Hundreds of millions of pounds of British foreign “aid” is used to fund online shopping, luxury malls, five star hotels, restaurant chains and gambling.
Published: December 12, 2016, 9:19 am
Scotland announces plans for second UK-exit referendum
Anger over Pakistani sportsman being questioned after London terror attack
London tube riders are warned of press agenda
British MP tweets that sex abuse victims should shut up ‘for the good of diversity’
Mexican president compares suspension of Trump's Facebook account to 'Inquisition'Anti-poverty campaigners in Britain have expressed their horror at the waste. Tim Jones, policy officer at Jubilee Debt Campaign, said the money only helped the wealthy: “In many cases the use of private equity funds means that the Commonwealth Development Corporation [the DifD, formerly known as the CDC] has no control over where the money ends up. Aid money should be supporting public services and infrastructure, not private profit,” he told the British daily Express.
The bombshell, reported widely by the British media, comes just weeks after the British National Audit Office condemned the spending of international aid warning that there was “no evidence it is improving lives”.
The shock revelation drew condemnations from senior Tory MPs and Ukip as “an absolute scandal” and has raised new questions over Britain’s commitment to provide overseas funding. The Department for International Development (DfiD) also continues to invest heavily in oil and gas, the Financial Times reported.
British aid spending on consultants has doubled to £1 billion in just four years including massive bills to hire broadcasters from the BBC and Channel 4. The wasteful spending also included £1 million for Nigeria, which was shared with US bank JP Morgan and a law firm to advise the African nation on how to spend its vast oil wealth, the Daily Mail reported.
In 2014 the DfiD paid £26 000 to hire Channel 4 News’ Indian presenter Krishnan Guru-Muthy to host a session at a two-day aid conference in Mexico.
The country spends roughly 0.7 per cent of its GDP on foreign countries, according to Express. Treasury maintains that spending on international development will reach £9.3 billion [11 billion euro] in 2017/18, outstripping for the first time the entire amount councils receive to support the poor and vulnerable in British communities.
Essentially British taxpayers money is being given to already comfortable middle class families in Africa, China and India, the investigation by The Times exposed.
While the National Health System (NHS) in Britain is experiencing a huge cash crisis, hundreds of millions of pounds have gone to projects which include several shopping malls in Nigeria, Daraz, the Pakistani version of Amazon, a chain of stores selling iPhones in Egypt as well as various restaurant chains in Vietnam, India and Peru.
Other “investments” include a chain of Brazilian fitness studios, a Mexican tourist resort, cable TV in Kyrgyzstan and private boarding schools for the wealthy in Kenya.
Tory MP Philip Davies called for an investigation: “No self respecting Conservative would support this waste of money.” He added: “They are bringing international aid into disrepute.
All rights reserved. You have permission to quote freely from the articles provided that the source (www.freewestmedia.com) is given. Photos may not be used without our consent.
Help us to produce more articles like this. FreeWestMedia is depending on donations from our readers to keep going. With your help, we expose the mainstream fake news agenda.
Keep your language polite. Readers from many different countries visit and contribute to Free West Media and we must therefore obey the rules in, for example, Germany. Illegal content will be deleted.
If you have been approved to post comments without preview from FWM, you are responsible for violations of any law. This means that FWM may be forced to cooperate with authorities in a possible crime investigation.
If your comments are subject to preview by FWM, please be patient. We continually review comments but depending on the time of day it can take up to several hours before your comment is reviewed.
We reserve the right to delete comments that are offensive, contain slander or foul language, or are irrelevant to the discussion.
WarsawIn the mainstream media, Poland has been branded as a country which does not respect the "foundations of democracy". But it is precisely Poland that is now at the forefront of freedom of expression on social media. According to a proposed bill in Poland, social media that censors users will be forced to pay multi-million euro fines.
The HagueSome 240 people were arrested, mostly in Amsterdam, after riots broke out in at least 10 cities across the Netherlands on Sunday evening. On Saturday night was the first curfew in the Netherlands since the end of World War II, and police arrested scores of young foreign men and handed out 3 600 fines for curfew violations.
BrusselsCountries in the EU are theoretically bound to the neutrality obligation in its use of tax revenues: The taxpayer's money must not be used for political purposes. But just as the German government wants to spend 1 billion euros in the next four years on the so-called “fight against the right”, the EU is funding a network of “civil society” NGOs that represent clearly left-wing politics, actively combatting conservative politicians and their parties – Matteo Salvini and Viktor Orban are but two examples.
MiesbachThe most important lesson to be drawn from the Corona crisis appears that it has become a great risk to be a retirement home resident. If one is assigned to such an institution, one invariably gives up basic human rights. At first it was "only" the restrictions on freedom of movement and contact with loved ones that the elderly had to endure, but now it is the Corona vaccination, which one can hardly avoid in these custodial institutions.
GeneveSwitzerland will hold a referendum that could stop the government from imposing lockdown measures. The country has not introduced a lockdown like many other European countries, but has instead - like Sweden - mainly emphasized personal responsibility. In terms of the spread of infection and the number of deaths, it is about the same as in Sweden.
The Minister President of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous of the 16 states of Germany, Armin Laschet was elected as the new CDU chairman at the digital CDU party conference on Saturday. In the runoff election he prevailed with 521 votes against his toughest competitor Friedrich Merz (466 votes). In a nutshell, the party establishment pushed through its candidate, while the voter's candidate failed.
Deir EzzorThe Syrian province of Deir Ezzor is back in the news after Israel's devastating airstrikes on Syria. However, against this background, most of the Western media has overlooked other events that may prove to be far more important to the security of both the Middle East and Europe.
RomeBad news for the Democratic Party in Italy, which has seen Giorgia Meloni's party dangerously approaching them in the polls. Fratelli d'Italia (FdI) seems to be making great strides towards becoming the second largest party in the country after the Lega led by Matteo Salvini.
ParisA particularly worrying assessment of crime in the French countryside has seen the light. Crime is on the rise almost everywhere in France according to the 2020 report from the SSMI - Statistical Service of the French Ministry of the Interior .
ParisThe numbers are overwhelming, and so are the testimonials. Data collected by French pollster Ifop for the Jaurès Foundation, which had interviewed several teachers confronted with political Islam even in their classes, paint a dreary picture.
