UN food agency welcomes any probe into Somalia aid

A U.N. food agency said Thursday it will cooperate with any independent probe into its food operations in Somalia, after a report found that up to half the food aid intended for the nation's hungry people does not reach its destination.

The report said food aid in Somalia is being diverted to corrupt contractors, radical Islamic militants and local U.N. workers. It calls on U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to authorize an independent investigation of the operations of the World Food Program in the country.

"The integrity of our organization is paramount and we will be reviewing and investigating each and every issue raised by this report," WFP executive director Josette Sheeran said in a statement.

"WFP stands ready to offer full cooperation with any independent inquiry into its work in Somalia," it said.

The Rome-based agency also promised not to engage with transport contractors that the report alleges were involved in arms trading.

The report was made by the panel of experts monitoring U.N. sanctions against the African nation. It is to be presented to the U.N. Security Council next week, WFP says. The findings were first reported by The New York Times this week.

U.N. humanitarian chief John Holmes welcomed WFP's willingness to cooperate with an independent inquiry, saying that the concerns raised in the report need to be looked into. He added that many of the allegations are not new and WFP has already conducted its own internal investigation.

Holmes stressed that 3.2 million Somalis need humanitarian assistance, especially those in south central Somalia.

"The point is that we need to maintain our effort to provide humanitarian assistance in south central Somalia despite all the difficulties because the needs are so great," he said, pointing to 1.3 million displaced people and 1 in 5 children under the age of 5 malnourished in the south central region.

"We need to, wherever we can, be maintaining that humanitarian assistance," Holmes told the Associated Press Thursday at U.N. headquarters in New York.

Specifically, the report alleged that three transport contractors in Somalia received 80 percent of WFP's business in 2009 for a total of $200 million. WFP disputed the report's findings, saying it only paid the contractors $41.4 million, or 66 percent of its total transport payments of $62 million last year.

WFP also denied other allegations in the report, including what the report said was a staged looting incident in northern Mogadishu in 2008 that purportedly resulted in the diversion of 1,229 metric tons of food. WFP said it was a genuine looting incident and that the contractor replaced all the food.

Sheeran said her organization "would do everything it could to reach the hungry in Somalia."

Sheeran said that "vulnerabilities are always present in conflict areas." Some of the issues raised in the report have already been addressed, she said, while in other cases the agency wanted to correct some factual information. She did not single out any issues.

The WFP suspended operations across southern Somalia in January. The agency said it was acting in response to intimidation of its staff and because armed groups have made "unreasonable demands ... that contravened WFP's rules."

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Associated Press reporter Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed to this report.