Row over tsunami relief spending

Claims made by a committee of MPs that money to help victims of the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami remains unspent have been denied by aid chiefs.

A report from the Commons public accounts committee called for proof from the government that money given to charities, UN agencies and other bodies was spent helping victims.

The report says that £9.3m of the £52.6m given by the government to third parties to assist affected countries - including Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, Malaysia and Thailand - remains unaccounted for.

Committee chairman Edward Leigh said: "The Department for International Development responded swiftly and impressively.

"It is clear now, however, that the department still has some lessons to learn.

" Nearly a year and a half after the disaster, it still had no idea whether some £9m of the nearly £53m it donated to agencies had been spent or not.

"The department must make sure that the organisations who were given grants, provide audited evidence that the money was actually spent on the victims of the disaster."

The Department for International Development responded: "For the aid programmes that have been delivered to help victims of the tsunami, we know how that money was spent.

"Two and a half million pounds of unspent aid money has been returned to DfID, and we have agreed with some partners that any previously unspent aid money is now reallocated towards longer-term humanitarian projects."

Shadow international development secretary, Andrew Mitchell, questioned the implications of the reports conclusions.

"Putting pressure on NGOs to spend money pledged for the disaster as quickly as possible could do more harm than good," he warned. "What matters is that the funds are spent effectively."

But he added that "every penny spent must be thoroughly audited".

Liberal Democrat spokesman Susan Kramer said: "This report tells us that £9m of relief money is still sitting in the bank accounts of third-party organisations.

"The government clearly does not know where taxpayers’ money is going, and even more worryingly, doesn’t even have a proper system to find out."