Examination of Witness (Questions 180-199)
MR ALAN
SEATTER
28 NOVEMBER 2006
Q180 Mr Duddridge: I find this very
difficult to reconcile with what we were told on the ground about
hospitals not being open and, if they are open, it is only for
emergency services. Dr Nasser of the East Jerusalem hospital told
us that none of the six hospitals he is responsible for had received
any money from TIM in any way, be it for fuel or medical supplies
or anything else.
Mr Seatter: There are two points
on that. I said that by the end of this month $23 million will
have been disbursed. I may not be the right person to ask about
that because, as I said, it is through the World Bank that we
have to disburse these funds under the Quartet agreements. Nevertheless,
we made our funds available in August to the World Bank in order
to meet these needs. That was not spent until much later. By the
time of your visit, I think the expenditure on some of these items
was only just beginning. It would be true that some of the hospitals
were facing difficulty of supply. That is undeniable. There were
real problems there.
Mr Duddridge: They were closed.
Mr Seatter: The second problem
was that a public service strike began on 2 September that affected
schools and hospitals. It is absolutely true that for a long time
you could only get emergency treatment in hospitals. You could
not go there if you were feeling ill; nothing would be done for
you.
Q181 Chairman: While we were there,
we were told that all the emergency rooms on the West Bank were
closed that week.
Mr Seatter: That was as a result
of the strike.
Q182 Chairman: Presumably it was
as a result of the strike. In reality, nevertheless, they were
not functioning.
Mr Seatter: You have seen for
yourselves the dire situation that is faced by many thousands
of people in the West Bank and in Gaza. That is the reason that
our first priority was to concentrate on the functioning of the
health service. We took care of paying the medical staff and we
were working with the World Bank to make sure that supplies got
to the hospitals. It is true that the payments to the medical
staff were done much earlier than the supplies, but they are now
being delivered.
Q183 John Battle: I have been to
the area a few times. There was a crisis over the election. We
look at poverty. We did go this time to the Palestinian Territories
and looked to see if there was hunger and if food aid was being
given out which one sometimes sees in refugee camps. It was not.
The evidence we took from the people we met was the strongest
evidence I have ever heard of a dysfunctioning medical system.
Normally during a crisis when there is a conflict, the Red Cross
move in and the Red Cross make sure that all people get medical
health care. The Red Cross withdrew because there is a Palestinian
health ministry set up, just as we have a Department of Health
here in Britain, which functions regardless of the government
in power to ensure that people receive medical care. If the state
breaks down, then send the Red Cross back in again. I thought
that the evidence we had was of a massively dysfunctioning health
care system. That was my strongest impression of the crisis now
in the Palestinian Territories as a whole and in Gaza. We have
written evidence about Gaza. Could I press you on the detail of
this? There seems to be an intentionality to do something about
it and pay the wages. Taking Window III of TIM, which is payments
of allowances to low-paid workers, I would be interested to know
whether health workers are included in that. The threshold was
increased from 2,000 shekels per month to 2,500 shekels per month.
It is not clear, and you may know, how many doctors and nurses
would qualify under TIM Window III? The impression we had was
that money is not getting through for salaries or drugs. I know
there are energy problems and they have had to go back to using
generators. The hospitals are there and they are reasonably well-equipped.
The problem is the movement of staff to the hospitals; the staff
cannot get to work. Paying the staff seems to me the greatest
crisis. This matter has been referred to the World Bank. Allocations
were made in August and it is now November. We go in November
and people tell us that they are trying to run a health service
instead of on a $26 million budget, on a $2 million donations
budget. It is not working, is it?
Mr Seatter: You are right that
the health service is dysfunctional. You have drawn attention
to two of the biggest problems. One of those is that people cannot
move easily at all in the Palestinian Territories. The second
one is that there has been massive disruption to fuel supplies.
Let me be clear on the salaries. There is 100% coverage of medical
staff salaries through the TIM. The threshold does not apply to
medical staff.
Q184 Chairman: You mean that they
get the minimum payments?
Mr Seatter: Everybody, irrespective
of their salary, gets the minimum payment through the TIM. I want
to clarify that. There is no threshold that applies to health
workers. It is true that there is a small number of people who
are regarded as politically affiliated and who do not get payments.
