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P A Penfold
West Indian & Atlantic Department WH MZ 37
270-2699
1877
HKBO 2017
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Mr Kirk
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Mr Keeling FID > Miss Cooke SPD >
CONFIDENTIAL
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Separate Conies
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2. PA
Rep. Terr. Laidh gp file.
21
CONTINGENCY BUDGET FOR DEPENDENT TERRITORIES
1. A recurrent difficulty which WIAD has encountered in administering our Dependent Territories is that of locating funds to pay for projects or activities which are essential for the maintenance of good government in the DTs, but which lie clearly outside the ODA's normal terms of reference. Particularly in our small Caribbean DTs, we have in recent years been confronted with increasingly serious and complex problems relating to corruption and inefficiency in the local administration, or to cases of drugs trafficking or commercial crime (eg money laundering, fraud) which frequently have international or intercontinental ramifications. The US authorities are generally not slow to remind us at such times that sovereignty. implies responsibility, and that we should not renege on our obligation to put our house in order.
2.
The resources available to help us meet this growing
In the challenge have been exposed as thoroughly inadequate. absence of a separate Dependent Territory contingency budget. or of an alternative general source of funding from within the FCO, our options appear to be resricted to the following:-
a) existing specialised budgets already under FCO control. (Possibilities here are limited, but include AUS Programme Budget, Unconventional Diplomacy vote, and UKMTAS);
b) approaching the appropriate Home Civil Service ministry. (We have secured limited success here eg MOD and Home Office contributions to anti-drug operations, Department of Health funds for a limited NHS referral scheme. However, in our experience, going along this route can prove a long and tedious process, since Home Ministries display at best a very blinkered view of the extent of their responsibilities towards the Dependent Territories, and most are still disposed to disclaim any responsibility' at all);
c) approaching the ODA, with a request that they take a flexible view of their terms of reference in the light of HMG's special responsibilities towards the DTS, and pointing to the conclusions of the 1987 Policy Review that the DTs should remain a first charge on UK aid funds. (ODA have proved very helpful here, most recently by agreeing to the establishment of a special fund (£lm pa) for security-related projects in the four Caribbean aid-recipient DTS. However
CONFIDENTIAL