A cement scandal exposes rampant corruption among PA officials, writes Khalid Amayreh in the West Bank The Egyptian "cement-gate" affair has continued to reverberate across the occupied territories, causing embarrassment to an increasingly beleaguered Palestinian Authority (PA) leadership and seriously undermining its credibility. The latest available information indicates that a number of senior and junior PA officials were either directly or directly involved in the scandal. The officials reportedly received grafts, bribes, kickbacks, or other forms of payments in return for their silence, or for their role in facilitating the affair. PA leader Yasser Arafat has been refusing to talk openly about the scandal, claiming that doing so would create confusion within Palestinian society and serve as a serious distraction from the national struggle. Last week, Arafat said that the affair was giving Israel and the United States additional ammunition to vilify the Palestinian leadership. Likewise, Arafat's aides have been seeking to downplay the seriousness of the issue on the grounds that the Palestinian people are facing more serious issues such as the building by Israel of the separation wall as well as the daily bloody incursions by the Israeli army into Palestinian population centres. The scandal, nonetheless, continued to snowball and to galvanise the Palestinian public, generating rumours and gossip and, more importantly, unprecedented disenchantment with the PA failure -- or perhaps unwillingness -- to tackle corruption. This disenchantment, say many Palestinian observers, may eventually evolve into violent protest, as was recently the case in the Gaza Strip. It seems that the main factor restraining Palestinians from taking to the streets en masse is the fear that Israel might seek to manipulate the crisis to divert attention from the building of the gigantic apartheid wall and alleviate international pressure following the recent International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling against the nefarious structure, along with the subsequent United Nations General Assembly resolution which overwhelmingly backed the ICJ ruling. The Egyptian cement scandal began nearly a year ago when Egypt offered to sell the PA some 420,000 tonnes of high- quality cement at extremely low prices -- at $12-15 per tonne -- for the purpose of propping up the Palestinian economy, badly battered by sustained Israeli invasions through the last four years. The cement was meant to be used to rebuild dilapidated Palestinian houses and buildings destroyed by the Israeli army, particularly in the Gaza Strip where entire neighbourhoods in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip were recently bulldozed by Israel. However, instead of honouring the benevolent gesture, corrupt businessmen -- most likely in coordination with influential figures within the PA -- snatched a license to import the cement from the PA National Economy Ministry, headed by Maher Al-Masri. Most of the cement was then sold to Israel, apparently with the knowledge of senior officials at the National Economy Ministry and close aides of Arafat. Al-Masri claims that the amount of imported cement did not exceed 65,000 tonnes. The Palestinian Legislative Council launched a thorough investigation into the affair after an Egyptian newspaper, Al-Arabi, disclosed strong business links between a German Jewish businessman and a number of Palestinian companies and firms, some affiliated with the PA. One of the main authors of the investigation is Hasan Khreisha, a deputy speaker of the council and a frequent critic of Arafat's autocratic tendencies. Khreisha, an independent lawmaker, told Al-Ahram Weekly that he had found records showing that the consignments amounted to 420,000 tonnes of high- quality cement. He said that the bulk of this amount -- 390,000 tonnes -- ended up in Israel and was sold at $80-100 per tonne to Israeli contractors who were building the huge separation wall in the northern West Bank. A simple calculation shows that the people who imported the cement and sold it off illegally to Israeli contractors made profits amounting to millions of dollars. "This is... treachery. It is a treacherous act to help build the racist wall at a time when Palestinian children are risking their lives and dying protesting the evil structure," said Khreisha. According to the Legislative Council report, three firms were involved in importing the cement from Egypt and selling it to Israel. The main suspect is the Tarifi Company for Concrete Mix (TCCM) -- headed by Jamal Tarifi, a brother of Jamil Tarifi, the PA Minister of Civil Affairs. Prior to the creation of the PA in 1993, Tarifi occupied a prominent position in the Israeli army's so-called civil administration in the West Bank, and, thanks to his privileged contacts, was able to amass huge wealth, winning highly profitable contracts from the Israeli occupation government in the West Bank. And through the years, the Tarifis developed extensive business relations with Israeli firms, enabling them to make millions of dollars in profits, making use of the special treatment they received at Israeli checkpoints and roadblocks. Hence, it was no coincidence that the license to import the cement from Egypt was prepared and signed at Jamil Tarifi's home in Ramallah, as was revealed by PA comptroller Jarrar Al-Kidwa. Most scandalous is the fact that PA Chairman Yasser Arafat seems to have known all along about the affair. According to Khreisha, on 9 November, a letter was sent to the president by Al- Kidwa, informing him that an open-ended license was being issued to the Tarifis to import the cement from Egypt. Another letter reportedly notified Arafat that large amounts of the imported cement were being diverted to Israel by TCCM trucks. For reasons still unknown, Arafat refused to act, and Al-Kidwa, whose appointment to his post has not been approved by the Legislative Council, refused to reveal to the council all subsequent official correspondence with Arafat's office. The whole affair was referred to the PA attorney-general, who in theory would order the prosecution of the wrong-doers. However, suspicion that the matter will simply be whitewashed -- as was the fate of numerous other corruption scandals -- is permeating throughout the occupied territories. Despite its gravity, the cement scandal represents only a small part of the huge corruption phenomenon inundating the PA. Indeed, one could safely argue that corruption, with its various manifestations and expressions such as bribery, nepotism, favouritism, cronyism, kickbacks, pitfall profits, outright embezzlement and theft, has become part and parcel of the PA's modus operandi. The phenomenon, say those who know, is so overwhelming that it will take the Palestinian society many years to cleanse, supposing there is the will and power to do so in the first place.
