Examination of Witness (Questions 1-19)
MR JOHN
GING
30 APRIL 2008
Q1 Chairman: Welcome. We can start. As
you appreciate, the first part of the evidence is by video link
with Gaza and with John Ging. Good morning to you, John. Can you
hear us all right?
Mr Ging: I can
hear you clearly, thank you.
Q2 Chairman: Thank you very much
for doing this. It is good to talk to you again, although I am
not sure that what you have to tell us will be good to hear. I
wonder, for the formal record, if you could introduce yourself
for the transcript?
Mr Ging: Sure. Good morning. My
name is John Ging; I am the Director of UNRWA's Operations here
in Gaza, and thank you for the opportunity to address the committee.
Q3 Chairman: We very much appreciate
the work that you do and, obviously, you have frequently given
us updates. I wonder perhaps if we should start there: if you
could give us your latest assessment of the current humanitarian
situation in Gaza first-hand as of today?
Mr Ging: Sure. I would characterise
the situation here as shocking in terms of the deterioration in
the humanitarian situation. I also have to say it is shameful,
what we are now witnessing first-hand here and on the ground.
Both the principal issues continue to be the access issues, whether
it is for equipment or whether it is for supplies. Also the violence
underpins the humanitarian situation here in Gaza. When it comes
to violence and that pervasive sense of fear and danger that is
created in every household by any situation here, I will just
update you on the latest statistics. From January of this year
344 Palestinians have been killed and 756 have been injured, and
in those figures are the deaths of 60 undisputedly innocent children
and a further 175 children injured. All of the danger that all
of that amounts to for the civilian population here is pervasive;
it is a reality in everybody's daily life. What we are not seeing
is the accountability that one would expect when it comes to the
use of lethal force, and that is leaving an ever-growing sense
of impunity, bad faith and a sense of despair among the general
population. Of course, it is very important that when we refer
to the security challenges here we also must condemn the firing
of rockets from Gaza, which continues on an almost daily basis.
These rockets terrorise the civilian population within rocket
range of Gaza, and over 2,600 rockets have been fired this year
so far. That has resulted in three Israeli civilians being killed
and over 20 injured. The other aspect that is underpinning the
humanitarian crisis here continues to be the lack of access for
people and for supplies in and out of Gaza. The entire population
here are feeling the effects of those sanctions. It is a struggle
for every family to cope and it is one that they are losing. The
pathetic humanitarian state here in Gaza was clearly evident to
everybody on 23 January when there was the break-out from Gaza
to Rafah. The population just could not take the pressure any
more and they broke out of Gaza to do nothing more than buy some
household goods—some food, some medicines, and so on. That
social explosion was predicted, and yet the causes that underpinned
that explosion were not addressed. But the reprieve has been short-lived
because, of course, the borders are sealed again and the pressure
is building and it is again coming to a point of explosion. The
supplies here across the board are either running out or have
run out. Compounding the problem that did not exist in January
is the fact that fuel is now in very short supply. It even affected
our operations here at the UN, where we ran out of fuel and had
to suspend, for the first time ever, our food distribution for
three days until we were re-supplied. We have only been re-supplied
with enough to carry us through five days and we are trying to
overcome this with a more regular supply, but, again, the fact
that we at the UN ran out is just another indication of how difficult
the situation is here. Again, this has been a reduction of supply
that has been going on longer than a month. If we compare the
figures from last September for all the diesel, it was over nine
million litres. In March that had been reduced to 3.8 million
litres. The figures for benzine are similar: 1.4 million litres
in September and that was reduced to 20% of that amount in March
of this year, so it is affecting every aspect of human existence
here. The population are reduced to walking. Those vehicles that
are on the road, and it is very few, are being converted to using
cooking gas; it is a very dangerous conversion. Doctors, healthcare
workers, patients, teachers, students, they all must walk now
and, if they cannot walk the distance to the school or the clinic,
then they do not get there and, again, this is devastating in
every respect.
