Resolutions from the recent annual United States-Marshall Islands Compact funding review meeting highlight the Marshall Islands government’s failure to deliver on a series of resolutions passed during the 2009 session.
“We are aware that more needs to be done at our end regarding the follow-up after the Joint Economic Management and Financial Accountability Committee meetings,” said Marshalls Foreign Minister John Silk on Friday. Silk and Finance Minister Jack Ading led the island delegation to the talks.
The resolutions — approved unanimously by both U.S. and Marshall Islands officials — call on the Marshall Islands government to submit a plan for how the government will deal with declining U.S. funding, particularly for health and education, which are now using close to 70 percent of their U.S.-provided funds to pay salaries.
The meeting approved allocation of $33 million in grants from the Compact of Free Association, an agreement now in the seventh year of a 20-year term.
In addition, other U.S. federal grants and rental payments to landowners for use of a missile testing base at Kwajalein Atoll bump total U.S. aid to about $70, or more than half the annual budget of the Marshall Islands.
Silk acknowledged that the Marshall Islands agreed to produce a plan for managing declining U.S. aid last year, but he said there was confusion over who was in charge of producing the plan and “we got a late start in developing the plan because we were awaiting the final audited financial numbers from last year which were not available until June.”
But U.S. officials made it clear that they expect a plan produced quickly.
“The failure by the Marshall Islands to complete a plan (by February) will result in appropriate remedies,” said the resolution in what is the first ever reference to a possible sanction against the Marshall Islands from the annual JEMFAC meeting.
Silk said he does not believe this statement refers to withholding funds “because withholding would not be an appropriate remedy in this situation. I don’t believe this will be an issue in the future, however, as the government is fully engaged in managing the decrement (decline in Compact funding), and the sustainability of Ministry of Health and Education activities.”
The resolution gives the Ministry of Health requirements to bring its statistical data up to acceptable standards, a project that was supposed to have happened during the past year. Ministry of Health data — on everything from immunization rates to infant mortality — has been called into question by the country’s national planning office as well as international agencies.
Another resolution extends to September 2011 the deadline for the Marshall Islands to present the U.S. with a plan of action for financing a new 120-bed hospital in the capital, Majuro, with U.S. funding — another project that was supposed to have been ready for review at last week’s meeting.
The U.S. government has agreed to partially fund a school lunch program.
But prior to release of U.S. funding for school lunch program this year, the U.S. is requiring a detailed plan of how the Marshall Islands will fund the entire school lunch program this year, estimated to cost more than $2 million, and how it will fund the program after FY 2012 when U.S. funding for school lunches will end. The U.S. said its funding cannot be used for lunches after this year because declining U.S. money needs to be focused on core education programs.
“We voted in favor of these resolutions this year because we voted in favor on the same issues last year,” said Silk. “Addressing these matters are just part of good governance, and we should be doing these things anyway regardless of the U.S. This is what it means to take ownership of the Compact.”
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