Reply #10: Anger as £700,000($1.2m)of £3m British aid to Malawi spent on US firms [View All]

Anger as £700,000 ($1.2 Million) of £3m ($5.4m) British aid to Malawi spent on US firms

David Hencke, Westminster correspondent
Monday August 29, 2005
The Guardian

The government was under attack from development charities last night for allegedly wasting hundreds of thousands of pounds on aid to Malawi by paying it to American consultancies.

Two charities, ActionAid and the World Development Movement, accused the Department for International Development (DfID) of paying out "phantom aid" to the poor, after it was revealed that more than £700,000 of a £3m project was spent on hotel bills and meals for US workers.

According to an investigation by BBC Radio Five Live, DfID donated £3m to Malawi relief projects. Of that cash, £586,423 was spent on hotels for a US consultancy agency, the National Democratic Institute. Another £126,062 was allegedly spent on meals.

The BBC inquiry claims that one project funded by the DfID flew in pens and notebooks from Washington, instead of buying them locally. Patrick Watt, of the charity ActionAid, told the programme: "This is another example of aid money not getting down to people who most urgently need to benefit from it. It's phantom aid, when what Malawi needs is real aid."

<http://www.guardian.co.uk/hearafrica05/story/0,15756,1558530,00.html?gusrc=rss>
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