IT has been an open secret for years that if an aid organisation wants to work in some parts of Africa, it has to pay a bribe or - likelier - several.
Often, particularly in rebel-held areas, it is presented as a tax, a levy or toll, and can take many forms: an arrival fee at a dirt landing strip, a charge to dismantle a rickety barricade at a makeshift roadblock or the price of a security detail to escort you to town.
It may be a straight cash payment -- the favoured option -- but it can be fuel or food.
At a grassroots level, it may be a lift, the use of a satellite phone or just a good meal for a local commander. Sometimes, cigarettes and whisky may suffice.
To many aid workers, it is a small price for saving lives.
But the price paid by organisers of the 1980s and 90s fundraising juggernauts Live Aid and Band Aid may be a deepening cynicism across the world among donors and potential donors.
Pop star turned charity king Bob Geldof told The Times that "it would be a f . . king tragedy" if the British people and others stopped giving to aid organisations because of allegations made by the same broadcaster that inspired him to fight poverty and hunger in Africa.The BBC reported yesterday that 95 per cent of the money raised from the concerts found its way to rebel soldiers to arm their war against the Ethiopian government.
Geldof dismisses the claims, saying that "the story and the figures just don't add up".
"If that percentage of money had been diverted, far more than a million people would have died," he says.
"It's possible that in one of the worst, longest running conflicts on the continent some money was mislaid. But to suggest it was on this scale is just bollocks."
A single by the Band Aid ensemble and Live Aid concerts in 1985 raised more than pound stg. 170 million for famine victims in five African countries. But the BBC's report of its investigation says most of that money was spent on guns.
Citing former rebels and CIA documents, it says militant leaders posed as merchants in meetings with aid groups that flooded into Ethiopia to help during the famine. In interviews, two former senior commanders in the Tigrayan People's Liberation Front told the BBC that most of the money was stolen by rebels to buy weapons for their fight to overthrow the Ethiopian government.
The broadcaster cites a 1985 CIA assessment as saying: "Some funds that insurgent organisations are raising for relief operations, as a result of increased world publicity, are almost certainly being diverted for military purposes."
The claims sparked controversy, not least because one of the rebel leaders implicated was Meles Zenawi, now the Prime Minister of Ethiopia and still a recipient of Western aid.
Previous allegations have centred on the role of the government of Mengistu Haile Mariam, which had been accused of stealing aid and diverting food supplies away from rebel areas.
Band Aid officials used networks of aid agencies to deliver relief through Sudan to the epicentre of the famine in rebel-held Tigray.
Aregawi Berhe, a former military commander of the TPLF, told the BBC that rebels put on a "drama" to get their hands on the relief money, posing as merchants and handing over bags of sand instead of grain in exchange for cash delivered by naive Western aid workers.
Gebremedhin Araya, another former rebel leader, told the BBC that he was "given clothes to make me look like a Muslim merchant". He added: "This was a trick for the NGOs."
The BBC quotes Max Peberdy, a worker from the British organisation Christian Aid, as saying he took nearly $US500,000 into Ethiopia in 1984 to buy grain from merchants, who he believes were genuine.
"It's 25 years since this happened, and in the 25 years it's the first time anybody has claimed such a thing," he told the BBC.
Berhe estimates that 95 per cent of the $US100m that went through the rebels' hands was diverted to rebels posing as merchants.
CARE Australia chief executive Julia Newton-Howes says the allegations are shocking.
"It's so sad," she says.
"I have no idea about veracity of the story . . . but this will [have an effect] on our support.
"There is a common misperception that aid money is simply handed over to unaccountable groups overseas and this will reinforce that."
Newton-Howes says CARE has a network of staff "on the ground" in recipient countries who ensure that money is used effectively and reaches it target.
Unfortunately for organisations such as CARE, "the bad story is always easy to get into news, and the bad stories [fuel these] misperceptions".
Oxfam Australia is more optimistic about the prospect of fallout. Spokeswoman Kate Thwaites says Oxfam "has rigorous monitoring procedures in place for our aid work, to ensure money is spent on quickly getting emergency assistance to those who need it the most".
"Our primary focus is on aid effectiveness," she says.
"Australians have always been generous supporters of Oxfam's work and we believe they will continue to support our work."
Academic James Arvanitakis, of the Centre for Cultural Research at the University of Western Sydney, says NGOs have improved their acts since the 80s and are now far more transparent in their dealings.
"They are better at dealing with money than 25 years ago, especially with large-scale money. Even the smaller ones are good," he says. But, still, there are risks: "You can get cowboys going planning to set up things and NGOs might be scavenging for money, so they cut corners and cut deals.
"It's a pretty complex area, especially if there's a disaster and the government's fragmented and you're dealing with militas.'
Committed and long-term donors are unlikely to be put off by the BBC's claims, Arvanitakis says, but some others may be discouraged.
"There is a bit more cynicism around official government assistance, especially since the wheat board scandal and recent news in The Australian about aid contractors on $300,000 salaries," he says.
"There's always a risk that [the claims by the BBC] will make people wary, but those who are committed will give money to organisations they trust, and those organisations have strong partners on the ground.
"There will always be people who are negatively affected but even [if the BBC's report turns out] to be 100 per cent true, people will say, `That was 25 years ago.'
"Organisations like Oxfam and the Red Cross have stood the test of time and they have done it well."
Geldof's stance has been supported in a letter to the BBC by former Band Aid officials, including its Ethiopia director, which says all the money dispensed in Tigray had been accounted for by the organisation. "The public should not think that the money they so generously contributed to one of the poorest countries in the world was misused or given in vain," it says.
Christian Aid's director of emergency relief operations Nick Guttman stops short of denying the allegations but says the story needs to be put into context.
"We were working in a major conflict, there was a massive famine and people on all sides were suffering," he says.
"Both the rebels and the government were using innocent civilians to further their political ends."
Rebel movements and corrupt governments are not joking when they say "no pay, no way".
The aid business is often the only show in town, and if they cannot milk it, they will happily let their own countrymen and women die, especially when those affected are not their supporters.
On whatever scale Live Aid money disappeared in Ethiopia in 1985, there is no question that the priority for the rebel movement at that time was not alleviating the incredible suffering of starving people but overthrowing the country's brutal dictatorship.
It required total determination and ruthlessness. Death along the way was just collateral damage.
Such is the dilemma for Western aid groups.
Without their money, food and petrol, some governments would have fallen sooner and some rebel insurgencies would have fizzled out, but not soon enough to avert immense suffering.
With each crisis that triggers enough television footage in the West to ensure that there are calls for something to be done and a sudden surge in donations, often those responsible will smile, rub their hands together in glee, and prepare once again to welcome the imminent arrival of bulging wallets and the opportunity to re-equip or rearm.
A million people died as a result of the 1984 famine, blamed on the then Ethiopian military regime's untenable land policies, forcible eviction of millions of people and efforts to cover up the debilitating food shortages. The regime was toppled in 1991.
Last year, Geldof returned to Ethiopia to mark the 25th anniversary of the disaster and the Live Aid concerts he helped organise, starting a trend for celebrity-driven charity drives that continues today.
