Commentary: PA receives $150 million US government aid package

Ma’an News Agency
October 22, 2008

Ramallah – Ma’an – The Palestinian Authority (PA) said on Wednesday it received an additional US $150 million grant from the US State Department in March, according to Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad.

But the grant was not officially announced until a meeting held Wednesday in the central West Bank city of Ramallah, where US Consul General Jake Wallis and Howard Somka, the director of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) in Palestine, spoke to reporters.

The latest grant brings US financial aid to the PA up to US $700 million, surpassing what the American Foreign Service had pledged during a meeting of donor countries in Paris last December.

Walis and Somka said that the US “is happy to support the PA and enhance its efforts to secure economic and, eventually, political stability for the Palestinian people.”

Prime Minister Salam Fayyad thanked the US government for its “consistent support to the PA and to the Palestinian people.”

“We appreciate the motive for this support, which is to help the PA improve its financial status,” he said. Fayyad also thanked US President George W. Bush and the American congress for approving the additional aid and supporting Palestinian independence.

“We thank them for their efforts to support the creation of an independent Palestinian state on all Palestinian territory occupied in 1967, and with Jerusalem as its capital,” he said.

Fayyad claimed that the massive upswing in international aid to the PA is a testament to its “transparent financial system.”