Watching urges aid cash monitoring

Parliament's spending watchdog has urged the Department for International Development to strengthen its abilities to monitor funds given to other organisations.

In a report on how the Whitehall department responded to the Indian Ocean tsunami, the National Audit Office also revealed that of the £75m in extra assistance pledged by the prime minister, only £64.1m was spent.

Some £7.5m has been reallocated to disaster risk reduction programmes, while a further £3.9m has been held in reserve for "unexpected costs".

The Conservatives said this cash should now be allocated to other pressing causes such as the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Overall, however, the NAO praised DfID's "rapid and impressive" response to the tsunami tragedy.

It said that the first of many cargoes of relief supplies was airlifted to the affected area within 24 hours.

But the department was urged to strengthen its financial monitoring to establish how much of the £50m in grants to other organisations actually reached victims of the disaster and how much remains in bank accounts waiting to be spent.

Watchdog chief Sir John Bourn said: "The speed of DfID's response after the tsunami was impressive and demonstrates the importance of planning for disasters.

"The scaling back of expenditure against the £75m of immediate humanitarian assistance promised was justified, given the generosity of other governments and people from around the world.

"But it remains important to keep control over the £50m paid in grants to other organisations and to know how it is spent."

A DfID spokesman cautioned that imposing too much red tape in the immediate aftermath of such a disaster could slow relief efforts.

"DfID only provided funds for tsunami relief work to trusted third parties - aid agencies, NGOs, many of which we work with often - and only after agreeing a detailed programme of work," she added.

"During the delivery of those programmes organisations were required to submit regular progress reports.

"In addition, DfID staff in tsunami-affected countries met regularly with organisations to check on their work.

"But burdening our partners with too much red tape in the form of even more stringent reporting requirements could have constrained their ability to deliver urgent humanitarian relief.

"Clearly this would have defeated the object of the exercise - to help the many thousands of people in desperate short-term need.

"Now the immediate disaster phase has passed and rebuilding and reconstruction work has begun DfID has asked partners to fully account for their spending and to return any unspent funds."

Shadow international development secretary Andrew Mitchell said taxpayers "will be angry to learn that money given by the government in their name is sitting idle in the bank accounts of multilateral agencies and non-governmental organisations".

"These monies should be released as soon as possible and used to save lives in the 'forgotten emergencies' in places such as the Democratic Republic of Congo," he added.

"Today’s report is a serious piece of work, and I endorse its praise of DfID's speedy response to the Asian tsunami.

"But outputs matter just as much as inputs: how many lives were saved, how many people have been rehoused, how far has the money got through to those who need it most?

"I look forward to the speedy publication of the information which will allow us to assess the effectiveness of DfID's relief effort."