Ben Quinn and Karen McVeigh
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| Priti Patel has already pledged to overhaul the Department for International Development’s approach to bring it in line with ‘core Conservative principles’. Photograph: Toby Melville/Reuters |
International development secretary Priti Patel demands more transparency from contractors of overseas aid in an attempt to appease critics
A number of companies working on UK aid contracts have been told they have 30 days to provide details of their spending and tax status, and set out how they comply with conflict-of-interest regulations, in a move designed to appease increasingly vocal overseas aid critics.
The demands in a letter from the international development secretary, Priti Patel, come after one of Britain’s biggest aid contractors orchestrated the sending of supportive statements to MPs scrutinising their work.
However, Patel was accused of double standards at an appearance before the Commons international development committee on Monday when she ruled out subjecting CDC, the controversial private sector arm of the UK’s aid programme, to the same set of demands on transparency and issues around executive pay.
She was challenged by a Labour member, Stephen Doughty, who said: “We know full well that CDC is using multiple tax havens. It just seems to me that you would have one set of rules for one set of organisations and contractors receiving public funds and another for another.”
Patel insisted that the letter’s demands were not applicable to CDC, formerly the Commonwealth Development Corporation, because it went through a different scrutiny process, which she said would be tightened up next year.
The Tory MP, who came into office earlier this year bullishly pledging to overhaul her department’s approach in line with “core Conservative principles”, told MPs: “When it comes to contractors and suppliers, what I do want to see is an end to what I consider to be extensive profiteering.”
A cluster of leaks and stories before Monday’s committee hearing included a report that further British aid funding would go towards an Ethiopian radio drama and talkshow project, Yegna, which is part of a broader initiative from the Department for International Development (DfID) aimed at educating and empowering adolescent girls.
The Daily Mail reported that £5.2m would be given to Yegna, which it described, mistakenly, as a “girl band”. The newspaper said the cash had been provided despite official warnings from the aid watchdog last year over funding for the programme.
In its 2015 report (pdf), the Independent Commission for Aid Impact’s review of the Girl Hub programme (now called the Girl Effect), of which Yegna was one part, said it “remained concerned” about a number of its aspects. It made a recommendation that: “DfID should consider in depth whether ongoing funding is merited and either reach a decision to cease funding or consider extending the project for a year to enable the evaluation to be completed.”
When pressed by Tory MP Nigel Evans at the committee hearing on whether there was a better way of spending the money, Patel defended the £5.2m payment, part of the second wave of funding to the project running from the end of 2015 to 2018.
“I have known you for many years and your blood must be boiling,” he said.
Patel told him that Britain was leading the world when it came to programmes around women and girls and that UK aid had already had a major impact on issues such as forced marriage and teenage pregnancies.
She added, though, that she had spoken on Friday to the team involved in the project. “At the same time all programmes are under review,” she said.
The letter sent by Patel to contractors and leaked to the Mail on Sunday follows controversy over supportive statements submitted to the international development committee in relation to the work of Adam Smith International (ASI).
The International Development Committee is investigating allegations that submissions it was sent had been passed off as independent statements from overseas figures, but were in fact drafted by ASI’s staff.
“We need to provide [taxpayers] with assurance that public money is being spent effectively and that our aid delivery partners apply the highest standards in transparency and ethical behaviour,” Patel wrote.
“This has been brought into sharp relief by recent allegations in the media.”
In additional paragraphs sent out to some suppliers, Patel told contractors that they had 30 days to provide details of the percentage of their revenue that comes from DfID and 90 days to provide written evidence of the governance arrangements for their subcontractors to ensure that they comply with the required conflict of interest and security obligations.
Patel’s department has itself been accused of undermining its own commitment to transparency on aid spending after it emerged that DfID plans a dramatic increase in the funding it channels through CDC.
A draft bill proposes to increase the limit on official support given to the CDC, formerly the Commonwealth Development Corporation, from £1.5bn to £6bn – with further scope for the cap to be doubled.
Patel was being grilled by MPs on the publication earlier this month of two long-awaited reviews into the future of British aid, which signalled that funding would be more closely allied with trade policy, leading some to fear that poorer countries could be sidelined.
The committee said that one of the reviews already signalled “a more overt link between the UK’s aid and trade policies” through a £1.3bn “prosperity fund”. They said this could lead to more development assistance being directed to middle-income countries, such as Mexico, India and China.
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