Author Topic: DFID, fraud, corruption and accountability  (Read 316 times)

STONE

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DFID, fraud, corruption and accountability
« on: November 15, 2011, 21:14:40 GMT »
Sorry about the topic line - there's a newspaper sub-editor in me somewhere it would seem...
Anyway, the UK Public Accounts committee had a look at DFID's financial management capability in October this year and came up with a few findings.
Here's the press release:

http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/public-accounts-committee/news/dfid-financial-report/

It was taken up by the Guardian newspaper - they used a press association report (which was quite good, I thought. Might be why the Guardian reporters didn't do something themselves)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/2011/oct/20/aid-cash-fraud-corruption-committee-warns?INTCMP=SRCH

So the gist was that there is fraud and corruption in some of DFID's spending.  No surprises there: the world was ever thus.  I don't want to go after that - it links up to other parts of the PFM Board discussions dealing with budget support.
What I found interesting was the stuff about accountability, value for money (VFM)  and passing on money to multi-laterals so that  the 0.7 per cent of GDP can be reached by 2013.  I'm not after a DFID bashing and I don't have time to address the VFM stuff just now but thought it might be interesting as a topic and (who knows?) might spark something as engaging as the EU decentralisation discussions (if that is possible).

Martin Johnson

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Re: DFID, fraud, corruption and accountability
« Reply #1 on: November 30, 2011, 22:58:49 GMT »
Very interesting. I have recently been working in a country where the UK NAO was remarking with some apparent satisfaction that the DFID office had cut its staff substantially (can't remember by how much off hand, but more than 50% I think) and was therefore delivering its programme more efficiently. Now call me old fashioned, but there didn't seem to be too much VFM analysis in what I was reading. Whilst it is true that sometimes you can indeed get more with less, it is also true that sometimes you end up getting less with less (and this can sometimes even be proportionately much less with less). I certainly had more than a glimpse of the latter(s). As a UK taxpayer, I am concerned that not only governance but also straightforward good management of taxpayer cash is at risk when country offices are too overstretched. Paris principles are also at stake too when host government officials step into the breach where once strode the DFID advisers and programme managers. None of this shows up in the straightforward numbers of cash delivered against cost of administering cash delivered. I suspect there are some major NAO findings undergoing a slow burn around these issues that will be featured on the Board in years to come once they have had a chance to come properly to light.

STONE

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Re: DFID, fraud, corruption and accountability
« Reply #2 on: December 01, 2011, 04:20:15 GMT »
The NAO might well be giving consideration to these issues and opine at the in the fullness of time, right juncture, etc.  In the meantime their principals in the International Development Committee of the House of Commons are muliing over such issues.
http://www.parliament.uk/indcom
The report (and particularly the evidence) on DFID's Decision to close the aid programme in Burundi is an interesting and enjoyable read.

 

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