Q4 Chairman: Can I ask you a question
on that? That is very helpful. I was going to ask you the point
about fuel and you have answered it. You mentioned that the effect
of that was to disrupt your food distribution. Can you give us
an indication of just how serious the food situation is and how
it is affecting people?
Mr Ging: The situation here is
that almost one million of the Gaza residents are depending on
UN handouts of food. They have no other means of sustaining themselves.
The economy has completely collapsed and 80% are now defined as
living below the poverty line, and that is consistent with the
numbers that we are providing food assistance to—ourselves
and OCHA[1]
and the World Food Programme for non-refugees. We are also, because
of chronic under-funding, not able to give them the full ration
that they require. We are only meeting 60% of their daily needs.
So, as you can imagine, any interruption in the supply of that
ration has a very immediate effect on the households that, as
I say, are subsisting on the assistance that we are providing.
Chairman: Thank you for that information.
It is obviously a pretty grim situation. Can I bring in Ann McKechin,
who would like to ask you some questions on the health situation?
Q5 Ann McKechin: Good morning, John.
I wonder if you could advise us just what the current impact of
the closure of the Gaza border is having on healthcare provision.
You have mentioned the issue about fuel, but I know that there
are patients who need medical treatment in Israel. Have there
been any change in the issue of travel permits from Gaza into
Israel for people needing medical treatment?
Mr Ging: Yes, but it is a major
challenge every time to get the approvals needed to get the patients
out of Gaza. It is complicated by the political situation here
in terms of the architecture between Gaza and Ramallah. I have
to say, from our perspective we do see a sincere effort on the
part of the Israeli authorities to facilitate the transfer of
patients from Gaza as needed, but it is definitely a challenge
bureaucratically to get people out, and, again, we understand
very much the complication of the co-ordination but there is delay.
For sure the State of Israel are making a very big effort to facilitate
the transfer of patients, and this is definitely something that
we must acknowledge.
Q6 Ann McKechin: What is the position
about drugs within Gaza: the availability of essential drugs?
Mr Ging: The drugs that are needed
for life-saving purposes are in short supply but they are here.
The other supplies, whether it is for chronic illnesses, such
as dialysis treatment, diabetes, and so on and so forth, for many
of these treatments the frequency of treatment is reduced, it
is not as regular as it should be because of the shortages. Cancer
patients the same: there is a shortage of chemotherapy medicine
in Gaza. I cannot say that today anybody has died because they
did not have the medicine that they needed to save their life,
but for sure there is a lot of human suffering because of the
shortages of medicines, particularly for chronically ill patients.
Definitely, in the hospitals there is more and more difficulty
with the maintenance of equipment such as incubators, and so on,
because, again, there is a big difficulty and delay in getting
spare parts and other supplies in to actually keep those services
going.
Q7 Richard Burden: Good morning,
John. Can I ask you a couple of questions in relation to waste
water treatment and sewage facilities? There has been a lot of
comment recently, not least from the UN and the Under-Secretary
General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief about the
fact that the sewage system in Gaza is on the brink of collapse.
We understand that Tony Blair, in his capacity as Middle East
Quartet representative, has put some priority on improving sewage
facilities at Beit Lahiya. Can you tell us something about the
state of the sewage system in Gaza and what is happening in terms
of efforts to improve it?
Mr Ging: Yes, the state of the
sewage and water system here is completely overloaded. Mr Blair's
project in Beit Lahiya, which is to relieve the pressures on one
of the reservoirs there, which is very, very urgent, is not being
implemented because now they have run out of fuel to do the work.
They finally got the supplies in, the construction materials,
but now the contractors are unable to do the work because they
do not have fuel. Overall 60,000 cubic metres of raw or partially
treated sewage are being pumped out into the sea every day here.
