My noble friend is absolutely right. It is the second “the” that I seek to change. I am most grateful to him and I will be grateful for any further interventions that he may wish to make.
I will for his benefit read out a letter from the former Liberal Democrat mayor of Guildford. He is interesting in this context because he was for many years a senior official in the ODA, which was the
predecessor of DfID, and he has maintained a continued interest since his ODA days in the aid programme in its reality. He writes:
“I would be prepared to brief anyone who needs to be convinced that there is a now a massive misuse of our aid programme—most recently in Ghana, Mozambique, Nepal, Malawi, Uganda, Rwanda—not to mention Nigeria, Kenya or Pakistan—to which must be added the transfers to the IBRD and other organisations in excess of our obligations to them”.
The corruption issue—