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Summary UK must better manage overseas aid and be wary of corruption, a parliamentary watchdog said.
Overseas aid is one of the few areas that has been ring-fenced by Britains coalition government, which took office in May 2010 and has slashed spending elsewhere to tackle a big budget deficit.Earlier this year following a nine-month review of aid policy, Britain said it would focus its spending on poor, conflict-ridden or fragile states. Countries including Somalia, Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Yemen were likely to be the biggest recipients.The department (for international development) is going to be spending more in fragile and conflict-affected countries and the danger to the taxpayer is that there could be an increase in fraud and corruption, Margaret Hodge, head of parliaments Committee of Public Accounts said in a statement.The departments current plan is to spend more via multilateral organisations and less through bilateral programmes. This poses a risk to value for money because the department will have less oversight than it does over country-to-country programmes, she added.Polls show many Britons disagree with protecting foreign aid when many domestic services are being cut. That has made the government determined to show it is getting value for money.Hodges comments mark the publication of the parliamentary spending watchdogs report on the governments Department for International Development, whose aid budget this year is 8.7 billion pounds ($13.7 billion), and is set to rise by 35 percentby 2013.She said the departments ability to make informed spending decisions was undermined by its poor understanding of levels of fraud and corruption, and that it needs to develop a framework to better ensure money is well spent.International Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell said his department took a zero tolerance approach to fraud.The report appears to take little account of the huge changes the coalition has made since taking office, he said.We have transformed the way the department manages its finances, so spending is attached to tangible results on the ground, which are rigorously scrutinised by the new Independent Aid Watchdog, he added.
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