Former defence secretary Liam Fox
A former United Kingdom cabinet minister warned against “spraying
money around” simply to ensure that Britain kept the United Nations
target of spending 0.7 per cent of national income on overseas aid,
according to latest media reports.
The row focuses on Tanzania where the government has been accused
of holding flawed elections in the Zanzibar archipelago, leading to the
main opposition Civic United Front (CUF) boycotting the poll.
Former defence secretary Liam Fox (pictured) urged the UK government to review Britain’s aid for Tanzania.
Last week, the United States accused the country of engaging in a
“pattern of actions” that undermined democracy and cancelled aid worth
$472 million (1 trillion/-) to the country under the Millennium
Challenge Compact (MCC) programme.
This placed pressure on Britain to do the same, especially in the
wake of widespread concern over the use of the aid budget for
controversial projects.
But according to the UK Foreign Office, no decision has been made
to reduce Britain’s support for Tanzania even though Zanzibar’s election
had not reflected the “will of the people”.
“Western taxpayers expect their money to be used in an ethical
way,” Fox said. “When there are clear breaches of political rights or
human rights they will expect a response in terms of the aid we
contribute.”
“The fact that the US has reacted in such a strong way gives a very
good signal. We should be reviewing our own contribution in the light
of that,” he said.
Britain has met the 0.7 per cent target since 2013, after the
budget of the country’s Department for International Development (DFID)
jumped by 32 per cent in one year.
“There are lots of places in the world where we could be using our
aid effectively to alleviate poverty,” said Fox. “But countries need to
earn support from the British taxpayer rather than us spraying money
around until we hit 0.7 per cent.”
Zanzibar’s presidential election on March 20 was boycotted by the
opposition ‘allowing ruling CCM party candidate, Ali Mohamed Shein, to
claim victory with 91 per cent of the vote.
“We have made clear that the March elections in Zanzibar cannot be
deemed representative of the will of the people,” said a Foreign Office
spokesman.
Britain remains Tanzania’s second-largest bilateral donor, having increased its aid to the country by a quarter since 2014.
DFID’s programme in Tanzania is the department’s fifth largest in
Africa and Britain’s total aid budget this year is £12.2 billion. “We
keep all aspects of our relationships with partner governments under
constant review and this will be no exception.”
The MCC concentrates on providing electricity and clean water to
rural Africa as long as governments respect democracy and hold free
elections.
Meanwhile, Tanzania’s Ministry of Finance and Planning denied reports that a group of western donors has cut aid to Tanzania.
“The government would like to inform the general public that it is
not true that a group of 14 western development partners has announced
withdrawal of their general budget support to Tanzania,” the ministry
said in a statement on Saturday.
“Development partners still support the national budget through
three modalities, namely general budget support, basket funds and direct
to project funds,” the statement added.
The finance ministry confirmed that the African Development Bank
(AfDB), Denmark, European Union and World Bank have so far pledged to
support the Tanzanian government’s 2016/17 fiscal year budget.
It said other donors, including the US, the UK and Japan, would
continue to support the 2016/17 budget through basket funds and project
funds.
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