Monday - August 12, 2013

Ray-Bans and Paris Apartments, Part XXVII

No actual sunglasses or living quarters here. Just using the phrase Peiper brought to our attention the other day generically: yet another story of international aid gone awry. If you send cash, the dictators steal it. If you send food, clothing, and medicine then the local AQ steals it. Unless you deliver your nation’s aid packages surrounded by a medium army, it seems you’re just spitting into the wind. So why bother?

Thousands of pounds of UK-funded humanitarian supplies were stolen by members of the al Shabaab Islamist group in Somalia, an annual report by the UK Department for International Development revealed on Sunday.

Members of the Shebab Islamist group have stolen £480,000 ($750,000, 550,000 euros) worth of British government-funded humanitarian materials and supplies in Somalia, it emerged on Sunday.

The theft, revealed in the fine print of the Department for International Development’s annual accounts, is likely to fuel concerns about how Britain is spending its foreign aid at a time of budget cuts at home.

The accounts describe the “theft between November 2011 and February 2012, by al-Shebab in southern Somalia, of DFID funded humanitarian materials and supplies from the offices and warehouses of partner organisations, to which DFID had provided funding to deliver projects and programmes”.

“DFID’s partners had no prior warning of the confiscations being carried out and therefore had no time to prevent the loss by relocating goods,” the report said.

The loss, out of more than £80 million of aid allocated for Somalia in 2012-2013, appears in this year’s accounts because the investigation was only completed in the past 12 months.

Britain’s aid budget is protected from the government’s austerity programme and has recently reached the United Nations target of 0.7 percent of gross national income, according to ministers.

Gerald Howarth, a lawmaker in Prime Minister David Cameron’s Conservative party, said the theft raised concerns about how this money was being spent.

“There is huge public concern at the relentless increase in overseas aid. Incidents like this, where British taxpayers’ money is diverted into people fighting against us, are not acceptable,” he told the Sunday Telegraph newspaper.

A spokesman for DFID said there were always risks working in unstable countries such as Somalia, but it was doing everything it could to stop such thefts from occurring.

Ain’t that a kick in the pants? Bit of doublespeak here: nobody told DFID that the stuff was going to be snagged, so they couldn’t do anything. But hey, they’re doing everything they can to stop things like this. Yeah, because AQ, al-Shebah, and other thieves all phone in their plans in advance. Riiiight.

And while the whole UK is trying to cut expenses and run the place on an austerity budget (big joke, that, I’m sure), foreign aid is simply exempt from budget cuts. Oh that makes such good economic sense. Not. “Oh, we’ve got no money, must cut the budget.” FIRST THING CUT is foreign aid. Screw that.

Another site says the supplies weren’t even used; they were burned up. It seems a bunch of rebel types captured the warehouse, then put to the torch. So the stuff wasn’t actually stolen. Or maybe they did steal it, took it somewhere else, and then burned it. Sounds to me like Government can’t get it’s lies lined up here. Which reminds me a bit of how those poor starving Haitians set fire to several hundred tons of seeds, because they weren’t heirloom stock varieties and would only quickly grow a bumper crop to feed people this year.

Taxpayer-funded humanitarian aid worth £480,000 was captured by al Qaida-linked militants as they rampaged through southern Somalia.

The supplies were in warehouses seized by al-Shabaab and they were later believed to have been set ablaze, rather than stolen the Department for International Development (DfID) said.

Any way you look at it, it still sounds like bongo drumming to me.

Posted by Drew458     on 08/12/2013 at 08:59 AM   
Filed Under: • Government • TURD WORLD • UK •  
• Comments (2) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

DISCLAIMER

THE SERVICES AND MATERIALS ON THIS WEBSITE ARE PROVIDED "AS IS" AND THE HOSTS OF THIS SITE EXPRESSLY DISCLAIMS ANY AND ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF SATISFACTORY QUALITY, MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, WITH RESPECT TO THE SERVICE OR ANY MATERIALS.

Not that very many people ever read this far down, but this blog was the creation of Allan Kelly and his friend Vilmar. Vilmar moved on to his own blog some time ago, and Allan ran this place alone until his sudden and unexpected death partway through 2006. We all miss him. A lot. Even though he is gone this site will always still be more than a little bit his. We who are left to carry on the BMEWS tradition owe him a great debt of gratitude, and we hope to be able to pay that back by following his last advice to us all:

1. Keep a firm grasp of Right and Wrong
2. Stay involved with government on every level and don't let those bastards get away with a thing
3. Use every legal means to defend yourself in the event of real internal trouble, and, most importantly:
4. Keep talking to each other, whether here or elsewhere

It's been a long strange trip without you Skipper, but thanks for pointing us in the right direction and giving us a swift kick in the behind to get us going. Keep lookin' down on us, will ya? Thanks.

THE INFORMATION AND OTHER CONTENTS OF THIS WEBSITE ARE DESIGNED TO COMPLY WITH THE LAWS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. THIS WEBSITE SHALL BE GOVERNED BY AND CONSTRUED IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE LAWS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA AND ALL PARTIES IRREVOCABLY SUBMIT TO THE JURISDICTION OF THE AMERICAN COURTS. IF ANYTHING ON THIS WEBSITE IS CONSTRUED AS BEING CONTRARY TO THE LAWS APPLICABLE IN ANY OTHER COUNTRY, THEN THIS WEBSITE IS NOT INTENDED TO BE ACCESSED BY PERSONS FROM THAT COUNTRY AND ANY PERSONS WHO ARE SUBJECT TO SUCH LAWS SHALL NOT BE ENTITLED TO USE OUR SERVICES UNLESS THEY CAN SATISFY US THAT SUCH USE WOULD BE LAWFUL.

Copyright © 2004-2015 Domain Owner