Government must work more closely with NGOs, says Kitt

MINISTER OF State for Overseas Aid Michael Kitt told the Dáil that "lessons can be learned" and the Government must work more closely with non-government organisations to resolve issues about contracts and tougher reporting rules.

Irish Aid the Government's overseas aid section, will spend €914 million this year on development projects and the Minister said it "has in place rigorous accounting and audit controls".

He said there were four different but complementary audits in place and there was an audit unit with 10 staff. "There are some difficulties for example with grants of more than €300,000. We have been working with our NGO partners to resolve some of these issues." He was responding to Fine Gael's John Deasy who referred to the INTRAC report prepared for the Department of Foreign Affairs last year, which said that "any entity receiving Irish aid should have to abide by tighter contracts and tougher reporting rules".

Mr Deasy said that "many of the agencies in question, dispensing monies given by Irish Aid, supplied only very general and sometimes inaccurate reports", and consultants found that "Irish Aid could operate better with more accountants and other inspection staff", and "there was not enough scrutiny of the moneys going through Irish Aid".

The Minister said that "we are working with the poorest of the poor, mainly in Sub-Saharan Africa. We are working at the coalface and have a good audit committee and good governance". Fine Gael foreign affairs spokesman Billy Timmins said that the difficulties arising in the decentralisation of the Irish Aid office to Limerick might impact on auditing, that expertise "is being lost in an area that has grown in importance due to increased funding".

But Minister for Foreign Affairs Dermot Ahern said that no other department was like this department because almost every senior officer "will at some stage, perform duties abroad". Government backbencher Barry Andrews expressed concern that Malawi, where Ireland had opened its most recent embassy, named a road in 2006 after Robert Mugabe. Mr Andrews questioned the "ethical framework of future Irish Aid spending".

He said that "Malawi is a member of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) which we are trusting to monitor the election in Zimbabwe. My concern is whether the countries are sympathetic to Zimbabwe and whether there is a regional solution to such situations. The Zimbabwe situation is getting worse by the day."