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Israel-Palestine-Jordan
U.S. $313M in Mortgages -- on West Bank
2013-08-28
The U.S. government will fund $313 million in home mortgages for Palestinians living on the West Bank, according to a Government Accountability Office report released Monday. The U.S. will also guarantee $110 million in loans to small- and medium-sized businesses located on the West Bank.
Don't we have people in the U.S. who could use a little help?
The mortgage and business-loan activities will be conducted by the federal Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC). “OPIC is the U.S. Government’s development finance institution,” says OPIC’s website. “OPIC provides financial products, such as loans and guaranties; political risk insurance; and support for investment funds, all of which help American businesses expand into emerging markets.”
Because you all know the West Bank is going to be a booming market...
The GAO report released Tuesday described some of the actions OPIC is taking in the emerging market of the Palestinian territories.

“U.S. agencies and implementing partners participate in various programs with the Palestine Investment Fund (PIF) or PIF-owned entities that include home mortgage financing, loan guarantees, and educational initiatives,” says the report. “First, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) along with PIF and other entities have committed to lend $485 million to the Affordable Mortgage and Loan Company (AMAL) to support mortgages for low- and medium-income borrowers in the West Bank.

“OPIC has committed to lend about $313 million; PIF has committed about $72 million, and two banks account for the balance of the committed lending,” says the GAO. “However, as of April 2013, OPIC and PIF had not yet disbursed any funds. Second, OPIC and PIF are co-guarantors in a Loan Guarantee Facility (LGF) program in the West Bank, guaranteeing up to $110 million and $50 million in loans, respectively, to nine regional banks to support lending to small- and medium-sized enterprises.”

The PIF is an entity that was created by the Palestinian Authority president.
So the money goes straight to his account in the Caymans. It's much cleaner that way...
“PIF is governed by a board of directors and a general assembly appointed by the Palestinian Authority President, and manages investments throughout a number of sectors, including real estate and hospitality, infrastructure, finance, capital markets, small-and-medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), and manufacturing,” says the GAO.
And each gets to wet his beak...
The GAO reported that OPIC says it has checked the foreign bankers and executives it is dealing with in its West Bank loan program for terrorists connections. OPIC says it has also checked borrowers.
No terrorists, thank goodness, just grifters and crooks...
“OPIC officials stated that OPIC has vetted PIF’s board of directors and senior executives, the non-U.S. board members and shareholders of AMAL, and key officials of the banks against information sources such as the FBI Terrorist Screening Center database, OFAC list, and OPIC’s Information Center databases,” says the GAO report. “For the LGF program, OPIC said that, based on OPIC’s procedures and the LGF agreements, it has vetted all the participating banks and has vetted key officials of each borrower and guarantor before loans are approved using information sources such as Treasury’s Office of Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes and FBI’s Terrorist Screening Center databases.”
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Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Review of the American International School in Gaza
2006-11-07
In Gaza I continually haunted internet news sites to answer the ever present question, "Is it safe to go outside?". There was an effort by the Board to welcome new foreign staff, to include dinners and a $200 settling in allowance. The problem is, the Board does not control the purse strings. An entity called the Palestine Investment Fund does. Unfortunatly, the present manager of the fund views AISG as a financial burden rather than an investment in Palestine's future. We were paid late on several occasions, but in the end all contractual obligations were met and I managed to save a good portion of my salary.

During the course of the 2005/06 year four foreign teachers were kidnapped (all released unharmed that same evening) and the school was the subject of a militant attack resulting in a gun battle. If you like this kind of excitement you will love Gaza. Politics here make the wild, wild, west seem tame. The foreign staff enjoyed their evacuation to Cairo, but only about half decided to return.

I resided in a three bedroom air-conditioned apartment with big picture window views of the Mediterranean. I had a choice of about 300 satellite channels to watch. This was good because we were restricted to the apartment building the last two and a half months. Trips to a local restaurant were organized once or twice a week with heavy security escort by the Presidential Guard. We traveled to Israel on most week-ends where you can shop, swim, drink, and take in a movie. Be prepared for long waits at the crossing between Israel and Gaza. Other than a couple of good restaurants and magnificent sunsets there is nothing for foreign staff to do for entertainment in Gaza. We used to be able to go to the UN Club, but it was blown up in December. Too bad, as I was becoming quite good at snooker.

