Govt bureaucracy delays WFP food aid

Tonnes of food have been stuck in Luanda's port since January, failing to reach hungry Angolans as the government drags its heels in paying customs and port taxes, according to the World Food Programme (WFP). Oscar Sarroca, the acting director of the WFP in Angola, blamed bureaucratic inefficiency for preventing 1,600 mt of pulses – a vital source of protein for many Angolans - and vegetable oil from getting into the food pipeline. "It's really incredible that now we have all the commodities we need in the country ... we can't distribute this key protein component because of this bureaucratic problem of the government," Sarroca told journalists. WFP distributes around 20,000 mt of emergency food aid each month to 1.9 million Angolans unable to feed themselves after a brutal 27-year conflict. The government's main contribution is payment of customs duties and port fees. On its own, the amount stuck in the port is not huge, but the delay has further disrupted an operation already hampered by lack of access during the rainy season, combined with shipping problems. "In the case of pulses, any quantity is important, because in the last two months we have not been able to distribute anything ... and pulses are a very important source of protein," Sarroca said. WFP has been liaising with officials from the Ministry of Social Reintegration (MINARS) in an effort to solve the problem. "According to the vice minister of MINARS, it's a problem of transferring money from the finance ministry to the clearing agency, who is charged by the government to make the payment to the port," Sarroca explained. "We don't understand the details of why this is not working well - this is a classic problem of bureaucracy. You can deal with a particular person at a government level, but the machinery just isn't working. We'll continue to put pressure on different administrative levels to find a solution to this problem," he said. WFP intends to continue its food aid operations in Angola for another two years, but wants to shift the focus away from pure food relief and concentrate on food-for-work, food-for-assets and its school feeding programmes.