ABSTRACT
Kleur Bekennerr. Commitment to reform of Belgian development cooperation For Belgian development cooperation, 1996 has been another ‘intermediate’ or lost year. Since the end of 1995 an atmosphere of crisis has been provoked by the continued publication in Flemish newpapers of a number of old aid money scandals - most of which predate the time of the current Secretary of State for Development Cooperation. Most dramatic, however, has been the sinking of the Bukoba, a Tanzanian ferry, in May 1996, in which more than 700 passengers drowned. The Bukoba had been delivered by a Belgian shipbuilding company to Tanzania in the early 1980s as a result of a tied government-togovernment loan. The Bukoba lacked stability from early on. After a formal request from the government of Tanzania in 1989 to repair it, the Belgian administration in charge of development cooperation (ABOS) still had not succeeded in properly contracting out the repair.
