Madagascar: where did the humanitarian aid go?

Transparency International points to a system of misappropriation of humanitarian aid in Madagascar and corruption. In particular, foodstuffs intended for the populations would be resold on the markets.

This may be the start of an international scandal. Transparency International, via its Malina network, its investigation unit, denounces possible embezzlement of humanitarian aid intended for Madagascar. The NGO's investigation "highlights the constraints, offenses and corrupt practices that taint the management of this aid, with potentially disastrous consequences for the population on the embezzlement linked to the response to kere in the Great South of Madagascar". . In a XNUMX-minute video, Malina describes what looks like a massive scandal.

The kere is the name given to the endemic famine in southern Madagascar. Blame it on a drought that has now lasted four years and threatens hundreds of thousands of Malagasy people. According to RFI, 1,5 million inhabitants are in a situation of food insecurity in this part of the island. Among the most affected regions, the district of Ambovombe. There, as elsewhere, one wonders where the aid intended to fight against the famine has gone.

And these aids are not only financial. Commodities — rice, pulses, oil, etc. — have also been diverted, according to the NGO which studied the period September 2022-March 2023. In question, the aid provided by the World Food Program (WFP) and the Development Intervention Fund. Already in Ethiopia, malfunctions had led the WFP to suspend its activities. This time, therefore, it is in Madagascar that the potential diversions have been observed.

A real system, deplores Malina. “The diversions are of different forms, explains the management of the cell. For example, we have the people who are handlers, who move the bags of rice, who take some. We also have authorities who give false identity cards so that people can have access to humanitarian aid”. For the NGO, "it's a whole chain of small links that completely diverts the goods to other people and we end up with bags of rice that are sold on the market square when normally these are bags of rice that should have been distributed to the people".

Food provided for in the context of humanitarian aid would therefore be resold. Worse still, aid money is stolen. "Our witnesses also denounce the fact that they are stripped of this aid once they receive the sums", explains Transparency International Initiative Madagascar. The witnesses, deplores the NGO, risk reprisals for having denounced a systemic theft, embezzlement and acts of corruption. The ultimate risk being that the aid will now be cancelled. The NGO “calls on the public authorities and all those responsible, in particular the humanitarian agencies, to look at this situation closely, to take concrete measures to improve practices”.