Foreign aid scandal: UK donates £ 50m in taxpayer money to build ‘unsafe’ Pakistani classrooms | United Kingdom | News

The huge amount was paid to the company by the officials who run Britain’s largest education infrastructure program of aid. Classrooms were eventually abandoned due to design errors, which meant that pupils were forced to teach in tents or crammed into existing buildings during the coronavirus pandemic. This horrific situation first surfaced last year, but a The Times investigation alleges that DFID officials had been warned of problems long before then.

Ministers have been in the dark for years, despite an independent evaluation of the school’s plans raising concerns that the buildings may not be structurally safe, according to the investigation.

Boris Johnson – who was not aware of design safety concerns – placed a board in a school as a sign of the UK’s investment in the education of Pakistani children. The girls’ school inaugurated by the Prime Minister in Lahore has since been evacuated.

The crisis-affected construction program has been curtailed to less than 8,000 classrooms, with the cost of each rising from £ 3,000 to £ 21,000.

“I don’t know of a worse example of bad aid spending,” Sarah Champion, chair of the Commission for International Development, told The Times. “It shocked me that it went on for so long. This is a blatant abuse of taxpayer money.”

The UK has provided £ 50m in taxpayer money to build “ unsafe ” classrooms in Pakistan (Image: GETTY)

Pakistan has been devastated by massive earthquakes in recent years (Image: GETTY)

“The lack of accountability along the way – from procurement to health and safety to delivery – was really shocking. Are there other projects like this going at a catastrophic pace?

“There were two major failures. First, it appears that the civil servants concealed information from the ministers. But second, the ministers knew about this and I don’t think they have controlled the scale and seriousness of the problem yet.”

Next month, DFID will be integrated into the State Department, with the select committee terminating later. As a result, Ms. Chapman fears that there will now be less parliamentary scrutiny of aid, warning that this issue “may be another major symptom of the scale of projects that Run by the British Department for International Development. “

The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in the northwestern region of Pakistan, where the classrooms are being built, is a serious earthquake zone, with 6,704 school buildings damaged in 2005 and 815 in 2015.

Read more: Coronavirus LIVE Map: Redditch’s infection rate triples

Pakistan was hit by a massive earthquake in 2005, killing tens of thousands of people (Image: GETTY)

The Building Under Fire program was handed over a budget of £ 184 million, including £ 164 million from the UK, but it soon began to run into problems.

The investigation alleges that the Investment Board of Pakistan, which objected to two respected Britons in the program, revoked the IMC’s registration in June 2014, before this company withdrew from the country six months later.

After heavy pressure, Pakistan allowed one of the staff members to return but insisted that the other should be dropped, whose duties included eliminating corruption, which meant that DFID was not able to sign its contract with the IMC until the dispute was resolved in April 2015, he alleged.

The IMC then doubled the price per semester to £ 6,000 after just weeks of claiming that the costs were on track to meet budgets, a move that led DFID to nearly halve the number of classrooms from 30,000 to 16,000, with construction commencing in September 2015.

Cut the foreign aid budget by £ 2.9 billion – don’t misbehave – says Raab [COMMENT]We need to know how the foreign aid budget is spent, says Eamon Holmes [OPINION]The British are demanding cuts in the foreign aid budget as they face tax increases [POLL]

Boris Johnson and his government are under enormous pressure to reduce or even cancel the UK’s foreign aid budget (Image: GETTY)

Priti Pat, who was the Minister for International Development at the time, was not told about the problems (Photo: PA)

In October 2016 Halcrow Pakistan, a civil engineering firm hired by the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) for independent verification, fired the first warning that classrooms built by Britain were potentially dangerous.

A source in Halcrow of Pakistan told The Times, “We have confirmed that the structure of these schools is unsafe in the first place due to the proposed poor construction model.”

Two other independent experts raised their concerns, as the British Department for International Development warned of unsafe buildings, and the dangers around some used buildings and the risk of their collapse, but the Department for International Development continued to pay fees to the International Medical Corps as inspections continued, and since the first warnings were issued, what has been done Approximately 3000 semesters. Building.

Priti Patel, who was the international development secretary at the time, as well as her successors Penny Mordaunt and Rory Stewart, was not informed of the problems.

