Foreign aid farce as UK gives £1.1bn to most corrupt nations
BRITAIN is planning to give more than £ 1.1billion in aid to the world’s most corrupt countries this year, it is revealed today.
Aid chiefs will boost spending in the 20 worst offending nations by £162million (17.2 per cent) – despite concerns the money could be stolen by officials or seized by terrorists.
Beneficiaries include war- ravaged states such as Somalia and Sudan, where terror groups are said to ‘tax’ aid payments from foreign donors, and Libya, where Islamic State forces have taken hold in places.
Campaign group Transparency International has published its annual table ranking countries by corruption and it shows that 11 of the 20 most crooked nations receive British aid cash.
Some £1.1billion of the UK’s annual £12billion foreign aid budget will be spent in those countries in 2016-17, according to projections from the Department for International Development (Dfid).
Somalia, which is ranked the most fraudulent country, will see its aid cash soar by £14.9million to £142.3million compared with 2015-16.
Spending in Iraq will more than double from £ 40million to £ 95.2million. In Afghanistan, which ex-prime minister David Cameron last year described as ‘fantastically corrupt’, it will rise by £48million from £124.5million to £172.5million.
We are also giving aid to South Sudan, Syria, Yemen, Libya, Haiti, Central African Republic, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo, which were in the top 20. The revelations come as Theresa May is under increasing pressure to take an axe to the ballooning foreign aid budget.
The Daily Mail has highlighted how cutting the aid bill could allow the Government to devote more cash to easing Britain’s social care crisis. Some Tory backbenchers have called on the Prime Minister to ditch a commitment to spend 0.7 per cent of national income on overseas aid.
Last night Tory MP Nigel Evans, who sits on the Commons international development committee, warned: ‘With corrupt governments, it is the people who lose, who are impoverished and are not getting the services and it is the politicians and business- men who are lining their pockets. We want to make absolutely certain that not a single penny money of British taxpayers’ money is being diverted towards the governments of those corrupt officials who are impoverishing their own people.’
A Dfid spokesman said: ‘ The UK Government works in some of the most dangerous and fragile places in the world to help keep British people safe, but that does not mean we’re prepared to lose taxpayers’ money to corruption.
‘Dfid has stopped funding going through the governments of any of these countries for that very reason, and instead works through trusted partners who are helping the poorest directly on the ground.’