Ah, a job for the moonbat whose trust fund just doesn't quite stretch far enough.
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Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Hamas proposes job cuts to avert financial collapse
2006-05-31
Avert?
RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) - Palestinian Finance Minister Omar Abdel-Razeq proposed on Wednesday cutting thousands of government workers and selling off government investment assets in a bid to avert financial collapse.
Oh, boy! The world's biggest gun sale!
Abdel-Razeq told the Palestinian parliament that Western aid cuts, Israel's refusal to release tax revenues, and U.S. pressure on banks to hold up the government's funds made it impossible for him to even submit a budget for next year.
He said it was unclear what the government's revenues would be and warned of an "economic disaster" if the financial pressure persisted.
Economic disaster in Palestine. Can ya beat that?
Washington and other Western powers have cut aid to the cash-strapped Palestinian government over Hamas's refusal to recognize Israel, renounce violence and accept interim peace deals. Hamas, sworn to destroy Israel, has shown no signs of softening its position.
Hamas, which took control of the Palestinian Authority in March, has been unable to secure the funds to pay salaries to 165,000 government workers.
Work at many ministries has come to a halt because of a lack of funds for routine services and because many employees can no longer afford the cost of transport to work.
Abdel-Razeq proposed firing around 11,500 employees who do not regularly show up for work, and retiring another 5,000, moves that could increase tensions because most of those affected are members of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah faction.
Well that should throw some gas on the fire...
According to Palestinian law, workers over the age of 60 must retire.
Abdel-Razeq proposed encouraging the early retirement of 500 workers and cutting government fuel subsidies. Hamas wants to import fuel and gas into Gaza from Egypt instead of Israel.
He also asked the Palestinian Legislative Council for approval to sell off the remaining government assets from the Palestine Investment Fund, which Abbas controls.
Investment fund officials said Abbas was unlikely to agree to selling off the assets to pay salaries because doing so could result in the imposition of U.S. sanctions.
The officials said Abbas has used assets in the fund to pay the Palestinian Authority's water, electricity and fuel bills.
"It is not possible to present the 2006 budget," Razeq said. "The current siege requires reconsidering the projections we had issued earlier."
Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh pledged on Tuesday to pay a full month's wages in a few days to 40,000 workers whose salaries were less than 1,500 shekels ($332). He also promised to pay each of the other 125,000 government workers, who earn higher salaries, an advance of 1,500 shekels. But Abdel-Razeq said it was unclear when the 125,000 workers who earn more would get their money.
A Western diplomat said the Hamas-led Finance Ministry, in a bid to avert U.S.-led banking restrictions, planned to issue individual cheques to the 40,000 workers rather than transfer the money directly into their bank accounts. Workers could then take the cheques to a local bank or money changer and seek cash. "The issue is whether the banks will honor them (the cheques)," the diplomat said.
I would suggest they do...or else.
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Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Palestinians Run Out of Gas
2006-05-12
Petrol stations in the occupied West Bank ran out of petrol after the Israeli company that provides fuel to the Palestinian areas cut off supplies due to growing debt. The impoverished Gaza Strip was also feeling the crunch over the Palestinian Authority’s failure to pay 120 million shekels ($27 million) owed to Israel’s Dor Alon fuel company. Petrol station owners in the Gaza Strip, where 1.4 million Palestinians live, said supplies were likely to be depleted by the end of the day.

A Palestinian official said President Mahmoud Abbas agreed yesterday to dip into investment funds to end the fuel crisis. Mujahed Salameh, head of the Palestinian Petroleum Agency, said Abbas would send a letter to Dor Alon, pledging payment of 132 million shekels ($29.8 million). “We expect the fuel crisis to be over soon,” Salameh said.

The money would come from the Palestine Investment Fund, the value of which has been estimated by Palestinian officials at close to $1 billion. Abbas took control of it after Hamas won a January parliamentary election. Salameh did not say how quickly the money could be paid. Dor Alon declined comment. Salameh said earlier that factories, bakeries and public transport might be forced to stop work unless fuel supplies resumed. Emergency service workers said they feared they would be unable to reach patients in rural areas.
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Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Hamas, Abbas in Tug of War over Arafat's Billions
2006-04-11
DEBKA, season to taste. excerpt:
That the Palestinian Authority coffers register empty since Hamas took office is due to two causes:

1. The Persian Gulf donors including Saudi Arabia are holding back promised funds – not because they object to a Hamas government but because of a sanctified tradition, whereby pledges are an expression of goodwill but do not have to be fully translated into every dollar and cent – and certainly not in haste.

