A girl band and a ‘dangerous’ airport, how taxpayers’ money is squandered
STOP-SMOKING schemes funded by foreign aid will see yet more British taxpayers’ cash go up in smoke.
Despite the NHS being told to save £22billion by 2020 the Department of Health is giving £15million for anti-smoking classes in some of world’s most corrupt countries.
The money will go to countries where political unrest is rife including Chad, Colombia, Egypt, El Salvador, Georgia, Madagascar, Myanmar (Burma), Nepal and Zambia.
Former Ukip leader Paul Nuttall said: “It is right the UK gives aid for disaster relief and humanitarian projects but it is nonsense we hand it out like confetti.”
The money, which could pay the wages of 650 staff nurses for a year, is being passed to the World Health Organisation to combat tobacco use. In 2015 more than £185million was handed to India – the world’s fastest-growing economy – which has sent a mission to Mars.
The UK has pumped more than £100million of foreign aid through its investment arm CDC, formerly the Commonwealth Development Corporation, documents show.
About £80million has been spent on recipients including China’s biggest bra retailer and fast food restaurants in Vietnam.
In Kenya, at least £15million has gone to help build Garden City, a luxury development in Nairobi.
British taxpayers have also footed a £5.2million bill to fund a talk show for pop group Yegna, dubbed “Ethiopia’s Spice Girls”.
Last year it was revealed that Channel 4 News presenter Krishnan Guru-Murthy was paid £15,000 from the foreign aid budget for a two-day event in Mexico. He later pledged to give the money to charity.
Perhaps one of the most ludicrous projects saw £285million spent on an airport on the remote South Atlantic island of St Helena which could not be used because winds made it too dangerous to land aircraft.
At one point the airstrip was used as a go-karting circuit. It finally opened earlier this month.
In a final insult, the Whitehall mandarin who presided over the overseas aid budget was rewarded with a knighthood in the New Year’s Honours for his public service.
Mark Lowcock, who left his post in July, was handed a gong weeks after MPs criticised the £165,000-a-year bureaucrat for being “evasive” over who decided to build the airport.