Fake Aid: DFID's taxpayer funded lobbying 4

Matthew Sinclair Better Government

The International Policy Network have released an excellent new report which looks at how DFID use taxpayers' money to support political causes here in Britain. Some of the facts they've found are real shockers:

"£1.2 million given to the Trades Union Congress (TUC) since 2003 for activities including: lobbying, hiring new staff and an “international buffet and wine” event to celebrate “International Women’s Day” in the UK. DfID also paid the TUC to hold lessons in how to apply for DfID funds.

The creation of fake NGOs such as “Connections for Development” (CfD), supposedly a forum for black and ethnic minorities to engage “on issues relating to international development.” DfID created and is the only donor to CfD, providing it with £600,000 in its first two years, yet an independent review questioned "the purpose of the organisation."

Big charities are funded to engage in "awareness", "promotion" and "advocacy". Millions is spent every year through one programme, the "Development Awareness Fund", in order promote the importance of DFID issues. I think many people are already pretty cynical about what happens to money spent on international aid, which can often be wasted and feed corruption. But it is still incredible to learn that millions of pounds don't even leave our shores, but are spent by bureaucrats trying to get more of our money instead of making the best use they can of the significant resources DFID is already given.

Matthew Sinclair

Matthew is Director of the TaxPayers' Alliance, author of Let Them Eat Carbon and editor of How to Cut Public Spending (and still win an election)

Follow @mjhsinclair

http://benefitfraud.blogspot.com John Page

Fake charities, then. I hope the next government will stop all their funding.
And why on earth are they pledged to ringfence aid spending? Just for the sake of a concerned-looking cuddly image?
We all know there’s a respectable body of opinion that aid does more harm than good.
K Lidington

So, a department of government funds the TUC, and the trade unions fund the Labour party.
The TUC has no part to play in spending taxpayers’ money, and is drawing off money allocated to International Development to fund obscure activities in the UK. Let it do as it wants with money from its members, but not with tax-payers’ funds.
In a time of record public debt, it is time the government took the view that only what HAS to be done, should be done. Fluffy talkingshops like CfD are non-essential, and should not be funded by government. Let charities, funded by people who willing give to these vague causes, support these bodies, not taxpayers who have no choice, can often ill afford the cost and who may well be vehemently opposed to the activity.
Too many public servants with too little to do. Idle hands do the devils work — inflating debt that will be paid by a future generation, dragging down people and businesses struggling with rising taxation and diverting funds from vulnerable people — like pensioners living below the poverty line despite a lifetime of working and paying taxes.
Peter Faulkner

I spend a great deal of time in Africa, where corruption and greed are sickeningly endemic and unashamedly obvious. I used to believe that UK politics and the administration of our government were free from such things, but in the past 20 years have come to realise that the same corruption exists, only has been better concealed. Now we are seeing more and more evidence of the reality of this corruption, and it is essential that those able to expose it do so and very loudly.
Chris F

I am currently travelling in the Balkans and by and large it would appear that the non EU countries are less corrupt that the EU ones.
When EU tax payers money comes in eg.Bulgaria greed and corruption walks in with it. A lot of people still yearn for the days of Yugoslavia, at least they did not have the EU and the USA interfering in their affairs