THE DIRTY DOZEN
As the furore over Britain’s foreign aid grows, we reveal the corrupt and brutal tyrannies propped up by YOUR money
BRiTain’S foreign aid budget keeps rising. C urrently at £12 b illion a year, it is due to soar d uring David Cameron’s two terms as Prime M inister, to £16 b illion by 2020.
as the Mail revealed yesterday, Britain pays £1 in every £7 of aid donated by rich countries — t hree t imes a s m uch p er h ead a s the U .S. — a nd m uch o f i t i s b eing s ent t o t he world’s most corrupt countries where d espots l ine t heir o wn p ockets a nd m ake l ife even w orse f or t he p oor.
among t he m ost e gregious r ecent e xamples was South africa, where — even as our g overnment gave the country £19m illion a year to alleviate poverty its president Jacob Zuma was spending £13 m illion of state funds improving his lavish h ome.
Ministers have stopped direct aid to South a frica s ince t he o utcry, b ut e lsewhere the spending continues. here, we present our guide to the 12 countries — the ‘dirty dozen’ — w here B ritish t axpayers’ m oney i s most shockingly abused . .. AFGHANISTAN UK aid: £178m a year CORRUPTION LEAGUE TABLE RANKING: 166 (THIRD MOST CORRUPT OF 168 COUNTRIES) The afghan economy is reliant on aid, yet even d evelopment m inister J ustine g reening admits t heft i s e ndemic. O ne U .S. a udit f ound no government ministry could be trusted to prevent funds being stolen or wasted, while the UK watchdog has condemned weak c ontrols a nd a nti-corruption m easures.
huge sums have been flown out of the c ountry by corrupt politicians and businessmen — m uch o f i t m ade f rom d rugs a nd s ome s uspected of being siphoned off aid projects. at one point, more was leaving afghanistan in c ash t han w as b eing c ollected i n t axes.
in 2009, a former vice president landed in Dubai-with- $52m- illion in cash, whileg overnment p osts w ere s aid t o b e s o l ucrative they were sold. investigations have linked family and associates of ex-president hamid Karzai t o a £ 90m illion p roperty e mpire.
BANGLADESH UK aid: £189m a year RANKING: JOINT 139
anTi-CORRUPTiOn group Transparency international calls politics in Bangladesh ‘a battle between established elites over state resources’, with even health services riddled with extortion. Several of the country’s richest people are linked to politics, including Sajeeb Wazed Joy, the prime minister’s son, and Tarique Rahman, the Britishbased s on o f a p revious p resident.
Rahman was cleared of moneylaundering three years ago, alleging the accusations were politically m otivated, though his business partner was found guilty of taking kickbacks. O ne M P, a m ember o f t he ruling family, increased his income 330-fold i n f ive y ears.
DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO UK aid: £183m a year
RANKING: 147 When Joseph Kabila took power in this war-torn nation aged 29 in 2001 after the murder of his father, he became the world’s youngest leader. Since then he is believed to have stashed away billions by flogging off Congo’s m ineral w ealth o n t he c heap in d odgy d eals.
his twin sister’s holdings in a South Pacific tax haven were exposed by the Panama Papers leak. T he p resident w as a ccused o f bribing MPs $100,000 each to back a law allowing him to circumvent restrictions over his term of office that w ould h ave e jected h im o ut o f office this year.
KENYA UK aid: £129m a year
RANKING: JOINT 139 Mega-RiCh President Uhuru K enyatta, son of his nation’s first president, is from oneof Kenya’s wealthiest families, with land h oldings a nd b usiness s takes w orth £300m illion.
he and his vice president used-witness intimidation to evade crimes against humanity charges at t he i nternational C riminal C ourt over election violence.
Public services are notoriously corrupt. Kenyans pay an average 16 bribes a month to officials.
NEPAL UK aid: £81m a year
RANKING: 130 nePal has slipped down the c orruption index, with one expert telling British MPs that politics there is ‘an extractive enterprise’ with absenteeism levels of 73 per cent in the health ministry.
huge sums of aid were poured in to assist after last year’s earthquake, yet thousands of people remain in temporary shelters w ithout water or electricity amid complaints o f a id c ash d isappearing.
