CORRUPTION-HONDURAS:
International Aid
Hanging by a Thread
By
Thelma Mejía
TEGUCIGALPA, (IPS)
- The Honduran
government of Manuel
Zelaya has not been able
to overcome the
country’s reputation for
corruption, to the
extent that it is on the
point of losing millions
of dollars in aid from
the Millennium Challenge
Account, a fund set up
by the United States to
help extremely poor
countries.
Funding for Honduras
amounting to 215 million
dollars was approved in
late 2005 for a
five-year period, but so
far only 28 million
dollars have been
transferred.
This aid is conditional
upon compliance with
transparency standards,
a favourable investment
climate and efforts to
fight corruption. But
Honduras did not pass
the first evaluation,
carried out early this
year.
The second evaluation is
due in November, and
according to the deputy
director of the
Millennium Challenge
Account for Honduras,
Jonathan Brooks, whether
the aid continues or is
suspended depends on the
results.
That is when it will be
decided whether the
country is still
eligible or must start a
remedial process to
continue receiving the
disbursements, after
fulfilling a series of
conditions that cannot
be predicted at this
moment, Brooks told the
Honduran press.
In addition, the Swedish
International
Development Cooperation
Agency (SIDA) has
announced that its aid
to Honduras will be
"substantially" reduced
as of 2008.
It is not that this
country of seven million
people does not need
international aid.
According to the
Honduran government’s
Second Country Report,
2007, on the Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs),
62 percent of Honduran
households are poor, and
42 percent are extremely
poor.
The problem appears to
be something different.
The World Bank report on
Worldwide Governance
Indicators 1996-2006
includes a ranking for
control of corruption in
212 countries and
territories, and
Honduras has slipped
down several places
because of its lack of
transparency.
The ranking was a
composite of a dozen
indicators, including
transparency,
effectiveness of the
fight against
corruption, violence,
social stability and
governance, based on
surveys of hundreds of
citizens, experts,
business people and
social leaders and
compiled by at least 33
bodies, including the
Chile-based
Latinobarómetro and the
U.S. organisation
Freedom House.
The partial release of
the report drew fire in
Honduras, with Yani
Rosenthal, minister of
the Presidency, saying
the report "gives a
false perception with
intent to harm us for
unfathomable reasons."
Rosenthal attributed
this "false perception"
to the fact that the
period under evaluation
spans more time under
previous governments
than the present one.
The data include only
Zelaya’s first year in
office, and he has now
been president for 19
months.
Since taking office on
Jan. 27, 2006, the
government has been the
target of over 10
allegations of
corruption, including
theft of electrical
energy by high
administration
officials,
irregularities in
tenders for health
supplies, the hiring of
advisers for
non-existent jobs, waste
of resources in the
telephone company,
influence peddling and
abuse of power in
handing out road
building and energy
generation contracts.
The latest scandal broke
out in July, when an
investigative commission
appointed by the
president confirmed
irregularities in
contracts approved by
the head of the Road
Fund, Ramiro Chacón. But
once the commission had
reported its findings,
Zelaya rewarded Chacón
by offering him the post
of vice minister in the
Secretariat of Public
Works, Housing and
Transport.
In the view of Enrique
Flores, presidential
adviser for legal
affairs, some of the
allegations are
"unfounded, because
since the president took
office, his commitment
to transparency has been
so great that a law of
access to public
information has been
approved, as a sign of
good faith, to rescue
the credibility and
dignity of this
country," he told IPS.
But the sunshine law,
which will come into
force next year, creates
a series of obstacles
for public access to
information, experts and
activists say. On Aug.
9, Congress elected
commissioners for the
future Institute of
Access to Public
Information (IAIP),
which will implement the
law, in less than three
minutes amid loud
disturbances, shouts and
whistles.
The disturbances were
due to a protest by
telecommunications
workers, as well as
parties that opposed the
nominees.
The commissioners
appointed are loyal to
the traditional
power-broking parties in
Honduras: the governing
Liberal Party and the
opposition National
Party. International aid
officials attending the
session in Congress left
in amazement.
"I can’t believe what
happened, it was
grotesque, we couldn’t
hear a thing because of
the racket, and in the
middle of all that they
elect people for really
important positions,
without any debate or
finding out what their
background is, or their
commitment to
transparency. If this is
your democracy, I don’t
understand it!" an aid
official who wished to
remain anonymous told
IPS.
International aid
agencies have followed
the creation of the IAIP
with interest, as a
fundamental step to
guarantee transparency.
U.S. Ambassador to
Honduras Charles Ford
issued a clear warning
before the IAIP
commissioners were
elected.
He said his country was
very interested in
seeing how the
Millennium Account funds
were spent. Corruption
is a topic that we have
talked about, government
to government, as an
area of great interest
to us, but the fight
against corruption
doesn’t mean much if the
guilty aren’t going to
jail, Ford said.
The National Report on
Transparency, published
a month ago by the state
National Anti-Corruption
Council, recorded 3,000
known cases of
corruption in the last
six years, but only 11
of these have gone to
court.
Sources at the Supreme
Court told IPS that in
the second week of
August, several cases
against persons linked
to the fraudulent
bankruptcy of banks in
the north of the country
had been dismissed.
Julieta Castellanos, a
political analyst and
expert on corruption and
security, told IPS that
"the level of impunity
is so high, it’s hard to
know if the country has
hit bottom or is still
in the process of going
down."
"There’s a vicious
circle and there doesn’t
seem to be a place to
break it. Even when we
monitor the media, we
see that although the
press reports cases of
corruption, the news
stops there: there is no
follow-up by journalists
or by the authorities.
It’s like a show that
gives information and
disinformation at the
same time," she said.
Given this climate, it
is not surprising that
Sweden’s SIDA should
announce a "substantial
reduction" in its annual
aid to the country,
which is estimated at
something over 50
million dollars, most of
it in grants.
Ann Stödberg, with the
Swedish Embassy’s
development aid section,
said she did not know
how much the aid would
be cut. "We will
announce the official
position in September.
We are reformulating all
our cooperation projects
in the countries where
we have assistance
programmes," she said.
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