NGOs working in development aid have accused Malta of inflating its aid figures.
Malta last year declared that it contributed €8 million or 0.15 per cent of its Gross National Income (GNI) in development aid to poor countries - the most generous of the 12 new EU member states.
But a report issued yesterday in Brussels by Concorde, an EU-wide umbrella organisation representing NGOs in the sector, states that "Maltese NGOs are concerned that a substantial share of reported ODA (Overseas Development Aid) was spent on housing asylum seekers in their first year in Malta".
According to the report, this means that aid money is being spent on detention centres. It is also being inflated by including imputed student costs as part of the ODA, the report claims.
The assessment is based on information given by Skop - Solidarjetà u Koperazzjoni - Malta's NGO on development aid.
The report further states that this NGO currently has no access to the information given officially by the Maltese authorities and describes as "non-existent" the possibility of an independent evaluation of the figures given by the government. "The lack of transparency and timely and independent evaluation of Maltese aid compromises NGOs' engagement on development cooperation issues. The government has promised NGOs that it will start issuing a clear breakdown of figures in ODA reporting, but this promise is yet to be fulfilled."
According to Malta's Overseas Development Policy, published last October, Malta has made a commitment to the EU to strive to reach the level of 0.17 per cent of GNI in development aid by 2010.
However, the report states that it is very unlikely that Malta will reach its targets.
Referring to Malta's official policy, the report states that the Maltese government has also indicated that more aid funds will be allocated for technical assistance.
"NGOs are also concerned that in general, technical assistance does not respond to the real needs of developing countries and suffers from low accountability."
The report calls upon the Maltese government to immediately stop inflating Maltese aid by including money spent on detention centres, repatriation of migrants and asylum seekers as ODA money, channel ODA solely towards poverty eradication in poor countries and provide clear, adequate and transparent reporting of Maltese aid.
When contacted by The Times, a spokesman for the Maltese Foreign Ministry, responsible for Malta's development aid, had no comments to make on this report.
In general, the report is highly critical of almost all EU member states when it comes to their commitments on development aid and states that current trends show that the EU - the largest donor of development aid in the world - will have given €75 billion less in aid by 2010 than it promised, threatening progress on the UN Millennium Development Goals set for 2015.
According to Concorde, if the recent record of slow progress continues, Europe will find it harder to meet its target with every year that passes.