2. The American and European clampdown has made the banks which until now handled Palestinian Authority finances wary of carrying out transfers. The Arabian Bank which is owned by a Jordanian Palestinian family and the Bank of Cairo fear their branches in the United States and other countries may be shut down in reprisal for handling the accounts of a terrorist organization.

Even so, the Palestinian treasury needs not be insolvent. The Palestine Investment Fund – PIF – set up to conceal and invest the funds Yasser Arafat diverted from international donations to the Palestinian people – is now in the hands of Mahmoud Abbas.

The capital is estimated at $1.2-1.4 billion and its monthly yield counted in tens of millions.

However, Abu Mazen, who holds the key to this hoard, will not hand over a single dollar until Hamas recognizes – not Israel, but the Palestinian Liberation Organization as the paramount authority of the Palestinian people. Abu Mazen argues the PIF belongs to the PLO and he may not release funds to an organization that refuses to recognize its authority.

In the unresolved tug-o’-war over supreme authority over Palestinian government institutions, Abbas is also using the fund to put the squeeze on Hamas. He wants to be recognized as top boss of Palestinian government rather than Hamas prime minister Ismail Haniya. He also insists on acceptance of his role as the commander of the Palestinian security and intelligence services – not the Hamas interior minister, Said Siam.

On the face of it, the economic blockade policy initiated by the Bush administration and Israel’s new leaders Ehud Olmert and foreign minister Tzipi Livni, is working. They believe Hamas will be cornered into coming up to scratch - recognizing Israel, renouncing violence and accepting all previous PLO and PA accords.

However, Hamas may be financially distressed, but its leaders believe they still have several weeks to play with before the crunch. For the time being, Israel may talk tough and even crack down on terror, but it has not switched off the flow of fuel, fuel products, electricity, water and medicines to the Gaza Strip – free of charge for now.

Hamas is managing to avoid spending any money on government administration. Its tacticians plan to foist the payroll on Abu Mazen, who they say cannot both claim to be top man in the Palestinian Authority and duck responsibility for its personnel’s paychecks.

In other words, while the US, Europe and Israel hope the financial standoff will raise Abbas’ standing with the Palestinian public, Hamas is blackening his name accusing him of acting as a collaborator in the schemes of Washington and Jerusalem to hobble elected Palestinian government. In a matter of weeks, they believe Abbas will be forced to come to Haniya, cap in hand.
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Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Hamas facing funding woes after one week in power
2006-04-05
JERUSALEM - The Hamas-led Palestinian government is running into financial problems one week after taking office and could face crippling shortfalls as early as next month, Western diplomats and Palestinian officials said.
As Fred says, that's the chili talking.
A top official in the Hamas government said it had yet to secure promised funds from some donors needed to pay March salaries on time to 140,000 Palestinian Authority workers. Western diplomats and Israeli officials said the Palestinian Authority also did not appear to have any foreign reserves to pay April salaries next month in the face of a campaign by Washington to isolate the Islamic militant group.
There's a word for this.
Officials said one of the few options left open to Hamas would be to try to tap a key investment fund that was initially set up to combat corruption within the Palestinian Authority. The Palestine Investment Fund, which President Mahmoud Abbas’s office took control of after Hamas’s election victory, had an estimated value of $1.3 billion at the end of 2005.

But Palestinian officials said it may now be worth closer to $1 billion and only a fraction of that -- between $200 million and $400 million -- could be used to help pay salaries, enough for one-and-a-half to three months. “For all intents and purposes, this is the bottom of the barrel,” a senior Palestinian official said.
Maybe Suha could float them a loan.
The financial problems started long before Hamas, whose charter calls for Israel’s destruction, won January elections and major Western powers threatened to cut off direct support.

When Hamas ministers were sworn in last week, they inherited an Authority whose budget was already nearly $80 million in the red for the month of March alone. A few days before the handover, funds transferred to the Palestinians totaling more than $26 million from the United Arab Emirates and Oman were taken by the Amman-based Arab Bank to repay earlier loans, diplomatic sources said. Another $10 million promised by Russia was delayed.

