Kiribati gets so much EU climate aid that it can´t handle it

The European Union is, in an addition to the seemingly never ending euro crisis, facing other type of problems, also entirely of its own making.


During the last few years, the European Union´s climate change "allies" - a number of small Pacific island states - have received tens, if not hundreds of millions of "climate change aid" in exchange for toeing the EU line on global warming alarmism. And more aid is in the pipeline, as a matter of fact so much that the often authoritarian and corrupt rulers of the mini states do not seem to have the capacity to open enough bank accounts for receiving the millions:

Kiribati is pleading with the European Union to make climate change funding easier for small island states to access.

An extra 23-million US dollars to help Pacific nations cope with climate change was part of a new European Union development partnership unveiled last week.

A senior official at Kiribati’s ministry of finance, Teriba Tabe, says for small island states, it is difficult to actually get the funding.

“We have limited capacity, we don’t have much time to go through these procedures, and guidelines to follow, so hopefully we’ll get there, but our plea to the European Union members if they can always make the rules more flexible and suitable for us."

Read the entire article here


Knowing the dismal corruption records of Kiribati and several of the other Pacific island states, it comes as no surprise that there are demands for more "flexible" and "suitable" payment procedures. One way of dealing with this "problem" to the satisfaction of the Kiribati and other Pacific island governments could be for the EU to pay the climate "aid" millions directly to e.g. safe private Swiss bank accounts. 


PS
This is what Freedom House says about government corruption in Kiribati:

Official corruption and abuse are serious problems, and the government has not shown a commitment to addressing them. The number of businesses owned by mainland Chinese has rapidly increased in recent years, raising concerns over possible corruption in granting immigration status to Chinese investors and other legal wrongdoing in overseeing foreign investments. Kiribati was ranked 91 out of 178 countries surveyed in Transparency International’s 2010 Corruption Perceptions Index.