Spin-man Gordon Brown

Hi again,
I sat and listened to my carer as he carefully explained this story to me: see what you think—although what a humble but pretty cat like me can do about this I’m sure I don’t know.
The Blair/Brown spin-doctors may have felt in 2005 that it was a brilliant sound bite for their G8 and EU Presidency, “Make Poverty History,” but when applied to Africa the corrupt African leaders simply saw it as another opportunity to filch more handouts, being thrown at them by a bunch of cynical British politicians, looking to grab attention for themselves in headlines.

However the reality is somewhat different; one quarter of the GDP of African States – or $148 billion—is lost to corruption each year. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said recently (see link) at the inauguration of the Stolen Asset Recovery (StAR) Initiative, “Corruption undermines democracy and the rule of law. It leads to violations of human rights. It erodes public trust in government. It can even kill – for example, when corrupt officials allow medicines to be tampered with, or when they accept bribes that enable terrorist acts to take place.”

When the campaign to forgive African debt, promoted by NGO’s with their own agendas and well meaning but naive leftwing pressure groups, is put forward, maybe they should factor in the tragic example of former Nigerian President Sani Abacha, members of his family and accomplices who collectively stole between $3 billion and $5 billion of the country’s public assets in five years. Or the recent case of the Kenyan Parliament which voted to quash all corruption enquiries.

Cynical donors, such as Brown and Blair, have poured more than $300 billion into African coffers since 1980—and watched most of it vanish into the pockets of leaders bent on fraud, malfeasance and waste. Nevertheless, Prime Minister Gordon Brown wants to double global aid to Africa to $50 billion a year by 2010. Clearly someone more at home with spin, than with the reality of the situation. The slogan, “No MORE Handouts to Africa,” might be more appropriate.