Rubbish is piling up everywhere, again, simply because they do
not have fuel to actually operate the rubbish trucks and the skips
as well. The water situation is also very precarious here. About
70,000 people have been cut off from any water supply because
15 of the water wells that were working on diesel fuel only have
shut down. The latest information from the coastal water utility
is that about 30% of the population are getting water once a week
for about four to five hours, another 40% are getting water once
every four days and then the final 30% are getting water supply
every other day. Of course, people cope here with having tanks
on their rooftops, and so on and so forth, but the situation is
very, very precarious on both water and sanitation.
Q8 Richard Burden: I am afraid you
broke up a little way through that answer and you may have covered
my next question in it. If so, apologies. Could I ask you to repeat
it if you did. When you broke up you were emphasising the impact
of restrictions on fuel, on sewage treatment and the ability of
trucks to get through. Could you also say something about, first
of all, the extent and the impact of restrictions specifically
on electricity supplies on the treatment of sewage and waste water
treatment?
Mr Ging: Yes. Am I coming through
again?
Q9 Richard Burden: Yes; you are fine
at the moment.
Mr Ging: Okay. Yes, the power
plant is receiving a limited amount of fuel to generate electricity,
so power cuts here are in the order of about six to eight hours
per day.. That means that the waste water plants that are electrically
powered and the water wells have to fall back on emergency generators
during that period when the power is cut. They have had no fuel
for emergency generators for the last two and a half weeks, in
fact—they have run out completely—so that means that
the sewage treatment process is not actually functioning because
they cannot work on an on/off basis. This is why 60,000 cubic
metres of sewage is being pumped out, either partially treated
or not treated at all, into the sea every day, and that is why
the pumping of water to homes in Gaza is now disrupted more and
more, because not just the pumping itself but also the pumps at
the tower blocks where people live, if there is not harmonisation,
and there never is, of the power being on at your home and the
power being on at the water well, then you do not get any water
even when the pumps are working. The coastal water utility—I
have given the statistics. If you need me to repeat them, I can
give them again, on just what the situation is with the provision
of water.
Q10 Richard Burden: Perhaps that
could be done in writing. One last question, John. Whilst the
fuel supplies, and in particular the electricity supplies from
Israel, are being restricted, are they being charged for by the
Israelis and who is paying for the electricity supplies that are
not coming through in the quantities that are needed?
Mr Ging: The arrangement is that
there is a joint fund administered by Israel on the customs duties
which, again, is then charged for the electricity supplies. They
are not being charged for that which they are not providing to
the best of my knowledge; they are only being charged for what
is being provided. Israel is providing, of course, electricity
directly to Gaza. It has not reduced that supply. The supply that
has been reduced is the domestically generated supply within Gaza.
So Israel provides something in the order of 120 megawatts per
day, Egypt provides about 17 and then in Gaza our plant generates
between 45 and 55 megawatts. That generation capacity of the Gaza
power plant should be 85 megawatts, and therein lies the problem
because they are not getting the fuel necessary to actually produce
to their capacity.
Q11 Mr Singh: Good morning. John,
we are led to believe that the some border crossings from Gaza
are open for humanitarian provisions and selected medical cases.
If this is true, to what extent is this true and which border
crossings are open?
Mr Ging: Yes, indeed, this is
true. In terms of the medical cases, the Erez crossing is the
principal crossing for medical cases exiting Gaza, but the Rafah
terminal has also been opened on a number of occasions to facilitate
the passage of medical cases into Egypt or the return of those
who were out in Egypt for treatment there. When it comes to the
humanitarian supplies, the crossing at Sufa is functional for
that purpose for food and other humanitarian supplies. The crossing
at Kerem Shalom is also operational but, unfortunately, since
the recent attack on that terminal—there has been extensive
damage done—it is under repair at the moment, and so we
are reduced to relying on the Sufa crossing. For fuel, there is
a separate crossing, called Nahal Oz, so that is where all fuel
supplies come through, when they come through, and the principal
crossing point, which is Karni, has remained closed since the
middle of June last year.
