The Palestinian Authority is operating on a quarter of the funds it needs to finance its activities, Palestinian Finance Minister Salam Fayad said on Tuesday before embarking on a trip abroad to drum up aid.
‘Minimally, I estimate expenditures of the Palestinian Authority at $160 million a month at present. What we have is no more than $40 million a month,‘ Fayad told Reuters.
‘Clearly this is not something that can be sustained.‘
The Quartet of Middle East mediators - the United States, Russia, the United Nations and the European Union - suspended direct aid to the Palestinian Authority after the Islamist militant group Hamas formed a government last year.
Fayad, who won international praise for reforming Palestinian finances under former PA chairman Yasser Arafat, said he would hold talks with Benita Ferrero-Waldner, the European Union‘s external relations commissioner, in Brussels on Wednesday.
On Thursday, Fayad will meet Norway‘s Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg and Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere. He will also travel to Washington to attend the International Monetary Fund‘s spring meetings.
Fayad said his discussions ‘will focus on mobilizing financial support to help us deal with the magnitude of the crisis we face and to discuss ways and means necessary to re-establish normal relations between the Palestinian Authority and the international community‘.
Hamas established a unity government with the secular Fatah faction last month but did not meet Quartet demands to recognise Israel, renounce violence and accept past interim peace deals.
Ferrero-Waldner said last week that engagement with non-Hamas ministers, such as Fayad, in the Palestinian government did not signal an intent to resume direct aid.
She said a temporary mechanism to distribute aid to the Palestinians bypassing their government would remain in place for a while longer.
Last week Fayad, who also served as finance minister from 2002 to 2005, wrote an opinion piece in international and Palestinian newspapers restating his acceptance of the Quartet‘s terms and peace moves with Israel.
Senior Palestinian officials said Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas will also visit Europe and Asia next week to discuss aid to the Palestinian Authority.