Greed

Most of us if we were responsible for looking after funds to help the poor wouldn't use the funds to enjoy a lavish lifestyle. Then again, most of us aren't quangocrats either who didn't think twice about billing the taxpayer for a £700 a head lunch.

Express.

HIGHLY paid executives at an anti-poverty quango have stayed at five-star hotels and dined in top restaurants at the taxpayer’s expense.

Damning documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act reveal eye-watering expenses claims by officials at the Commonwealth Development Corporation.

Taxpayers were billed for a £700 dinner by Sir Malcolm Williamson, the CDC’s chairman for five years up until 2009, at London’s Michelin-starred L’Autre Pied restaurant.

Another executive at the Government quango, Anubha Shrivastava, claimed £530 for a night at the Four Seasons Hotel in Hong Kong, while Richard Laing, the chief executive, who is paid £970,000 a year, claimed £7,414 in expenses.

The CDC was set up after the war to invest in the world’s poorest countries. It has access to Government funds of £2.5billion.

For the past 15 years, the CDC says it has been “self-financing”. It is owned by the Department for International Development, but any profits it makes are “reinvested” in its projects. It has been criticised for departing from its original remit by targeting the rapidly growing economies of China and India.

Last night the department confirmed that International Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell had launched an “urgent review” of the situation.

John Hilary, executive director of the charity War on Want, said: “CDC has completely abandoned its mandate of poverty reduction in favour of wealth creation. It is a travesty.” However, Miriam de Lacy, the CDC’s communications director, said: “The expenses we incur are reasonable.”

 Reasonable expenses? £2.5 billion budget and they squander some of it on themselves, spending more than a years wage for an unskilled Kenyan worker (£500 to £700pa) on a meal or hotel room.

Whilst I'm a great believer in charity beginning at home, if we are to help the poor in other countries, I expect the cash to go to them and whilst I don't expect those charged with distributing it to work for nothing, I do expect them to keep expenses to a minimum, I don't expect them to squander it on themselves. Though frankly I'm not that surprised that they do, profligacy in quango's is a well known corruption and these people are plainly corrupt to the core.

Just another justification for a bonfire of the quango's that the current government never seems to get around too despite all their promises.