Muleskinner

Issue date: 4/3/08 Section: Opinion

Commentary: Lora Powell [Click to enlarge]

The International Finance Corporation (IFC), based in Fairfax, Va., is a corporation who provides grant funding to poor areas of the world for developmental purposes.

According to their latest press release on their Web site, ifc.org, company big-wigs "recently signed an agreement for IFC to transfer $500 million to the International Development Association (IDA), which extends grants and interest-free credits to the world's poorest countries.

If this company can afford to give that much money to help foreign countries, why have they decided to revoke millions of dollars in grants given to help Hurricane Katrina victims?

Victims of this terrible (and partially preventable) tragedy waited for months in donated trailers for these grants to help them rebuild their homes. Now that the money has finally arrived, they are being forced to return it. At the expense of being politically correct, these people have fallen victim to the lowest form of "Indian-giving."

For one, this corporation obviously has enough money to do just about whatever they like. They are, from what I understand, an investment company that expects their funded projects to generate profit in order for them to make their money back. Did they give this money expecting that private citizens rebuilding their homes would turn a profit? This venture is sounding fishier by the minute.

Two, the people who need these grants do not have enough money to rebuild their homes. Even if they had homeowners insurance before the hurricane hit, there is no possible way their homes were valuable enough to be insured for an amount proper to build a new home in today's inflated market.

Third, and most important, just because a pencil-pusher in a multi-million dollar corporation's bookkeeping department makes an accounting mistake and gives people "too much money," that does not give them any right to take it back after it was already given.

Just because someone who was only supposed to get $50,000 got $100,000 doesn't mean that person will have any way to give the money back after their home is built. What is a person supposed to do? Pry off the roof and send it back to IFC parcel-post?

I think the moral of this story is that nothing is free. I'm starting to believe there is no such thing as goodwill and love for your fellow man here. If a company can't help people in need without expecting something in return, what has this country come to?

Have we become so trapped in our materialistic society that we've lost sight of what really matters?

I think the saddest part of all this is that even though IFC made a mistake, they won't even acknowledge it. According to all their information, their company really is all sunshine and roses. Too bad they're playing games with people's lives outside their public relations department.

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