The 2005 Kashmir earthquake killed about 87,000 people (Photo: EXPRESS)

Ministers were only alerted to huge problems in June 2019 when the department took over from current Business Minister Alok Sharma, with University College London providing DFID with a draft design safety review.

This elicited an angry response from members of Parliament, leading IMC to confirm that it supplied 541 “quality tents” for children who were forced out of their classrooms.

The IMC has always been pushing – even though DFID considers the Pakistan Schools Initiative to be a “pay for results” program, according to The Times.

Less than two-thirds of the income (63 percent) was spent on construction, while the remaining 37 percent was spent on “technical assistance” such as fees and expenses for IMC employees.

Ministers were only alerted to huge problems in June 2019 when Alok Sharma took over the division (Image: GETTY)

The IMC insisted the budget reflects the scope of the program covering 1,300 sites over 130,000 square kilometers of challenging terrain.

Managing Director Gavin English said, “Many of the newly constructed buildings have cracks, most of which are not structural.

“The designs of the buildings have been approved by engineering consultants registered with the Pakistan Engineering Council.”

The UK Department for International Development said: “Child safety is our number one priority. It is absolutely unacceptable that the schools which the UK has mandated the International Medical Aid to build are not being built to the necessary standards.

“The IMC has committed to adjusting unsafe schools and classrooms to ensure they are fit for purpose.”

What Are The Main Benefits Of Comparing Car Insurance Quotes Online

LOS ANGELES, CA / ACCESSWIRE / June 24, 2020, / Compare-autoinsurance.Org has launched a new blog post that presents the main benefits of comparing multiple car insurance quotes. For more info and free online quotes, please visit https://compare-autoinsurance.Org/the-advantages-of-comparing-prices-with-car-insurance-quotes-online/ The modern society has numerous technological advantages. One important advantage is the speed at which information is sent and received. With the help of the internet, the shopping habits of many persons have drastically changed. The car insurance industry hasn't remained untouched by these changes. On the internet, drivers can compare insurance prices and find out which sellers have the best offers. View photos The advantages of comparing online car insurance quotes are the following: Online quotes can be obtained from anywhere and at any time. Unlike physical insurance agencies, websites don't have a specific schedule and they are available at any time. Drivers that have busy working schedules, can compare quotes from anywhere and at any time, even at midnight. Multiple choices. Almost all insurance providers, no matter if they are well-known brands or just local insurers, have an online presence. Online quotes will allow policyholders the chance to discover multiple insurance companies and check their prices. Drivers are no longer required to get quotes from just a few known insurance companies. Also, local and regional insurers can provide lower insurance rates for the same services. Accurate insurance estimates. Online quotes can only be accurate if the customers provide accurate and real info about their car models and driving history. Lying about past driving incidents can make the price estimates to be lower, but when dealing with an insurance company lying to them is useless. Usually, insurance companies will do research about a potential customer before granting him coverage. Online quotes can be sorted easily. Although drivers are recommended to not choose a policy just based on its price, drivers can easily sort quotes by insurance price. Using brokerage websites will allow drivers to get quotes from multiple insurers, thus making the comparison faster and easier. For additional info, money-saving tips, and free car insurance quotes, visit https://compare-autoinsurance.Org/ Compare-autoinsurance.Org is an online provider of life, home, health, and auto insurance quotes. This website is unique because it does not simply stick to one kind of insurance provider, but brings the clients the best deals from many different online insurance carriers. In this way, clients have access to offers from multiple carriers all in one place: this website. On this site, customers have access to quotes for insurance plans from various agencies, such as local or nationwide agencies, brand names insurance companies, etc. "Online quotes can easily help drivers obtain better car insurance deals. All they have to do is to complete an online form with accurate and real info, then compare prices", said Russell Rabichev, Marketing Director of Internet Marketing Company. CONTACT: Company Name: Internet Marketing CompanyPerson for contact Name: Gurgu CPhone Number: (818) 359-3898Email: [email protected]: https://compare-autoinsurance.Org/ SOURCE: Compare-autoinsurance.Org View source version on accesswire.Com:https://www.Accesswire.Com/595055/What-Are-The-Main-Benefits-Of-Comparing-Car-Insurance-Quotes-Online View photos