Home  News International News Corruption, lack of funding
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Corruption, lack of funding |
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Saturday, 23 August 2008 |
A new United States report shows improvements in coordinating anti-drug efforts in the Caribbean and Latin America, but cited corruption and lack of funding as primary reasons why the countries have not been more effective.
The report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), released Friday, identified the Bahamas, Haiti and Jamaica among countries as the "worst offenders" in the transshipment points for narco-trafficking in the region.
Others identified were Ecuador, Venezuela, Panama, Guatemala, and the Dominican Republic.
"Despite gains in international cooperation, several factors, including resource limitations and lack of political will, have impeded US progress in helping governments become full and self-sustaining partners in the counter-narcotics effort," the report said.
"These countries have limited resources to devote to this effort, and many initiatives are dependent on US support," it added.
The report said programmes to build maritime interdiction capacity have been particularly affected, stating that partner nations lack fuel and other resources needed to operate and maintain US-provided boats.
In addition, the report pointed to "limited political support and corruption" in hindering US counter-narcotics efforts.
"The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has implemented a Container Security Initiative (CSI) that targets and scans containers for weapons of mass destruction and terrorist contraband, but CSI has not routinely been used for illicit drug detection, despite its applicability for this purpose," the report said.
The GAO said each year criminal organisations transport hundreds of tonnes of illegal drugs from South America to the United States through a six million-square-mile "transit zone" including the Caribbean, Central America, the Gulf of Mexico, and the eastern Pacific Ocean.
It said since fiscal year 2003, the United States has provided over US$950 million to support counter-narcotics efforts in transit zone countries, "which historically lacked the capacity to interdict drugs."
But the report said, despite frustrations in stemming narco-trafficking, US aid has improved regional cooperation. It said assistance programmes have "helped partner nations gather, process, and share information and intelligence leading to arrests and drug seizures."
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