German body tightens checks on development projects after Yemen fraud
Germany’s international development agency GIZ has tightened its control mechanisms in high-risk countries such as Syria and Ukraine following fraud cases in development projects in Yemen, the agency’s chief spokesman Thorsten Schäfer-Gümbel told dpa on Wednesday.
“There is a whole set of rules that have been changed and tightened. We are monitoring compliance very closely in order to significantly reduce the risks,” Schäfer-Gümbel said.
According to the GIZ, the stricter rules introduced since 2023 include annual checks on projects in around 30 areas that the organization has classified as risk or high-risk countries based on criteria such as the security situation and the danger of corruption.
Financial staff in those countries are also rotated more frequently and more billing processes are being digitized.
Merz: One case no reason to question development aid
Chancellor Friedrich Merz backed Germany’s development cooperation in principle during a government question-and-answer session in the lower house of parliament, or Bundestag, on Wednesday, despite the GIZ fraud case.
He said he had no reason to generalize from a single case to the point of calling into question Germany’s entire development aid work with other parts of the world, responding to a question from an Alternative for Germany (AfD) member of parliament.
Against the backdrop of a visit the previous day by Senegal’s head of state, Merz added that looking at the fate of people in that region showed “how important it is that a wealthy country like the Federal Republic of Germany also contributes to enabling these regions of the world to develop in a stable way.” This would continue in future, he said.
Fraud in Yemen billing
GIZ spokesman Schäfer-Gümbel said the fraud cases in Yemen had triggered the tightening of the rules. “A group of local staff abused the system to benefit themselves,” he said.
The GIZ is said to have suffered losses in the low double-digit millions – through means including falsified invoices. The agency had dismissed 24 Yemeni employees or declined to renew their contracts as a result.
The total volume of projects in the war-torn country between 2019 and 2024 had been around €208 million ($236 million).
Schäfer-Gümbel said that since early 2014, development projects in the areas of health care, water supply and employment promotion had been run by “remote control” due to the fragile security situation. The reason was a terrorist attack in December 2013, after which German GIZ staff had to leave Yemen at short notice. Three GIZ employees were killed in the attack, including the country director.
“There is no other country in the world where we have worked for 10 years under these extremely difficult conditions,” he said.
After German GIZ staff were able to travel to Yemen again from mid-2022, indications of fraud had mounted, leading to audits of projects covering the period from 2019 to 2024, Schäfer-Gümbel added.
Yemen development projects to end
The Federal Development Ministry said the GIZ had first informed the government of the incidents in 2023.
An external investigation was still ongoing, having been delayed by the difficult security situation. As a consequence, development work in Yemen would be wound up by the end of the year and the GIZ office there would be closed.