The IDF is about to release a report called "Follow the Money: Where Do International Contributions to the Palestinian Authority Really Go". Someone who contributed to the report sent me a copy of the document prior to its official release. The document is available for download here. The report reiterates some of the allegations that were reported last week by Die Zeit. It also reveals some new details about PA finances.
Here are some of the highlights: The PA's monthly budget (as reported to international donors) is about $90 million a month, of which roughly $55 comes from Arab states, $9 million from the EU, and the rest from other sources.
Of the expenditures, $60 million is supposedly for salaries split roughly equally between security and non-security employees. But, based on PA documents captured by the IDF earlier this year, only $40 million are actually spent on salaries. What happens to the rest?
The IDF estimates that the PA controls $27 million a month outside the budget that is shown to international donors. This comes from a combination of: mandatory membership dues in Fatah that are deducted from employee salaries, profits from manipulating currency exchange rates, revenues and taxes from PA-controlled monopolies for fuel and tobacco. In addition large numbers of Fatah activists are paid as "employees" of the PA, even though they are not engaged in legitimate PA business, but in terrorist activities.
Where does all the money go? Hard to say, exactly. As Die Zeit reported, there is no public audit of PA finances, neither internal nor by the donor community or the IMF. Much of the laundered money presumably disappears down the pants of PA officials and their friends. This has been alleged for years, including by senior Palestinian officials.
Even more disturbing, the IDF estimates that "Fatah elements are allocated $5 - $10 million per month from the PA for their expenses in the confrontation with Israel".
An informal IDF internal name for the Palestinian kleptocracy is apparently "PalScam"
The IDF document contains English translations of captured documents (and links to the original Arabic documents). These documents include an itemized request for materials to create a mortar factory; and requests for stipends to "fighting brothers" who "took part in shooting attacks". The latter contains the approving signatures of both Yassir Arafat and Marwan Barghouti
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at August 22, 2002 07:00 AM