PA official reveals that "2021 is the worst year for the public treasury since the establishment of the PA," largely due to a lack of foreign funding

Headline: “32 million euros of European aid will reach the Palestinian treasury soon”

“Sixteen million euros of European financial aid are anticipated to reach the Palestinian [PA] treasury. A similar amount will arrive from France as direct aid to the treasury at the end of this month [October 2021].

Head of Communications at the European Union (EU) Representation Shadi Othman announced earlier that European aid of an undisclosed amount would reach the Palestinian [PA] government and would be allocated to aid in paying the salaries.

This aid is reduced compared to what the EU committed to transferring each year to aid Palestine. This year, in contrast to previous years, the EU did not transfer the amounts that it committed to for aid to poor families.

It should be noted that welfare allowances are paid to more than 130,000 needy families in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with the [PA] Ministry of Finance generally paying half of this amount, while the EU contributes the other part of these allowances…

[PA] Prime Minister [Muhammad Shtayyeh’s] Advisor Stephan Salameh said that the total sum of the aid that has arrived and that which is anticipated to arrive at the end of the year constitutes only 10% of the total sum of the commitments by the states that contribute to Palestine.

In an interview with [the official PA radio station] The Voice of Palestine, he said that 2021 is the worst for the public treasury since the establishment of the PA. Salameh revealed that ‘The money that will arrive at the end of the current month from the EU and France is not the commitments for 2021, but rather that which remains of the money from 2020.’

Salameh said that the European aid for 2021 ran into hardships for technical reasons. He expressed hope that the aid will arrive at the end of the current year or the beginning of next year [2022].”