The Government should stop ring-fencing foreign aid altogether and start talking openly about how much it spends, where and why
The Sunday Telegraph has led the way in exposing the shocking waste of Britain’s foreign-aid budget. Last year we revealed that public money has gone to countries that are far from being the world’s neediest cases –including Russia and Barbados. Via the EU, some British aid money has even financed a holiday resort in Morocco and a Turkish TV channel. We strongly support the principle, and believe that richer countries have a responsibility to help those less fortunate than themselves. But it makes no sense to ring-fence the Department for International Development’s budget – especially in a time of austerity, when other government departments are making sacrifices and the taxpayer is feeling the pinch. Moreover, when the money is spent it ought to be directed at countries that really need it.
Three days before the local elections, Justine Greening, the International Development Secretary, suggested that the Government had finally got that message when she announced that “South Africa is now in a position to aid its own development” and that Britain’s bilateral aid programme to the country would end in 2015.
However, Miss Greening was not giving us the whole picture. As we report, her pledge to make cuts only referred to the “bilateral aid” budget, worth £19 million, neglecting to mention the £116.4 million of “regional aid” that will be spent on South Africa between now and March 2014. Sir Malcolm Bruce, chairman of the International Development select committee, tells us that even he is surprised to discover that this larger programme of aid exists. There is also some dishonesty in emphasising individual cuts to foreign-aid spending when the total budget continues to be protected at 0.7 per cent of gross national income. The £19 million of British aid South Africa will receive this year is less than 0.2 per cent of DfID’s budget of £10.5 billion.
Some critics, including Pravin Gordhan, the South African finance minister, have suggested that the announcement about the reduction of aid to South Africa was linked to the Tories’ need to win votes in the local elections. Whatever the truth of this, we would prefer the Government to stop ring-fencing foreign aid altogether and start talking openly about how much it spends, where and why.
