Food aid held for taxes to be released, says gov't official

Hundreds of tonnes of food relief held up since July at Eritrea's Massawa port under new laws that require aid to be taxed are to be released, a senior government official said on Monday. Eritrean labour and human welfare minister Askalu Menkerios told reporters in the capital, Asmara, that the standoff over taxes had been resolved. The ministry, she added, would pay any taxes due. "The law says they [NGOs] should pay tax, but if it is UN agencies or bilateral support - government to government - they do not pay," the minister said. "Instead of [the NGOs] paying tax, the ministry pays." She added: "It is resolved. Technically, if they don't have it [the food] out now, it is because they don't have the paperwork from customs." Aid workers and diplomats in Asmara had called for the urgent release of the food - about 540 tonnes - to contain a precarious food security situation and rising malnutrition across the Red Sea state. "International organisations and NGOs reported that their food donations were blocked at the port of Massawa since early July," the UN World Food Programme (WFP) said in its weekly emergency report on Friday. "These consignments are being detained by Eritrean authorities since the government introduced a law [in May] which obliges NGOs to pay taxes on food aid and other donations they import into the country," it added. The law imposed taxes on aid, increased reporting requirements for foreign and local NGOs and limited international agencies from directly funding local NGOs. "Negotiations are underway to get the donations released without tax payment," WFP said. Eritrea, which has suffered from persistent drought in recent years, is currently one of the most food aid-dependent countries in the world, with two thirds of its 3.6 million people requiring food assistance. Food security experts say the situation is compounded by Eritrea's tensions with both Sudan and Ethiopia, which have caused the government to divert the available agricultural labour force to the military sector and limited access to nearby markets. The US government announced recently that it would pay for 100 percent of Eritrea's cereal needs, using cash from the US $674 million African aid package pledged by President George Bush. Meanwhile, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has said despite a good main rainy season so far after five years of drought, Eritrea will need food aid throughout 2006. "Despite hopeful trends, widespread and severe food insecurity persists in the country," OCHA said on Friday in its humanitarian update on the situation in Eritrea. "Cereal prices continue to rise and the prevalence of malnutrition remains unacceptably high in the majority of the country." OCHA said Eritrea's National Food Information System estimated that it would take three to four consecutive good rainy seasons for true recovery in agriculture and livestock sectors, as well as in ground water.