The National Disaster Risk Management Commission (NDRMC) recommended USAID and its partners to lift the temporary suspension of food aid in Tigray as soon as possible, which will be devastating for targeted beneficiaries.
Recall the USAID and the World Food Program (WFP) announced that they were suspending “until further notice” their food aid to the Tigray region in northern Ethiopia.
In an exclusive interview with ENA, NDRMC Commissioner Shiferaw Teklemariam recalled that there is temporary suspension of the humanitarian aid distribution in Tigray region.
The reasons that are highlighted by the donors—i.e. USAID, WFP as well as CRS are that until they manage to get proper investigation of the cause and a person and entity that is answerable for what was done.
Moreover, the commissioner elaborated that they temporarily suspended the distribution of aid until they get a design or mechanism that no more humanitarian aid distribution is being diverted.
“We will also promote the very fact that any individual or entity will be responsible for the very cause, but of course, we have the view that the targeted beneficiaries should not be punished by the fact that until we will be able to investigate and put the robust system in place,” he noted.
“Therefore, our recommendation to USAID and its partners (is) to lift as soon as possible this suspension which will be of disastrous effect to the beneficiaries who were initially targeted with,” according to the commissioner.
On other hand, he stated that we are following very closely the situation and will definitely working closely with Tigray region as well as with the authorities how to address this issue.
“Of course the commission is also very much unhappy with the act of the diversion and we don’t want to get any of this aid to a person or entity which isn’t supposed to be or that doesn’t deserve any kind of such support. We are also aware and closely following the matter with pertinent institutions and organizations,” he underscored.
Meanwhile, Commissioner Shiferaw recalled that the government had been relentlessly working to provide all humanitarian assistance in collaboration with partners for those in need of relief assistance even before the Pretoria Peace Agreement.
Close to 15,000 metric tons of food supplies and non- food items were delivered to beneficiaries, he said.
He further said that since then, though the partners, basically USAID funded partners and others, despite some occasional gap, we managed to cover fully 5.2 million beneficiaries in Tigray, 2.4 million in Amhara region and 750,000 in Afar region.
We successfully covered two rounds, for services from one month to two months period, he said, adding: “Now we are in the distribution phase of third round.”
The government as well as a number of other partners have been trying to provide not only the food aid supplies but also non-food items like educational items, agricultural inputs such as fertilizer and seeds among others items, according to the commissioner.
Source: Ethiopian News Agency