(From the McCoy Library, SIU)

Story from the Washington File, via AllAfrica:

Stories of what can go wrong in the delivery of development aid to the poor and emergency assistance to disaster victims until recently have been hidden due to fears that donors will stop supporting charities, development banks and governments that deliver aid.

But recently, corruption is being aired ... and cleaned up.

In March, Oxfam International, a charity that seeks to meet sanitation, water and food needs, found financial irregularities in its post-tsunami shelter operation in Aceh province, Indonesia. It used an outside auditor and recovered $20,000 of $22, 000 paid for construction materials that had not been delivered. Oxfam since hired a loss-prevention officer to oversee its massive, $97 million effort to help the Aceh victims of the tsunami.

In June, after investigating fraud in seven projects in cambodia, the World Bank cancelled three of them, together worth $7.6 million.

World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz said in a July 31 speech in Washington that his predecessor, James Wolfensohn, made the right move in 1996 when he set out to "fight the cancer of corruption."

For more on the fight against corruption worldwide, see Transparency International.

In similar news:

*At the Financial Times, WSP International faces Indonesia graft inquiry.

*Stopping crime and its causes in Bermuda.