Britain's £461m overseas aid budget for tackling poverty could be open to fraud because of the lack of controls over the way it is spent in some of the poorest countries in the world, the public spending watchdog has warned. The National Audit Office said the Government's switch from project-linked funding to wider "budget support" for countries in an attempt to reduce poverty had led to "significant risks" that that the funds would be "misapplied for political reasons or through corruption".
Calling for more controls to be imposed by the Department for International Development, the report highlighted internationally recognised data showing that the worst countries for corruption included some of the biggest recipients of budget support, including Pakistan (£52.5m), Vietnam (£34.5m), Zambia (£23.3m) and Nepal (£5.4m). "Donors cannot track their own contributions individually once paid to partner governments and instead monitor the government's overall expenditure and progress against its agreed strategy," said the watchdog.
"Evidence on the extent to which budget support has yielded better value for money than other ways of delivering aid, or has had an impact on income poverty, is not conclusive." ...
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