The Minister of Health, his advisers and people in the immediate
entourage of that person are not getting payments, but the medical
staff and the staff required to make the health service function
are getting paid. There is no exclusion on the grounds of any
income criteria. The highest paid health workers will still be
getting paid an allowance. The allowance is not very big; it is
1,500 shekels, but everybody gets it. That is the first point.
I do not understand how people can tell you that they were not
getting salary payments when, by the time of your visit, four
payments had been made. I do understand how people are saying
to you that there is a problem about getting supplies.
Q185 John Battle: We met a doctor
who covers East Jerusalem's public sector hospitals, not the private
hospitals. He was speaking about there being no elective surgery
going on at all. I do not believe that even in crisis situations
doctors hold patients to ransom to make a political point. They
normally get on with the operations. Why do you think there was
no elective surgery going on? I got the impression that the East
Jerusalem hospitals are not inside the scheme.
Mr Seatter: We have had an ongoing
programme for East Jerusalem hospitals for a number of years.
We have been supporting all of the hospitals in East Jerusalem
for about three years now. We made a special effort there because
of the big problems that people have in reaching Jerusalem from
the West Bank and because they are the centres of excellence for
certain kinds of treatment. What we have done under the TIM is
to make sure that fuel deliveries have reached those hospitals
to keep the electricity system going. I can understand how, if
supplies have been delayed, it is difficult to carry out the full
range of medical services that are required in a hospital. I can
see that that would be a problem. All I can say to you is that,
as far as the Commission is concerned, we disbursed our payment
on 25 August. I am not going to put the blame on the World Bank
in the sense that they have had a lot of problems to procure this
equipment in ways that are satisfactory. It is true that it has
taken a longer time than they at first thought.
Q186 John Battle: The direction that
I am pressing in a sense is this. Elective surgery is not able
to take place in East Jerusalem: yes, the lights were on as far
as I was aware; they had equipment but they did not have all the
expensive medications they needed for cancer. We heard about one
cancer case. Also, they could not refer cases to an Israeli hospital
any longer. There were problems with staff getting through check-points
and they could not get to work. If that is the case, in any other
humanitarian emergency situation it would be sorted out or the
Red Cross would be sent in, in my view, so that people get primary
medical care. Why is neither of those options taken and why is
there not a real task force saying that they will make the Palestinian
medical health ministry exempt from all these arrangements and
get action there? Can that not be done? If that cannot be done,
we are asking why the Red Cross cannot gain access to the people
immediately.
Mr Seatter: On the first point,
the medical supplies programme of the World Bank is being worked
through the Office of the President and officials in the Ministry
of Health who are not at a political level. Under the guidelines
that all 25 EU governments approved, we cannot have contacts at
any political level with the Palestinian Administration. Those
are not authorised. The reason is because Hamas has been classified
as a terrorist organisation.
Q187 Chairman: Can I stop you there?
When we met David Craig of the World Bank, and I have the note
of our meetings there and we all remember the discussions, the
World Bank had a different arrangement. I read from our notes.
The World Bank has operated a very soft no-contact policy with
Hamas. It was not under a complete ban in relation to dealing
with Hamas ministers. The US Office of Foreign Assets Control
had issued a waiver to the UN, the World Bank and the IMF to allow
them to continue to do business with the PA without being subject
to US anti-terrorism legislation. David Craig did not have authority
to talk to Hamas about future programmes but could discuss the
existing and agreed programmes. That suggests that taking it away
from the World Bank to TIM has aggravated the problem. The World
Bank would have the capacity to deliver in a practical way what
TIM apparently cannot.
Mr Seatter: I think, on that point,
it has not been taken away from the World Bank to give to the
TIM because we are working through the World Bank. We are not
doing anything that is duplicating what the World Bank is doing.
We are working through them. So the Window I, which is for medical
supplies, is going through the World Bank. That problem—of
taking it away from the World Bank to TIM—does not exist.
