UK Foreign Office to review aid spending after tabloid criticism

By Magdalena Mis

LONDON, June 25 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Britain's Foreign Office (FCO) has launched an inquiry into its foreign aid spending after a tabloid newspaper reported that it had spent thousands of pounds on initiatives such as Hamlet workshops in Ecuador and a television game show in Ethiopia.

The Foreign Office said the review would ensure that "every last penny" of its aid spending was effective and represented "value for money."

"The vast majority of aid spending promotes UK prosperity and broader stability but there will be a crackdown on projects that cannot show taxpayers' cash is being spent wisely," the FCO spokesman said on Thursday.

The UK aid budget was 11.5 billion pounds ($18 billion) in 2013, when about 88 percent of the cash was managed by the Department for International Development (DFID). A small amount, estimated at 343 million pounds ($538 million) in 2014, is given to the FCO each year to spend as Official Development Assistance.

The Sun newspaper said the FCO spent 5,000 pounds on education workshops in Ecuador on the play Hamlet, almost 14,000 pounds on a TV game show in Ethiopia and more than 43,000 pounds on "elderly care through UK values" in China.

The FCO also used aid money for painting a mural in a rain shelter in Montserrat, measuring the carbon footprint of an offroad car rally in Bolivia, and finding mates for a threatened tropical fish in Madagascar, the newspaper said.

The Foreign Office has defended its aid spending, saying its aim was to build closer relationships with growing economies. ($1 = 0.6372 pounds) (Reporting by Magdalena Mis, editing by Tim Pearce; Please credit Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women's rights, corruption and climate change. Visit www.trust.org)