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Australian Aid Agency Lax On Corruption: Audit Report

The Australian Government's Aid Agency Ausaid, a major Australian employer of Halliburton/KBR, has been warned to tighten its anti-corruption practices in a report released today (Wednesday)

The report follows admission by Ausaid representatives earlier this year that the organision had no internal protocols for reporting detected corruption in aid deals.

The report, released by the National Audit Office, states that funds earmarked to provided relief to Indonesia following the Decenber 2004 tsunami were used to pay Ausaid officers and to cover administration costs.   It includes the statement that "a key risk for activities is that of fraud and corruption" and claims that numerous contracts were not signed until after the provision of services had commenced.

It also said that the organisation was subjected to 43 suspected cases of fraud, worth
$917,000 between 2002-03 and 2004-05, although some of this money had
been recovered.

Ausaid utililises KBR for much of its reconstruction work in Indonesia, Vietnam and Iraq.  When Australian P.M. John Howard announced last year that Australia's was about to dramitically increase its aid output to Iraq, KBR advertised internationally for an international aid director to be based at its Adelaide headquarters.

 Ausaid is under the ministerial control of the Adelaide-resident Bush Administration's proposed candidate for Director of the International Atomic Energy Association, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer.  

The Australain Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade is currently a major focus of an inquiry into corrupt wheat deals in Iraq. 

scandaloose

AusAID caught up in AWB scandal: Opposition

The Federal Opposition says Australia's overseas aid agency was linked to the Jordanian trucking company at the centre of the AWB kickbacks scandal.

Documents obtained by the Opposition under Freedom of Information (FOI) show AWB was working closely with AusAID and its "international partners" to deliver wheat once it arrived in Iraq in 2003.

The Opposition's spokesman on public accountability, Kelvin Thomson, says the documents show the Government was up to its eyeballs in the scandal.

"You had Austrade officials meeting with Alia, ministers, officers being informed of the Tigris deal, and here we have AusAID taking over a wheat export contract, kickbacks included, lock stock and barrel," he said.

Mr Thomson says AusAID and Austrade must be forthcoming on their involvement in the scandal.

"It is regrettable that Austrade officials and AusAID officials did not appear before the Cole inquiry," he said.

"The public is entitled to get to the bottom of this matter and understand exactly what the role of government agencies like AusAID and Austrade was in these kickbacks."

read more at the ABC