I totally agree with you that in a normal situation we would be
working through the Ministry of Health, trying to strengthen it,
trying to build it up and make sure that it can deliver the services
that it is there for. That is what we were doing up until the
time that the election of Hamas happened. I can understand that
you are as frustrated as we are in trying to deal with this problem
but we cannot have political contacts.
Q188 John Battle: I do not think
it is overlap. You have divided the problem up into bits—salaries,
medical supplies and dealing with Hamas—and various groups
are dealing with every bit. As a result, the whole system is falling
down between the gaps. I have spent this weekend trying to get
29 different agencies dealing with one family to talk to each
other and the family. We are as bad here at not joining up things.
What happens is that you end up with a policy that sounds all
right to trickle down and reach the people but that is not happening.
Is there any way that there could be a breakthrough on this? Perhaps
a taskforce could say that health is a priority. In emergency
situations, why can we not get health to the people in these conditions,
as happens elsewhere?
Mr Seatter: I would disagree with
you that no health is being delivered. The first priority is to
ensure that the emergency services continue to exist so that people
in a medical emergency can have somewhere to go to. That means
that you have to pay the people to do it and make provision for
supplies. It is not true that we are failing to deal with the
most acute problem. It is true that it is impossible for somebody
to step in and replace a whole administration. That is why it
is a temporary mechanism. It very much a second best or third
best or fourth best, whatever you like, solution to this problem.
It is not a solution to the problem. It is a stop-gap to meet
the most immediate needs of the poorest section of the population
so that they can have medical services. Without it, you would
have had a medical service not being paid and no deliveries of
medicine, not even late deliveries of medicine, and other supplies.
We say there are no people who were being turned away from hospitals
and dying because of lack of emergency cover.
Chairman: They are dying now. Dr Tawfiq
Nasser said three weeks ago that the hospitals of East Jerusalem
had not received TIM funding yet, although TIM payments had been
paid to some health workers elsewhere in the OPTs. He also told
us that all emergency rooms on the West Bank had been closed the
day before as a result of a combination of the strike and people
not being paid, but in this case they were not getting supplies.
We still have a number of detailed questions. Clearly you have
acknowledged yourself that if this is a temporary mechanism, it
does not work very well. The problem is going to get worse not
better unless certain things happen.
Q189 Ann McKechin: When we were in
Jerusalem, we met Hans Duynhouwer, who is the head of the TIM
management team there. He hinted to us that you are looking at
some idea of making basic payments to at least part of the police
force. Clearly the issue of security is a key one in this continuing
tragedy. I wondered what potential there is for paying the police
under the Window III mechanism and which parts of the security
forces would be covered by such a payment if that did occur?
Mr Seatter: Up to now, the mechanism
only covers civil employees, for very good reasons. We are targeting
it to health and it also now covers about two-thirds of the people
who work on the civilian payroll. We are looking, it is true,
at what it would mean to cover the civil police. There are about
19,000 people who work in the civil police. I do not want to go
into the murky world of the Palestinian security services. You
will have seen some of this for yourselves on your visit. There
is a big difference of view here within the Quartet and between
Member States, to be honest with you. I think there would be great
reluctance on the part of some members of the Quartet as well
as some Member States to go down this road. What we thought would
be useful at this stage, in the light of the experience that we
have had with the 70,000 people being covered under Window III
of TIM, and I am talking about people employed in the Palestinian
Authority, is whether we could cover an element of the police
force, which is supposed to be delivering the service to people.
We are just looking at the feasibility of that and the cost of
that. To be honest, we have run out of money in this mechanism.
By the end of the year, I am not sure whether we will be able
to carry on for very many more months into 2007. If we extend
the coverage to even more people, then we are adding to the problem,
but we are looking at the feasibility of this. In the light of
what our report shows, we want to have a discussion with Member
States to see whether they are willing to go down that road or
not.
Q190 Ann McKechin: Is there a discussion
amongst Member States about the balance? If the civil police are
not paid for such a lengthy period, in effect civil policing breaks
down and the communities begin to rely increasingly on armed militias.
We could end up with a Somalia-type situation occurring. The ability
to restore a civil police service would be similar to the problems
in Iraq when we disbanded everything and then had to start from
the beginning. We suffered a lot there. It seems to me that rather
than waiting for a discussion amongst EU members, this really
should be an utter priority for them and it is about whether they
want to be serious about maintaining a law and order system, particularly
in Gaza.
