Cameron: Britain should keep giving aid money to corrupt countries
BRITAIN should continue to give foreign aid money to corrupt nations even though some of the cash is used for illicit ends, David Cameron has said.
The Prime Minister said aid programmes should not be cancelled if some of the money is lost due to corruption, in comments which infuriated Right-wing Conservatives. He was hosting an anti-corruption conference in London where he called for countries to “tackle the cancer of corruption, which destroys jobs, traps the poorest in poverty”.
Mr Cameron announced new powers to “stop the corrupt stealing their loot and hiding it from the authorities” and agreed with five other countries to disclose the ultimate owners of companies on public registers. He also urged countries such as China and America to opt for the “gold standard” of tax transparency after complaints from British Crown dependencies and overseas territories that they were being held to an unfairly high standard.
In a question-and-answer session, Sarah Chayes, a US academic, said “the West was enabling corruption” by not insisting on higher standards of governance when providing “overseas development or military assistance” for countries that were tackling extrem- ism or migration. She added: “A lot this type of assistance is counter-productive because it reinforces the corruption of the government and officials”.
The Prime Minister replied: “I would worry if it led to a lot of disengagement because then we might end up knocking ourselves back if every time we saw aid misused in any way in any country we decided to cancel the aid programme.” But he agreed it was important to “make the aid as transparent as possible” and “publish how much money is going to each school”.
Conservative MPs criticised the remarks which appeared to accept that aid money can be wasted. Andrew Bridgen said: “It is difficult to see how corruption can be addressed unless there is at least the risk of disengagement and projects being cancelled.” Peter Bone said: “Our aid should only go to specific projects where we can demonstrate aid being put to good use.”