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Dear Senator Perchard,
I am writing to express concern over the plan to increase the amount of overseas aid given from the tax incomes of the States of Jersey.
Preliminary Note:
Whilst I recognise that the JOAC is a quasi-autonomous non-governmental organization (quango) and as such it's officers are not, strictly speaking, civil servants, it has been suggested that the recent growth of such quangos is merely to allow for favourable statistics on the number of civil servants employed and to obfuscate the level of growth of the civil service as a whole.
I therefore use the term 'civil servant' in the following note to mean persons whose salary is paid for from public revenues.
Setting aside all consideration of the financial inability of Jersey to meet the proposed target of 0.7% of GNI at this time, and on the basis of government reports at any time in the near future without tax increases, I have three main objections:
- Jersey is not a nation and is not a country and as such any target set for nations should not be applied to Jersey.
- Government is not the best medium through which to direct charitable aid.
I am concerned as to how much of the increase would be spent in the regions where the money given to charities is now.
It seems likely that a proportion of the increase would go to fund additional civil servants and not to benefit those least well off globally.
Would it not be preferable to ease the system through which tax deductions may be granted for charitable donations to increase the amount of aid flowing through private charities?
- The Government of Jersey does not have an international presence in overseas nations as a matter of course, as a nation such as the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland would through its ambassadorial system.
It is therefore unable to oversee directly the distribution of aid and ensure that it is not subverted to the pockets of corrupt government officials in other nations.
In many of the poorest nations it seems that corruption is commonplace and therefore there is a need to be directly involved in the regions to which the aid is directed to oversee its proper implementation and use.
Again this would require an increased number of civil servants.
Indeed it seems that this proposition is little more than a further civil service job creation scheme. Darius Pearce
Dear Senator Perchard,
The thought occurs that under our constitution the UK is responsible for our foreign affairs and I would hazard to suggest that Overseas Aid would fall into this category.
I hope you will examine this as part of your scrutiny report. Kind regards
Darius Pearce