused of diverting French donations raised for the 2004 Asian tsunami for projects elsewhere in the world after being swamped with more money than they could spend.
An investigation by the Cour des Comptes audit watchdog found French donors had raised an unprecedented €356 million after the disaster, but only €337.8m had been spent directly on tsunami relief. The “generosity of the public exceeded the needs” of the tsunami victims, it said.
The 2004 Boxing Day tsunami, which followed an earthquake in the Indian Ocean, claimed the lives of 230,000 residents and holiday-makers in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, the Maldives and Thailand. One in three of the victims were children.
The accounts of more than 30 French non-governmental humanitarian organisations were checked in the inquiry. The biggest beneficiary was the Croix-Rouge Française, which took in €115.8m, one third of the money raised and twice the total of the next biggest beneficiary, Unicef - Comité Français.
The Cour des Comptes found that “more than 90 per cent of the resources” had been usefully spent between 2004 and 2008, but added that a “not negligible” sum had been spent on other humanitarian projects without the consent of the donors.
However, there had been little co-ordination of the actions taken, which resulted in considerable duplication of effort.
It noted that the money raised was three times the amount raised for last year’s Haiti earthquake relief fund.
Photo: Sofwathulla Mohamed