Q12 Mr Singh: I understand that the
Palestinian authority had put forward a plan to open the crossings
in a sustainable way with Palestinian authority personnel supervising
those crossings. What has happened to those plans? Are they progressing
or have they just been ditched?
Mr Ging: They have not been ditched,
but they have not yet been implemented. Of course, it is a process
of negotiation and discussion involving a lot of parties, but,
again, from our point of view this is what has to happen, these
crossings have to be opened, it underpins everything here, and
it is, again, urgent because the situation here has become so
desperate. The smaller crossings that I mentioned are not a substitute
for the single commercial crossing which was facilitating hundreds
of trucks every single day, prior to this latest round of closure
which was implemented after the fighting of June last year. So
the smaller crossings are only handling about 25% of the traffic
that was coming into Gaza, and, remember, Gaza was in a desperate
state prior to June last year as well, and that just gives you
a sense of how desperate it actually is now. There are no shoes,
for example, available in Gaza, just as a simple example. Again,
it is all of these items that are needed for a dignified existence
here that have either run out or are running out.
Q13 Mr Crabb: John, you mentioned
earlier that the UN's own activities in Gaza have been disrupted
as a result of restrictions on fuel supply. Perhaps you can clarify
one thing. In the last week or so we have had conflicting reports
about what has happened with regards to fuel supplies being disrupted,
particularly to the UN agency. It reports that an agreement was
made with the Israelis and the Palestinians to get the UN the
fuel it needed, but actually the delivery of the fuel itself was
disrupted by Hamas. Are you able to comment on that, John?
Mr Ging: Sure. This is not the
case. We appealed to all the parties not to allow us to run out
of fuel on a daily basis over the course of the last three weeks.
We were prevented by the State of Israel from building up our
reserves here to ensure that when crossings were interrupted in
terms of their operation that we would not be interrupted in our
operation. We have a capacity here to have almost two months supply
in reserve. We were working, like everybody else here, on an inadequate
supply which was hand to mouth, it was a week-by-week basis, and
that is what, of course, precipitated the crisis in the first
place when the closure occurred after the attack on the Nahal
Oz terminal where two Israeli civilians were tragically killed.
Of course, in the meantime, we have been trying to negotiate the
supply that we need. It requires co-ordination with the Israelis.
They must agree, and they did agree. It also requires co-ordination
on the Palestinian side, and the authority on this issue is Ramallah
and, again, that was agreed. The physical removal of the fuel
from the fuel terminal is a security issue, because the population
here, of course, are very upset by the circumstances that they
find themselves in—farmers, fishermen, everybody seeing
their livelihoods destroyed—and they are conducting regular
protests at the terminal. Again, we encountered their protest
on the first day when we attempted to recover the fuel, but the
Hamas security forces ensured that the protesters would not be
a problem on the second day and we were then able to freely remove
the fuel that we were authorised to take from the terminal. On
this one Hamas have not been an obstacle; in fact they have been
a facilitator of our receiving the fuel that we required.
Q14 Mr Crabb: Thank you for that
helpful clarification. Can I ask you how you are responding to
this latest crisis, closure, isolation of Gaza? Are you finding
that you are having to provide services to many more people?
Mr Ging: Yes, it is at all levels,
right down to the trucks of the civilian contractors that we use.
There is only one contractor allowed access to the crossing points
for collection of our products, and we have to fill their trucks
with our fuel otherwise they cannot do the work for us. Of course
on the general population side, the needs are growing every day,
and that which is available in the market in terms of supplies
is spiralling in cost for people, and the poorest and the most
vulnerable are the ones who are feeling the biggest hit of all
in this. We have had to increase our assistance to 100,000 of
special hardship cases with an exceptional additional cash assistance
of some $20 per family member just to help them to cope, but,
again, this gets back to our funding shortfall. We are projected
only to receive about 60% of the emergency appeal that we made
at the start of this year, which, of course, is very difficult
for us because we see the need, the people are very frustrated,
they are coming to us in ever greater numbers and we are just
not able to respond.
