Categories: uncategorized
Date: 05 September 2006 10:29:59
In anticipation of our visit to the out-laws in Dorset I leave you with this rant:
There are many people in this world living in poverty, dying of preventable diseases or starving to death. We could do more to prevent these deaths, if we had the will to do so.
Our government are proud of the way in which they dispose of our taxes. They carry on talking about the value for many we get from investments in the health service and education and the savings achieved from the various IT budgets they instigate.
Today they've announced that they are scrapping the Department of Work & Pensions Benefits Processing Repayments Programme. This has been 3 years in the developing and, to date, has cost £141m. It was supposed to streamline the way the department pays out its £100bn in benefits.
With all the other IT projects that have been cancelled or gone way over budget in the last 9 years we could have made a sizeable dent in the effects of disease, poverty and starvation. Couple this with our spend in Iraq and we'd have probably helped 30% of the people in the world who need it.
Alternatively we could have been selfish and spent it on pensioners and the poor in this country. We could have made a very large investment in developing "green" energy alternatives. Then again, they could have given it back to us to spend.
The government have also announced that DHL will be providing the logistics services to the NHS to procure and deliver all their medicines and supplies for the next few years. At present this is run by a dedicated NHS Logistics Service. They've managed to run the system so efficiently that they're actually returning money to the NHS.
DHL, and their US partmers, will actually take that money out of the system. They have already done this in the US, only to find that they can't organise it properly and have been hit with heavy fines for non-performance.
Next time you're asked to give your vote to any political party ask them how they will accountable for the money they waste! Bet you won't get a good reply from any of them.
In other news:
Tearfund have started a the 0.7% scheme. You maybe aware that the organisations behind the Make Poverty History campaign have lobbied the G8 countries to promise that aid will be provided equal to 0.7% of their GDP by 2015. As part of that Tearfund are asking that supporters contribute 0.7% of their income as an example.
I worked it out yesterday that this would equate to about £13 per month for me. So that's what I've done.