To limit the risk that other foreign funds will be frozen, the Palestinian Authority has tried in recent days to shift its main accounts from the Arab Bank to a local Palestinian bank, Palestinian officials and diplomats said.
A Paleo banker will be so-o-o-o much more pliable, especially if he has the muzzle of an AK-47 up his nose.
Mazen Sonnoqrot, who stepped down as Palestinian economy minister this week, said Hamas’s big challenge would be raising money for April salaries, due early next month. “They have taken empty buckets,” Sonnoqrot said of the Palestinian Authority’s bank accounts. “There is no money in the bank. There are only deficits.”

The cash crunch stems in large part to Israel’s decision to freeze the transfer of tax revenues to the Palestinians.
Israelis out-foxed them again.
It is unclear how much of the more than $1 billion a year that the Palestinians get in foreign aid will be withheld now that Hamas has taken control of the Palestinian Authority. Foreign Minister and senior Hamas leader Mahmoud Al Zahar brushed aside US pressure, saying “we have several other legitimate means to get support”.
"That's right! We don't need stinking American dollars!
Mahmoud, quick, go kidnap someone and get a ransom note out there."
But even if Iran and other Muslim allies come through with promised aid, Western diplomats said it was unclear how the money would get to the Palestinian Authority. “We have the legal means which can prevent the flow of money to terrorists, and Hamas is a terrorist organisation,” said Israel’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev.

Diplomatic sources said major regional banks were also wary of working with the new government. Many of them have branches and other businesses in the United States, where dealing with Hamas is illegal.
And they do like their business with the Great Satan.
The new Palestinian Finance Minister Omar Abdel-Razeq told Al Ayam newspaper he expected to be able to pay March salaries, which had been scheduled to be paid this week, by April 15.

Like Hamas, US officials have been eyeing the Palestine Investment Fund as a way to keep the Palestinian Authority afloat through June or July. But both have run into resistance from officials at the fund who say an asset sale would bring in no more than $200 million and undercut long-term development goals. Nearly two-thirds of the fund has been pledged against prior Palestinian loans.
So they've already raided the rainy-day fund.
“Whether it’s one month or two months, what comes after that?” asked a Palestinian official who is involved in the fund.
They'll try and start a war, of course.
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Israel-Palestine
Arafat Skimmed $2 Million a Month From the Gas Trade
2004-11-14
From Drudge...
Last year auditors discovered Arafat was guilty of skimming $2 million a month from the gasoline trade in the territories, TIME reports.

In August 2002 international donors forced Arafat to sign over his investments to the Palestine Investment Fund, which was audited by U.S. accountants and managed by Palestinian Finance Minister Salam Fayyad, a former International Monetary Fund official. After scouring corporations throughout the Arab world and bank accounts in the Cayman Islands and Luxembourg, the auditors identified $800 million, which has been made a part of the Palestinian Authority's official budget. "It's the most successful financial reform in the Arab world," Jim Prince, president of the Los Angeles—based Democracy Council and head of the audit team, tells TIME.

People close to Fayyad's investigation told TIME of Arafat's skimming from the gas trade. Breaking the gasoline smuggling and corruption boosted the Palestinian Authority's official treasury by $10 million a month and cut gas prices for ordinary Palestinians.

"Arafat's death means his followers may never know just how much more they may be owed," writes TIME's Matt Rees in "Where's Arafat's Money?" In the mid-1990s, Arafat controlled a financial empire worth at least $3 billion. By the time of his death, he was down to his last $1 billion, according to Israeli-intelligence estimates.

Arafat wife Suha's outburst that his successors were "trying to bury [him] alive" came after she learned that Arafat had signed over at least $800 million to the government of the Palestinian Authority two years ago, TIME reports. Top Palestinian officials say Suha wants the new chief of the P.L.O., Mahmoud Abbas, and Palestinian prime minister Ahmed Qurei to give her money out of the P.L.O.'s party coffers. But a senior P.L.O. official tells TIME, "they'll pay her a pension, and that's it."

People familiar with Arafat's finances say the Palestinian leader sent Suha $200,000 a month out of the Palestinian Authority's budget for the Office of the President. French authorities are investigating transfers of $15 million from Swiss banks to Paris accounts in Suha's name at the Arab Bank and at BNP Paribas Bank, a French bank, TIME reports.

Senior Palestinian security officials tell TIME that Arafat also shipped money to the gunmen of the Aqsa Martyrs Brigades.

Developing...
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