UK’s £18m aid for Mutiny on Bounty island
THE 42 inhabitants of a Pacific island have pocketed the equivalent of £426,000 each from Britain’s foreign aid budget in six years.
UK taxpayers have forked out more than £17.9million since 2011 to cover the costs of a school, health centre and ferry service for the residents of Pitcairn Island.
The handouts to the islanders, who are descendants of sailors who took part in the Mutiny on the Bounty, will reach almost £3.5million this year alone. This is the equivalent of £82,750 each – three times the average British salary.
Residents of the island, halfway between New Zealand and Peru in the South Pacific, all receive either a government wage or pensions paid for by the UK, as well as child benefit. They pay no tax.
After joining the British Empire in 1838, the overseas territory supported itself through the sale of stamps and coins, but the UK stepped in when interest in collecting declined.
Around 98 per cent of Pitcairn’s costs are covered by the overseas aid providesandA social department,teacher.a worker doctor, has Dfid, nurse, been which policemanpaid alsofor since when sixa child men, sex including scandal the in former 2004 mayor, faced charges including the rape of children as young as seven. A well-equipped health centre has been built but islanders with serious medical problems are evacuated to New Zealand at a cost of around £30,000 a time. Treatment is paid for either by a government loan or grant. A ferry, which costs £1.2million a year, makes four annual trips to New Zealand, with voyages lasting 12 days each way.
Pitcairn is one of 14 overseas territories where inhabitants have a right to British citizenship and the Government is obliged to protect their wellbeing under international law.
Others, including the Falklands and Gibraltar, are economically selfsufficient and levy taxes.
The Government is under renewed pressure to review its commitment to spend 0.7 per cent of national income on foreign aid.
Pitcairn was colonised in 1790 by nine mutinous sailors from the crew of the Bounty led by Fletcher Christian. They arrived from Tahiti along with 18 Polynesians.
Their story has been retold a number of times on screen, including the 1962 film Mutiny on the Bounty starring Marlon Brando.
A Dfid spokesman said: ‘The UK Government has international legal obligations to support the British people on Pitcairn Islands.’