Monday, March 07, 2005

Tsunami Dough Not Gettin' There

Whooee! I was jest readin' this here story in the Trawna Star an' now my blood pressure's gettin' inta the danger zone. Back on Boxin' Day, as everybuddy knows, that big ol' tidal wave washed over the folks in Asian an' killed a few hunnert thousand of 'em. The ones that wasn't killed got their houses an' schools an' churches an' whole villages washed away.

Well, we all pitched in an' did what we could. Fer most Canajuns, that meant openin' up the purse strings an' shellin' out sum dough. Even though this here disaster hit right after the Christmas shoppin', Canajuns gave til it hurt an' raised sum hunnerts o' millions to help out them pore devasted Yessiree Lankans an' the achin' Achenese an' the pore Phukers in Phuket.

I remember readin' a few newspaper stories back then where they was worryin' that the bigass money everybuddy donated an' the dough the gummints all over the place sed they's sendin' might not get t' where they need it. I saw sum stuff 'bout how sum bigass hurricane relief money never got t' Honduras an' sum other places. When all this come up, the folks collectin' an' the gummints all sed, "Don't worry. This is such a big crisis, we'll get the money where it's needed."

Well dammitall, it ain't gettin' there. These folks is still livin' in squalor an' even though we all pitched our pennies in the pot an' the gummint sed they'd match our pennies with sum of our other pennies, the Star's sayin' only 20% or less o' the money's gettin' where it's sposed to. Here's part o' what the Star sed:
The inevitable fear is that the same pattern of waste and inefficiency may continue with the delivery of the $6 billion or so the world has pledged for tsunami relief.

Unpacked cargo containers still sit on the docks in Colombo, waiting to clear Sri Lankan customs.

Hundreds of thousands of Acehnese still live in squalid camps, with nothing but thin tarps over their heads. And only 4 per cent of the reconstruction costs — around $75 million (U.S.) — has trickled into Sri Lanka, Reuters reports.

Much of the $265 million the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) has pledged for tsunami relief this fiscal year (which ends March 31) still sits in the federal government's bank account, waiting for aid groups to submit proposals about how they're going to spend it.
Lord thunderin' Jeezuz! Can't nobuddy do nuthin' right?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

*Snort*

But don't you know that's the left wing socialist way, JimBobby?

Instead of just doing somthing.. you gotta make sure what yer doin' is "fair!"

And to make sure you'd doin' the fair thing, you need committees, and all sorts of measures of this and that. I mean, it would just be terrible if one group that happened to get hit with that big ol' tidal wave got a bit more than some other group that got hit.

That just wouldn't be "fair," now would it. Better that the money sit in the bank, earning interest for CIDA, before we doing something unfair.

Mark Richard Francis said...

Heck, it's not just Canada. It's everyone. Same thing happened with the Iranian earthquake. Much promised, little delivered.

America has this annoying rule about requiring it's money be spent on American goods and services, making the money go far less further, and making arrangement and delivery difficult.

Anonymous said...

Why doesn't it surprise me one bit that it's been well over two months and this is finally coming out? But it's the government, for you, I guess, and we're only the lowly taxpayers who put these people in power, so who are we to complain about any of it, right?

alsocanadian said...

Wonder who gets the interest?