The World Food Program (WFP) said on Thursday that it had seen “zero evidence” to back up claims made by a UN monitoring group that food aid was being routinely diverted in Somalia.
“We have had no evidence and have not been presented with any evidence of any wide-scale diversion at any level,” Josette Sheeran, director of the WFP, told reporters.
A letter on Tuesday addressed to the Security Council by the UN Coordinator in Somalia, Mark Bowden, also noted that the monitoring group’s report lacked facts to back it up and that some sections were “completely misleading.”
“We are concerned that the report recently submitted to your committee was not prepared with the same level of consultation and that many of the statements made in the humanitarian section were not adequately documented,” he wrote.
Bowden added that the UN team on the ground was “concerned that these estimates of diversion are not apparently based on any documentation but rather on hearsay and commonly held perceptions.”
The report by the UN Monitoring Group on Somalia, originally tasked with tracking violations of the arms embargo, found that up to half of the food aid intended for needy Somalis is diverted.
It also noted that while access to WFP contracts should in theory be subject to tender, there has been “little or no scope for genuine competition.”
“Preliminary investigations by the Monitoring Group indicate the existence of a de facto cartel, characterized by irregular procedures in the awarding of contracts by the WFP country office, discriminatory practices and preferential treatment,” the report said.
WFP spokeswoman Emilia Casella stressed that these were “allegations” and that there were “no facts to support them.”
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