ERITREA: Blocked food aid to be distributed

[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

ASMARA, 24 Aug 2005 (IRIN) - Some 1,500 tonnes of food aid held up at Eritrea's Massawa Port until last week is due to be distributed to vulnerable people in Zoba Anseba administrative zone, the Red Cross Society of Eritrea said on Monday.

The UN World Food Programme (WFP) recently reported that food donations had been blocked at Massawa since early July.

WFP said the delays were caused by differences over an 11 May government proclamation on NGO activities in Eritrea requiring them to have at least US $2 million at their disposal and to pay tax on aid imports.

However, Eritrea's Minister of Labour and Human Welfare, Askalu Menkerios, said last week that such differences were not the reason for the delays.

She said her ministry had paid roughly $60,000 in costs for the Red Cross shipment, which included 1,320 tonnes of wheat flour, 110 tonnes of lentils, and 91,740 litres of vegetable oil, allowing it to be cleared through customs.

Eritrea is one of the most food aid-dependent countries in the world, with roughly two-thirds of its 3.6 million people requiring some 262,000 tonnes of cereal food aid this year alone.

The secretary general of the Red Cross Society of Eritrea, Alganesh Kidane, said some of the delayed food aid had reached its intended destination in Zoba Anseba, one of Eritrea's six administrative zones.

"We will definitely distribute two months' rations - July and August - before the end of August," she said.

Holidays and administrative changes could also have contributed to delays, Alganesh noted, adding that some dockworkers had left for Eritrea's high-altitude capital, Asmara, for a vacation to escape the summer heat.

She noted that the transfer of responsibilities for the coordination of aid from the Eritrean Relief and Refugee Commission to the Ministry of Labour and Human Welfare could also have been responsible for some delays.

Alganesh said: "The process was new for the ministry."

Aid workers told IRIN on Friday that some non-food aid items were still being held at Massawa due to queries over payment of tax.

"We have expensive non-food aid items which have been stuck at Massawa Port for almost one month," one aid worker said. "The government is asking us to pay tax on these items, but this is not in our budget, which we made one year ago."

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