Corruption LIVE

Yes, corruption in its nastiest sense of the word, and I am not talking solely about “mismanagement” or "embezzlement" of resources, as some would like to wrap it up nicely in order not to make the embarrassment so plain and direct to whoever is (or not) involved in whichever aid issue. If we are talking about corruption than let us call the devil by his/her/its real name: robbing the most vulnerable in acute need.

What happened? Well, one week ago I came back from a week long field trip in which we were distributing food to flood victims. So far distribution in several regions and communities went more or less without major disturbances and food was received by most of the beneficiaries. But at this region X it proved to be from the very beginning an organisational challenge. Spilled beans, missing rice bags, missing identity cards or heat were in the end rather easy-to-handle problems, sometimes occurring also elsewhere.

Here, at the end of the day the big problem was corruption. Presenting itself in its most disgusting form, it was about people trying to make profit from the suffering of others, in this case flood victims of whom many lost, apart from their upcoming harvest and available food stocks, also the roof above their head together with all their modest valuables. Since WFP is supposed to complement the government’s response efforts to floods by providing emergency food aid and logistical support, the distribution of monthly rations is still team work in which actors from various levels of government and affected communities are directly involved to ensure transparency, accountability and ownership of the entire distribution process.

However, what do you do when a small group of individuals from the government’s own response framework jointly with some villagers, with whom you are supposed to work together in helping their own people in need, purposefully manipulate the process and sideline WFP in anticipation of a material gain, say, almost one ton of food items (rice, beans, vegetable oil and salt)? Well, at the very least you investigate the matter with everyone present at the distribution point and this is what we had to do at the end in one of the cities, only to find out that some people we were working with had the intent to steal, or should I rather say “divert” food away from the genuine beneficiaries, through false beneficiaries into their own pockets, once WFP was about to leave the distribution site.

For obvious reasons, I cannot dwell here about the details of the affair as the issue is still a hot potato and the above summary should suffice for a more general understanding of the problem. But what I can definitely say is that irrespective of us successfully regaining almost the entire amount of missing food items, and the investigation leading to concrete results to be hopefully followed up by the respective authorities, the discovery of such a misconduct by the beneficiaries' own nationals is a very frustrating experience for any aid worker who constantly works beyond his/her planned schedule to help the poorest of the poor.

On the one hand the frustration is created because you see on the spot the genuine beneficiaries who were the potential victims of a criminal activity (besides being already flood victims) On the other hand you have to face all the time those who are not honest with you from the very outset, and thereby only discredit their hard-working colleagues with whom distribution is organised elsewhere. This is definitely not helpful in the view of future distributions and unfair to those who are genuinely trying to help their own people. In the end, everyone else will be suspicious but the victims will be always those who will lose out double should any “inconsistencies” happen again in the future.

Now, what did I personally learn from it? Playing Sherlock Holmes on the spot was something I did not expect to do here but it definitely was a good experience that expanded my TOR and made the job more exciting. However, even though the experience was also emotionally frustrating, the whole matter made me even more alert for future distributions and will influence my relationship with local colleagues in future distributions. On a positive note and what is even most important, it made me more committed and devoted to the objective of helping the victims, despite or rather because of corrupt people trying to additionally harm them, on top of the natural calamity. It made me also realise once again that corruption should definitely be taken into consideration any time we are talking about people's vulnerability status, especially of the poorest households.

So, no time for complacency but for an ever greater commitment. That's our job, and that's why I love it.