Mr Seatter: We had a first discussion
with them about this in October and there was not a wildly enthusiastic
reception to our suggestion that we might look at that. Now we
are looking at the details of that scheme, how it would work,
how much it would cost and whether it would address the problems
that you are referring to. Frankly, the civil police does not
work in the Palestinian Territories and it has not worked for
some time. There are two projects going on in that area which
had to be suspended when the Hamas government was elected. We
had a rule of law project to strength judges and the whole judicial
part of the system, and then there was another one to strengthen
the civil police, but that was suspended because of the decision
of Member States to classify Hamas as a terrorist organisation.
Q191 Joan Ruddock: I think we are
shaking our heads in despair at this point. Might I go directly
to what you have just said, the fact that the TIM is running out
of money and therefore perhaps it has already been extended from
September to December, as I understand it. Come December, that
may be it. I think you must acknowledge that although we would
regard TIM as wholly inadequate, clearly not dealing with an emergency
and within the emergency timetable, nonetheless, it is giving
some means to people perhaps just to feed themselves. What would
happen if there were no TIM? What is the EU anticipating?
Mr Seatter: The mechanism is temporary.
Many of your criticisms are directed at us on the TIM and that
it is not adequate to respond to the needs. You are absolutely
right. How could it possibly be?
Joan Ruddock: It could not.
Mr Seatter: The payments that
Israel has withheld are a multiple of what has gone into the TIM,
so how could it possibly be an adequate response? Nevertheless,
we have tried to focus on the poorest part of the population and
the medical services. If there was no TIM, I think there would
be massive problems. That was one of the other reasons behind
it. It was not just to address the problem of poverty but to give
time for politics to have a chance so that the different Palestinian
factions have a chance to work something out. There has been some
progress on that. What is the contingency plan? We will have fresh
resources available in January and we are proposing to make those
available through the TIM if required because hopefully there
will be a National Unity government which we can work with, in
which case we will divert all of these resources and use them
progressively in a better way, working with the government rather
than having to bypass it. As you yourselves are saying, it is
not a satisfactory situation. We feel this acutely because we
have been spending years building up institutions in the Palestinian
Authority. We would be trying to target these funds on meeting
the immediate needs and phasing that out into support for the
National Unity government. That is our strategy. The TIM is expiring
at the end of the year and so we would be proposing to the Quartet
to extend it. There will be a first discussion with Member States
on this fairly soon. We think we can mobilise resources. It is
striking that at the moment €200 million is going into the
TIM: €110 million is coming from the European Community and
€91 million is coming from Member States. I have never seen
in my work in the European Union Member States actually donating
additional funds to the funds that they already give through the
Community budget and 14 Member States are doing it. They obviously
feel that there is something worthwhile here. Hopefully, we can
mobilise these funds in the new year so that we can phase into
supporting a National Unity government in a more structural way
than we are doing at the moment.
Q192 Joan Ruddock: All right, so
a National Unity government gets formed and you work out a phased
timetable. First of all, a National Unity government may not be
formed. The other possibility is that it is formed and it does
not say exactly what Israel wants and Israel does not recognise
it. Where does that leave the Quartet? It may be formed and within
a month it has fallen?
Mr Seatter: Then we have to continue
what we are doing now and maybe try to mobilise further funds.
That is our fallback.
Q193 Joan Ruddock: The longer the
crisis, the greater the need?
Mr Seatter: Exactly, but we think
that to address that danger, and it is a real danger, we need
to mobilise fresh funds which we are going to do right from January.
We are already looking at how we can get extra funds this year
and ask Member States and others. We have been approached by Japan
and we have asked Canada and the United States. Of course we are
continuing to talk to Israel about whether they can release some
of those revenues through the TIM. We have also talked to the
Palestinian Authority about that. It would be our strategy to
continue and intensify what we are doing, hopefully for not very
long, to address the most immediate needs that are coming up in
the new year. Again, as you have said, it will be a completely
inadequate response but I think it is the only thing we can offer
at the moment.
