“What is promised is often way above what is received,” reported The Straits Times on Sunday, January 9, quoting analysts and relief groups.

Nearly 4 billion dollars have been promised so far to the Asian countries hit by killer tidal waves triggered by a 9.0 magnitude underwater earthquake - the world’s biggest in 40 years.

Some 147,000 people have been confirmed killed, thousands missing and millions displaced in the disaster.

“We'll feel more comfortable when it's in the bank,” said Cedric Hills, the Salvation Army's coordinator for emergencies and disasters.

The UN should set up a Web site to keep track of amount pledged and paid, Simon Maxwell, director of British think-tank Overseas Development Institute, proposed as a solution.

Emmanuel Daniel, managing director of The Asian Banker, a financial services consultancy, said countries usually send very little in hard cash while the rest is mostly in soft loans at low interest rates or debt relief.

World leaders gathered in the Indonesian capital Jakarta last week and pledged long-term reconstruction of the tsunami-hit countries.

The Straits Times said that corrupted officials in the targeted countries usually swallow big chunks of the donated money.

“In the early stages, you see pilferage and officials creating bureaucratic obstacles to get bribes. Many relief teams do pay small bribes to speed up their mission,” said Peter Rooke, Asia-Pacific director for Transparency International.

“At the reconstruction stage, when we're talking about multi-million-dollar projects, you may see payment of bribes to get contracts.”

The corruption problem not only affects the amount of donated money reaching its intended targets, but also threaten the work of relief groups.

Organizations such as British-based Muslim Aid and World Vision said their workers are not allowed to succumb to bribes.

“We'd withdraw if bribes are requested,” said Emil Stricker, the executive secretary of the World Alliance of YMCAs.

The Straits Times also indicated that some donors impose specific conditions before their aid pledges can be used.

It cited Germany, which reportedly linked its pledged 500 million euros to the end of armed conflicts in Sri Lanka and the Indonesian Aceh province, as a case in point.

The paper further said that many countries make pledges before the media but later fail to honor them.

It recalled that while countries pledged 114 million dollar in response to Iran's earthquake 12 months ago but only 17.7 million, 15 per cent, was paid up.

The actual delivery of promised aid is not a new problem; rather it has always been present.

In his 1989 book, “Lords of Poverty: The Power, Prestige, and Corruption of the International Aid Business,” Graham Hancock estimates that half of the funds allocated to humanitarian relief and development aid never leave the sticky fingers of the “humanitarians.”

He maintains that, no matter where it is directed, such aid is “inherently bad” and almost invariably damages both those it is supposed to help and taxpayers who eventually must pay for it.

The book comes to the conclusion that “virtually all government-sponsored aid to underdeveloped nations has been disastrous.”

The chief, if not the sole beneficiaries of foreign aid, Hancock shows, are the local elites in the recipient countries, special interest groups in the developed counties, and the aid bureaucracy itself.

He regrets that this is often done with the knowledge and thus implicit approval of the aid agencies themselves.