”Förtroendet is exhausted. The Minister of Development Aid must resign”, writes Member of the European Parliament Isabella Lövin (MP) on social media.
The statement comes after Benjamin Dousa participated in SVT's interview program "30 minutes". There, it emerged that Sida in the spring wanted to send 30 million kronor in humanitarian aid to Gaza via Unrwa. Logs that SVT has obtained show, however, that State Secretary Diana Janse, in a text message, tried to influence how Sida handled the matter.
According to information provided to SVT, Janse also instructed Sida's Director-General in a verbal conversation to not pay out any aid to Unrwa.
A few days later, Sida announced that no money would be paid out.
I am not aware of any information, and it is also Sida that independently makes its own decisions regarding Unrwa, said Benjamin Dousa to SVT.
Isabella Lövin is very critical of how the handling has gone and writes that it "raises serious questions about political control that is dangerously close to ministerial control”.
Even MP's spokesperson Amanda Lind is critical.
"Instead of putting pressure on Israel, Dousa plays into Netanyahu's game at the same time as the Palestinians are starving. It's unworthy. The trust in the Minister of Development Aid is exhausted", she wrote in a comment to TT on Thursday after the program.
The Left Party KU-anmals Dousa for having engaged in ministerial control, reports SR Ekot.
We have done this because we believe that the minister has committed ministerial control when the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has apparently intervened and stopped the authority Sida from sending disaster relief to Gaza as it wanted to, and that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in that way is interfering with the authority's decisions. It is actually ministerial control and against the Constitution, says V's spokesperson on development policy Lotta Johnsson Fornarve to the radio channel.
Unrwa (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees) was founded after the war that broke out in connection with Israel's establishment in 1948, with the purpose of helping the over 750,000 Palestinians who were then forced to flee.
Unrwa has until recently helped around 5.9 million Palestinian refugees. Nearly 90 percent of the donations have come from the UN member states. The largest support has come from the USA, Germany, the EU, Sweden and Norway.
The UN agency has had around 30,000 employees, of which 13,000 in Gaza.
The Swedish government terminated the so-called core funding to Unrwa last year after accusations from Israel that the organization had been infiltrated by extremists from Hamas. Nine employees were dismissed after a UN investigation. Swedish support is given to other humanitarian actors in Gaza.