Q194 Joan Ruddock: May I ask you
then about another aspect of EU funding, which is the €12
million that goes to the Office of the President for technical
assistance and capacity-building? We have received evidence from
NGOs such as Christian Aid who have argued that this undermines
Palestinian institutions. We heard a very powerful comment from
Hanan Ashrawi when we met with her that by doing what we are doing
we have totally undermined and emasculated the political opposition
in the PA itself. How do you respond to that?
Mr Seatter: On the first point,
it is not true that this €12 million has gone to the Office
of the President. I will tell you what has gone to the Office
of the President; it is €63,000 for supplies and for a person
to work there to help them out in dealing with the TIM. What has
happened to the rest of this money? To be honest, we are holding
it available to work with institutions such as the Palestinian
Monetary Authority and the Border Management Agency, the Central
Election Commission and the Supreme Judicial Council, which are
professional and independent bodies, to see whether we can support
their work. It may be that if there is a National Unity government,
it will come in useful then. We have made available these funds
for institution-building. We have not given them to the Office
of the President. It is not true that we have done that; only
€63,000 has gone there, for the very reason that you are
saying that we think we would like to hold this available to support
institution-building when we can do it. We can do it to a certain
extent now with independent agencies and maybe in the future,
if there is a new government, we can use it to help them. I do
not know about Hanan Ashrawi's comment. I think what we are trying
to do here is address the worst of the poverty in the Palestinian
Territories and to make sure that the health service can function.
That is the first objective. We are very aware that the NGOs that
we work with are criticising this as undermining institutions.
As I said, this is very much a second-best situation. We made
a big effort to come out with proposals for institution-building,
which we produced last year, taking up many of the points that
this committee had made three years ago. We were building this
up into something which we could not then work with because of
the Hamas situation. I am sorry to have to come back to that eternally.
Q195 Richard Burden: You have been
very clear about how well or badly the TIM operates. It cannot
meet the needs and its impact, even if working properly, would
be dwarfed by the impact of millions and millions of dollars of
tax revenues, which are collected by Israel and withheld at the
moment. Could you just tell us from the Commission point of view,
the EU's point of view, whose money is that? Who does that tax
revenue belong to?
Mr Seatter: The money belongs
to the Palestinian people. It is collected from and has been paid
by the Palestinian people in the form of taxes and duties and
it is collected on their behalf under the Paris Protocol to the
Oslo Agreement by the Israeli Government.
Q196 Richard Burden: So it does not
belong to Israel?
Mr Seatter: No.
Q197 Richard Burden: What steps are
the European Union taking and the Quartet taking to ensure that
it is handed over to its rightful and legal owners?
Mr Seatter: We have called repeatedly
and publicly with increasing force on Israel to meet its obligations
in respect of that revenue. That is the first thing. The second
thing is that we have talked to Israel about the way this mechanism
works. We have asked them to consider transferring some of this
money through the TIM mechanism. If they are worried about financial
control, we could make certain assurances to help them do that.
Of course, we only did that after having talked to the Palestinians
about it because we said to them, "It is your money. Would
you accept it being put through this mechanism?"
Q198 Richard Burden: Have they agreed
to that?
Mr Seatter: They have indicated
that we should talk to Israel in those terms. They have agreed
that we explore that with Israel, but that is very much again
a second-best solution because these funds legally belong to the
Palestinians. That has been our position of principle, which we
have made very clear, increasingly clear, to Israel over recent
months. In order to facilitate that, we have offered this, after
having consulted the Palestinian Authority about that.
Q199 Richard Burden: You have been
very clear that as far as the Member States are concerned and
corporately because of a theoretical position in the programme
of Hamas, even though, as you said, the Change and Reform Party
did not hold that position, there are very strict sanctions in
place because the Palestinian government may not act in accordance
with what is seen to be acceptable behaviour. Israel, by withholding
money that does not belong to it, is not, in practice, abiding
by the principles of acceptable behaviour. Other than raising
it, what are we doing to ensure that Israel does behave better?
Mr Seatter: Pressure and offering
to help address some of their concerns about financial control
are the two ways that we have tried so far.
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