NIGERIA UK aid: £250m a year
RANKING: 136 OUR aid to this West african nation doubled under the Coalition and keeps rising, despite corruption and even a space programme. it has some of the world’s highestpaid politicians, earning up to £ 1.4m illion a y ear, m ore b illionaires than Britain and is africa’s biggest market for private planes, with annual sales of £1 b illion. When i ts c entral b ank g overnor said £14 b illion of oil revenues were missing, he was fired — while one state governor alone-embezzled £50m illion.
PAKISTAN UK aid: £538m a year
RANKING: 117 even the pro-aid select committee for international development c omplained of giving huge sums to a country w here m ore t han t wo-thirds of MPs do not bother filing tax returns. Corruption and tax evasion is estimated to cost Pakistan about £100m illion a day. Prime minister nawaz Sharif’s children were linked to £ 7m illion o ffshore d ealings f or f our Park l ane p roperties b y t he P anama Papers. The billionaire businessman sparked o utrage o ver t ravel e xpenses — including 17 trips to Britain — averaging £ 132,000 a m onth.
Former president asif ali Zardari was known as ‘Mr Ten Percent’, a llegedly amassing a billion-pound property p ortfolio i ncluding a S urrey mansion s et i n 3 50 a cres.
PALESTINE UK aid: £72m a year
RANKING: N/A BRiTain hands £25m illion to the Palestinian authority, which pays convicted terrorists and their families ‘salaries’ that rise depending on the seriousness of the terrorist crimes they commit. Corruption is r ampant i n t he o ccupied t erritories, with claims that one minister stole £120m illion and accusations that the terror outfit hamas took millions from reconstruction aid after israeli attacks.
President Mahmoud abbas is finishing o ff a £ 9 m illion p alace n ear R amallah with helipads, two s wimming pools and a whirlpool spa. he reportedly stayed in a £1,800-a-night new York hotel.
RWANDA UK aid: £66m a year
RANKING: 44 ThiS t iny c entral a frican n ation h as become an aid darling despite the bloodstained reputation of its iron man leader Paul Kagame and a ssassinations o f r ivals a broad.
The prickly president says c orruption ‘kills a nation’. Yet he has two £ 30m illion p rivate j ets ( that h ave been lent to his friend Tony Blair) and a s prawling c ountryside e state.
When visiting new York he stayed in a swanky hotel costing £12,000 a night — a sum that would take the average-Rwandan two decades toearn. W ife J eannette i s s aid t o b e t he business b rain i n t he h ousehold.
SOUTH SUDAN UK aid: £134m a year
RANKING: 163 BRiTain h as b een a b ig s upporter o f the world’s newest country, arguing aid w ill i mprove s tability. e xperts s ay aid f uels c onflict a nd c orruption.
South Sudan has been shattered by savage fighting over oil revenues, with economic collapse and state coffers h eavily p lundered.
in 2012, just one year after the nation’s birth, president Salva Kiir accused his own officials of stealing almost £ 3b illion.
UGANDA UK aid: £92m a year
RANKING: JOINT 139 PReSiDenT Yoweri Museveni — who travels in a 40-vehicle motorcade — has won his fifth election amid r eports o f i ntimidation, b ribery and ballot-box stuffing.
Seven y ears a go, g iven £ 70 m illion in UK aid, he bought himself a g ulfstream j et. l ater i t e merged h e bought six Russian fighter jets at twice the market rate and without parliamentary a pproval — f or t hree times the annual spending on U ganda’s health service.
Museveni o ften h ands o ut c ash a t rallies, once giving a sack containing £66,000 to a youth group.
ZIMBABWE UK aid: £66m a year
RANKING: 150 The country is asking for £1b illion drought aid and its rulers claim to be Marxists, but those close to v eteran president Robert Mugabe have p lundered b illions, l argely f rom illicit diamond smuggling. One aide who d ied i n s uspicious c ircumstances was said to have left his wife £ 8 b illion in his will.
The p resident’s w ife, f ighting r ivals to -succeed her ailing -husband, is nicknamed ‘ gucci g race’ d ue t o h er extravagant shopping trips to S ingapore on which it is said she routinely takes $5 m illion in cash.
The Corruption League Table, devised by Transparency International, is a respected annual assessment of global public sectors.