11 - 17 April 2002
Issue No.581
|
Al-Ahram Weekly Online 11 - 17 April 2002 Issue No.581 |
||
| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 | Current issue | Previous issue | Site map | ||
Where does the money go?
The recent train tragedy has prompted the government to launch a life-insurance scheme for railway passengers. But, as Gihan Shahine finds out, those who lost loved ones in February's train disaster are suffering alone
Remember the train accident of 20 February in which 373 third-class commuters were burnt alive and 64 others were left with severe injuries or permanent disabilities? The accident, the worst in the history of Egypt's railway, is hard to forget.
Not surprisingly, however, the press has been filled with news of the tragedy in the Palestinian occupied territories over the past few weeks. Consequently, the plights of the families of the victims of the train disaster, most of whom were migrant labourers from Upper Egypt, have been relegated to the back pages of the country's dailies.
Have the afflicted families received any of the money raised in the media-hyped donation campaigns that reportedly raised millions of pounds? And what about the families whose loved ones were burned beyond recognition in the accident?
"We haven't received any of the reported donations," Hassan Ali Mustafa told Al-Ahram Weekly from his residence in an impoverished village in Qena. Mustafa, who is completing his military service, lost his father and a brother in the train disaster. Because Mustafa is now the only adult son he will be exempted from the remainder of his service, and will have to focus instead on being the sole provider for his mother, five school- age siblings and his brother's widow and child.
Both Mustafa's father and brother were construction workers in the informal sector and depended on work contracted and paid for by the day. Neither participated in a social or medical insurance programme.
So far Mustafa has received only LE3,000 from the Ministry of Social Affairs and Insurance (MOSAI) for burial expenses and LE2,000 from the Qena governorate in compensation for the loss of his brother, who the family was able to identify. Mustafa's father, however, is expected to be among the "hundreds of unidentified bodies" that filled the Zeinhom morgue in Cairo in the wake of the accident.
"We spent almost all the money we received on burial expenses. The rest went to my brother's widow and child," Mustafa said. "We reported my father's death to the police, and are ready to provide witnesses, but officials said it will take at least a year to issue him a death certificate. The bureaucracy is devastating."
Mustafa is only one of many facing this predicament. Ibrahim Bakri of the Lawyers' Syndicate told Al-Ahram Weekly that at least another hundred similar cases were reported to the syndicate's legal assistance committee.
"The number would have been much higher, had people been aware of our free services," Bakri maintained.
Poverty and isolation have meant that many of the victims' families are unaware of their rights. The families are entitled to sue the Ministry of Transport and the Railway Authority to demand greater compensation than that provided by MOSAI (LE3,000 for a fatality and LE1,000 for each injured person).
"However, when the families obtained their money from MOSAI, they signed papers saying that they waived any rights that they might have to other claims -- that is, they have agreed not to sue for additional compensation," Bakri said. "To make things worse, some lawyers have tricked families into giving them proxies in return for fees. The lawyers use the proxies to obtain the compensation, and a large part of the sum ends up in their pockets -- not with the families."
Other families have been denied compensation because death certificates could not be issued without a positive identification of the remains. Under the best case scenario, the identification process is expected to take at least a year.
Issuing death certificates for "severely charred" fatalities has proven problematic. To identify the remains of at least 300 persons, government sources said the national Forensic Medicine Department (FMD) will have to conduct DNA testing, which they claim will take an entire year. Whether proper testing will actually be conducted is an open question. DNA testing is extremely expensive and requires specialised equipment and expertise that are in short supply in Egypt. More importantly, however, is the fact that the results of DNA testing on severely charred remains are often inconclusive.
Just how the government will tackle the problem remains unclear. FMD chairman Dr Fakhri Saleh, like other officials approached by the Weekly, declined to comment on the matter.
Meanwhile, parliament is studying a proposal by MP Abdel-Moneim El-Elemi, to amend current laws for issuing death certificates. Currently, there is a four-year waiting period before a death certificate can be issued for a "missing" person and a one-year period before a certificate can be issued for those reported killed in a ship or a plane accident.
"The amendment stipulates that death certificates should be issued within a year for unidentified fatalities in massive accidents -- those of trains and metros included," El-Elemi said.
But what would the likes of Mustafa do for an entire year without having received compensation?
"The government should make do with the information obtained from questioning witnesses and family members and immediately provide the families with compensation. Only a minority of cases are likely to be hoaxes," said Mohamed Tosson, vice-chairman of the Lawyers' Syndicate.
In the meantime, donations from the public might be expected to help the families to get by. Hopes were raised by the success of campaigns like that by Al-Ahram Organisation, which was reported to have collected more than LE10 million.
"We had people from the Red Crescent assessing our family's situation immediately after the accident, but there have not been any indications that money is on its way," Mustafa told the Weekly. "If people intend to give us money, why haven't they done so?" he exclaimed.
Support for families of train disaster victims is only one of many causes in recent history for which money has been collected but not distributed to those for whom it was intended. Some people whose homes were destroyed by the 1992 earthquake claim that they have not received any of the donations collected in their names.
"Donations are in the pipeline and will be distributed soon," said MOSAI's Ibrahim El-Tokhy, who is currently in charge of donation management and distribution. El-Tokhy, however, would not reveal the total value of donations or plans for their management and distribution.
"We will announce those details as soon as we are informed of the total funds deposited to the various bank accounts by donors," El-Tokhy explained. "Based on that, and a assessment of the situations of the families of the victims, we will manage the money in a way that is in those families' best interests. There are many suggestions about how to manage the money, but we will probably disburse it in the form of monthly payments to ensure sustainability," he said.
The process will take time, and as Tosson warned, another crisis may well occur before the money reaches those it is intended for. He added, "Most of the donations that were raised for the earthquake, Palestine and Afghanistan, only to mention a few, never reached their targets."
To avert the problem of having funds available to compensate victims of railway and underground accidents, the government has recently launched an insurance scheme for passengers of the two forms of transport. Under the programme, compensation of LE20,000 is to be given for each fatality or permanent disability. A scale is also in place to determine compensation for a range of injuries. The new scheme brings with it a five piastre fare increase for third-class railway passengers.
Meanwhile, El-Tokhi insists that "donations will soon reach the families' of victims." "I cannot explain why funds previously were wasted, because I cannot speak on behalf of my predecessors. All I can say is that people should be more optimistic. We respect the wishes of the public and all donations will definitely go to those who suffered in the recent train tragedy."
© Copyright Al-Ahram Weekly. All rights reserved
 |
|
|||||||||||||||||
| ARCHIVES Letter from the Editor Editorial Board Subscription Advertise! |
WEEKLY ONLINE: www.ahram.org.eg/weekly Updated every Saturday at 11.00 GMT, 2pm local time weeklyweb@ahram.org.eg |
 Al-Ahram Organisation |
Recommend this page