overseas aid

[caminito]

International aid from countries including Britain has helped fund multi-million pound Paris property portfolios for African dictators, it emerged today.

Scores of the most luxurious houses and flats in the French capital are now owned by men who regularly receive vast charitable hand-outs.

They include Ali Bongo, President of Gabon, who has at least 39 properties, and Denis Sassou-Nguesso, President of the Congo, who has 16.
The president of Gabon, Ali-Ben Bongo Ondimba, has dozens of French properties
Teodoro Obiang Nguema has a multi-million-pound pile on Avenue Foch

The portfolio of Teodoro Obiang Nguema, president of Equatorial Guinea, includes an entire six story period building on the prestigious Avenue Foch which is alone worth a conservative £15million.

 
It is used by members of his own family when they are on shopping trips in France, while Obiang Nguema – who came to power thanks to a bloody coup in 1979 – prefers to stay in a £2,000-plus-a-night suite at the Plaza Athenee Hotel, off the Champs Elysee.

Such astonishing details are contained in a report compiled by anti-corruption groups Transparency International and Sherpa, and handed over to Paris prosecutors.

They are also investigating claims that deposed Arab Spring dictators, including Zine El Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia and Hosni Mubarek of Egypt, retain numerous homes in France.

Colonel Gaddafi, who was honoured with a state visit to Paris by President Nicolas Sarkozy as recently as 2007, is also thought to be a Gallic property owner, as is Bashar Al-Assad, the dictator accused of killing his own subjects in Syria.

The main accusation compiled in the legal dossier is that money flooding into blighted African states – including billions from Britain - was immediately used to fund the extravagant lifestyles of unelected leaders

[Thesheriff]

HMG  will not have the Guts or Resolve to do anything about it though.

IMO  as most of all aid seems to be diverted before ever reaching the people it was intended for Stop it all immediately until a new system is put in place.

The same goes for the Charities that regularly advertise for funds on TV - I read elsewhere that Oxfam's latest appeal is to raise £ 40 Mil for relief - their warehouses are full of Aid equipment that they are not prepared to release until the biggest part of the £ 40 Mil is in ?.

It would be interesting to see audited accounts of Income & expenditure for these large charities to see just how much is syphoned off before the donations even leave the UK.

Every year we get the same old stories trotted out - despite how much money has been given in the past - the whole system needs a complete  overhaul.

[cheddar-caveman]

I believe I reported that I complained to the PM on this matter some time ago and I've just received a reply:

Thank you for your message to the Prime Minister about the UK’s pledge to GAVI (Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation), and overseas aid in general.

I appreciate that times are very difficult for people across the UK.  As the Coalition tackles the budget deficit we have had to take some hard decisions that will impact on us all.  But the UK made a promise on overseas aid, and the Prime Minister has made clear that when you make a promise to the poorest people in the world you should keep it.  It may be controversial but it is morally right to stick by our aid commitments – and it’s also in our national interest. If we invest in Africa now, it’s not just Africa that will grow, but us too.  And if we invest in countries that are broken like Afghanistan, we will spend less on dealing with the problems they pose, from immigration to national security.

In the developing world, one child dies every 20 seconds from diseases that can be easily prevented.  In 2011, the Government thinks this is unacceptable, and a recent poll by the ONE Campaign shows that 91% of the UK public agree.

Vaccination programmes are a great way to deliver real results in a way that we can measure and monitor – and they really work.  Immunisation has eradicated smallpox and brought polio to the brink of extinction, and has reduced measles deaths by four fifths from 750,000 in 2000 to just over 160,000 in 2008.  Our support for GAVI will help vaccinate over 80 million children and save 1.4 million lives over four years. That is one child’s life saved every two minutes.  I hope you agree it is pretty good value for money.

But while we don’t want to be hard-hearted, we should be hard-headed about how we use our aid.  That’s why the International Development Secretary, Andrew Mitchell, has made the UK Aid Transparency Guarantee, which will ensure all information about how the UK’s aid budget is available online, and brought in tough independent scrutiny through the Independent Commission for Aid Impact – which will give the UK public independently verified evidence that aid is being well spent and real results achieved.

If you would like to know more about the UK Government’s international development work, you can find more information on DFID’s website – www.dfid.gov.uk.  For specific information on the work of the GAVI Alliance, visit www.gavialliance.org.

Kind regards
Direct Communications Unit