Why is this not surprising? (From Yahoo News)
Days after the December 26 disaster, the United Nations launched an appeal for almost one billion dollars of hard cash as governments outbid each other with aid offers that, if realised, would top 10 billion.
Concerns that graft and mismanagement would gnaw into funds have placed donations under heavy scrutiny, yet there are also fears that huge promises of help will simply fail to manifest into worthwhile assistance.
"The federal government wants to give loans for boats to the fishermen, while state government wants the money in the form of grants because it feels the people will not be able to repay loans," Kapoor said.
Bigger headaches have emerged in Sri Lanka, where President Chandrika Kumaratunga has griped that "not even five cents" of assistance had been directly received by the state.
Finance ministry officials in Colombo said that of more than 884 million dollars in pledges, 95.5 million had been received -- just 13 million directly to state coffers.
The Indonesian government said despite being the intended destination of at least half of all aid, it had only received three million dollars in cash, with the rest being channelled through the UN or non-government groups.
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