Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2015-10-05-Speech-1-117-000"
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"en.20151005.11.1-117-000"2
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"Madam President, it is a fact that corruption in developing nations is endemic. This has been the case for decades, and it has become an almost cultural norm in many countries that find it difficult to make national and local government transparent and accountable. The idea that somehow bypassing the top layer of government will see less waste of our money is a naive idea, to say the least.
The Turkish proverb ‘the fish stinks from the head down’ is very pertinent here. If you have a corrupt national government it is safe to say that there will be corruption within a nation at every level. The idea that it will be easier to police hundreds or even thousands of local authorities when you cannot do the job with dozens of national governments is ludicrous. One of the first duties of government is to ensure that the taxes that they collect from their citizens are treated with respect. If we cannot guarantee that the aid we hand over is managed within a framework in which we have confidence, if we cannot be sure that we are not propping up corrupt regimes or paying for fleets of Mercedes limos and private jets, then we should not be handing over aid at all. The message should be: get your own house in order if you expect our help.
Paying local authorities directly undermines the nation state and could be used to gerrymander the overthrow of legitimate, but poor, governments pursuing EU objectives. If the EU directly funds tribal councils in Africa or the Middle East it will undermine national unity in the strength of legitimate central authorities. Surely, rewarding good governance and refusing to reward bad governance should be the ethos of development aid."@en1
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