Watchdog group raises alarm over Palestinian Authority hiding its financial reports

The Palestinian Authority receives hundreds of millions of dollars each year from the U.S., Israel and the European Union.  A leading watchdog group is criticizing the lack of financial accountability and asks why there’s no trail on how that money is spent. This also leads to questions on whether some of it is going to terrorism.

Over the last few years, the Palestinian Authority (P.A.) has changed its financial reporting and the Palestinian Media Watch (PMW), a seasoned watchdog group, wants to know what it’s trying to hide.

“It used to publish -- albeit limited -- financial [reports] on a monthly basis, on an annual basis, but slowly, but surely, they've been cutting back [on] the amount of publications that they put out,” says lawyer Maurice Hirsch, Director of Legal Strategies at PMW.