Q15 Sir Robert Smith: You have painted
a very serious situation, and you have already highlighted the
chronic under-funding for your food aid and now you have highlighted
that funding has not been coming forward. In our last report we
emphasised that you were calling for more funding and also, on
another issue, you were looking for longer predictability in the
funding so you could plan your processes. Could you reinforce
just how serious the under-funding situation is and how much you
would benefit from having predictability of your future funding?
Mr Ging: Yes, and I should at
the outset state that the British Government has moved very significantly
and very positively on this issue in terms of predictability and
also in terms of accountability. We very much welcome the performance
element to the funding that we now receive. We have received a
multi-annual commitment stretching out over the next number of
years, right out to 2010, with increases each year, and also a
performance component to the funding in terms of our delivery.
This has been given to our general fund, which is to provide the
education services, the health services and the basic relief services.
We do not receive emergency funding from the British Government
for what we call our emergency appeal. This is our food aid, our
job creation, our cash assistance, our Psychosocial programme
and the other emergency relief programmes that are focused on
the particular challenges of this crisis. In that budget we are,
as I say, only projecting funding of 60% to the end of the year.
This estimate is based on funds received and pledges. It is a
huge challenge for us because, of course, even since we wrote
our proposal, the price of food has been sky-rocketing, which
is well-known internationally. The funding shortfall on our general
fund is in the order of 25%. So, again, in terms of the minimum
services in terms of education, healthcare and other social services,
we are falling short of our minimum requirements there by approximately
25%.
Q16 Sir Robert Smith: Can I clarify
the shortfall. How much of that is a failure to deliver something
that had been promised, or is it a lack of promises in the first
place?
Mr Ging: It is a lack of promises.
We have no problem with delivery in terms of promises and pledges.
When governments commit to UNRWA they are very dutiful in their
follow-up. We do not have an issue with that. The shortfall is
in pledges and then, of course, the funding itself.
Q17 Sir Robert Smith: Finally, is
the shortfall because your needs are growing and the funding is
not growing as fast as your needs, or are you actually seeing
a reduction in your funding?
Mr Ging: No, we were seeing a
modest increase in our funding on the emergency side in the order
of about 5 or 7%, but the needs are not being met. We set out
a very minimalist needs-based programme which was to do nothing
more than to meet the very basic needs and, unfortunately, we
have not received the funding to meet that.
Q18 Hugh Bayley: About 10% of UK
funding for UNRWA is linked to benchmarks in your performance
in key areas. Are these benchmarks reasonable and what obstacles
are there to achieving them?
Mr Ging: Yes, the benchmarks were
developed jointly with ourselves, of course, and we are very pleased
about that. We find them to be very reasonable and good indicators
of our performance across the range of our programme areas. We
also find it very helpful when we do deliver that we know that
there will be the follow through in the additional funding, which
is linked very much to quality, to improving our performance in
the academic results in education, the quality of health services,
the impact of the relief services; not just the actual provision
of the service itself, but what is the impact? Are we moving those
who are below the poverty line any closer to being above it, taking
those in special hardship status sustainably out of that. That
is, of course, what all of this is about. Our problem here in
Gaza is that, while we continue to be very driven by all of this,
the situation here undermines us more and more every day because
of the deterioration. Again, it is a huge challenge for us but
we are very much focused on it and we welcome this approach to
funding.
Q19 Hugh Bayley: Has any money been
withheld by DFID as a result of not meeting the benchmarks and,
if so, how much?
Mr Ging: No, 2008 is the first
year of the performance element in the contribution. So this year
we are looking at two million pounds based on our achieving these
indicators. Again, this is the first year, so we have not had
a failure or a success just yet.
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