€4 million to Uganda?

shedweller

What and when are we actually going to do about this?
We bitched and moaned about the port tunnel when it went over budget and that was a one off!

Yet here we are giving as much away EVERY YEAR FOR NOTHING!!

We have to start getting our act together.:mad:

Capt'n Midnight

I'd have no problem with getting rid of most of the aid, if we removed trade barriers at the same time. On that basis aid is a subsidy for EU farmers.

In the past food aid has caused problems by disrupting the local economy. Technology has improved to the point where it's possible to distribute food virtually. Simply sending a top-up to mobile phones means people can buy food locally without disrupting the local economy too much ( apart from war zones food shortages only occur because people can't afford to buy it )

Big aid programs can be scary, in one review (UN ?) it was reckoned that by the time you took out spending on imported 4x4's and backhanders to officials etc, the main injection of cash in to the local economy wasn't from the project itself but from spending on prostitution


As for spending on arms, IMHO the world bank and some western governments should face charges. It's putting local jobs gained from arms exports above the people those arms are used against. The solution is fairly simple, allow democracies to default on dictators debts, should stop people lending to dictators. Then again there aren't many dictatorships left in Africa anymore. In Europe and South America in the 1920's and 30's we had mostly dictators and now mostly democracy.


Thing is today that €4 m has made the front pages of Ugandan papers. Something unlikely to have happened perhaps as recently as a decade ago. Africans are as sick of corruption as we are of the likes of FF & co.

CarrickMcJoe

So, Uganda is going to return the 4 million euro that found its way into some guys account.
Probably will send a cheque for 12 million and tell us to send back the balance

Linoge

phoenix999 wrote: »

Certain parts of Africa are certainly in need of aid, but countries like Uganda can still spend $744million buying Russian made fighter jets.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704013604576248094099823846.html

They need to get their priorities right. Just as we should. A bailed out country cannot afford to be giving over 650million in annual foreign aid (essentially more borrowed money).

That looks like they need those jets to protect their oil production. They don't exactly have the nicest of neighbours.

lightspeed

This is a very interesting documentary recently aired on Al Jazerra. It states that 3 times the amount of money donated in foreign aid is lost to corruption every year. Given the fact that the western world seems so compliant it would appear that there is little appetite to fix the problem. Billions are stolen and offshore company accounts are set up in anonymous names which are extremely difficult to trace. If the western world ceased all donations, the corrupt leaders and officials might not be able to get away with so much. The trick seems to be to use taxes from the western world to keep the developed world from revolution and unrest.

http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/peopleandpower/2012/11/201211714649852604.html