SPECIAL INVESTIGATION: UK cash meant to combat climate change in Malawi funds loan sharks and helps men to dump their wives
About 8,800 villagers around Chikwawa in Malawi are receiving the equivalent of £433 each – and the Foreign Office insists the best way to send the money is directly to each of them. They even give each recipient a mobile phone to facilitate the online transfer.
The hope is they will use the windfall to 'reduce the impact of climate extremes' through stronger homes, better farming practices and improved communications. Officials claim financial and business training will help 'beneficiaries make informed choices on what is likely to be the largest amount of cash they have ever seen'.
But the Foreign Office explicitly leaves it up to them to decide how to spend the windfall, which is distributed through its partner GiveDirectly – known to villagers as 'Givie'. It is a fabulous sum in a poverty-stricken country where 70 per cent live on just £1.60 a day – and the MoS can reveal much of the money is squandered.
The two-year Chikwawa project is part of a ramping-up of UK overseas aid for climate resilience with 'at least £1.5 billion' spent in 2024-25, according to the Foreign Office. It defends the cash transfers, and says it monitors all programmes to ensure 'value for money for the British taxpayer'.
In the village of Mwanaakula, Henry Maliko, 26, said he was buying iron sheets for his small mud hut as part of the scheme. But he has also found 'a creative way of investing the rest of the money by becoming a money lender'.
Mr Maliko explained: 'Some people who are yet to receive their money have been coming to ask for loans and offering to pay me back double the amount.
'People here lack many things. They have no patience to wait for their money to arrive so they go to those who have received theirs and ask for loans.'
Madame Mwanaakula, the female 'headman', who by tradition takes the name of the village, told the MoS: 'There's been plenty of young men who have gone to South Africa after receiving money from Givie.
'It helps them get a passport quickly, throw backhanders to government agents, pay for transport and accommodation and find a job on the black economy so as to send money home.'
The trend has left 21-year-old Triza Piterson to await the birth of her first child alone. She confirmed her husband used his money to bribe officials, obtain a passport and travel to South Africa in search of work.
Without a visa – unlikely to be granted to an unskilled foreigner – he is there as an illegal immigrant. She says she is confident he will come back eventually.
And Ruth Harold, 32, said her husband Essau walked out on her and their two children, aged five and four, within days of receiving his cash. He has since set up home with another woman.
Essau says he left because she got her payment before him, and her personality changed.
He said: 'She became rude after she got her money'.
Last night, Tory MPs called for an urgent investigation into the project. Sir John Hayes, chairman of the Tories' Common Sense Group at Westminster, said: 'A great nation should have a big heart and helping those in the greatest need has been a characteristic of our great nation.
'However, making sure that money that is spent delivers on the objectives requires proper oversight and management.
'The reason so many people have doubts about overseas aid is that money is misspent and wasted.
'This project needs to be investigated very quickly as a result of The Mail on Sunday's investigation.' The Malawi project was approved under the last Conservative government in April last year.
It took effect after Labour came to power with the first cash payments made six months later.
The Foreign Office's 'business case', signed off by the British High Commissioner to Malawi, Fiona Ritchie, argues that there is 'a large amount of evidence on the effectiveness and efficiency of cash transfers'.
A spokesman for GiveDirectly said: 'Anecdotes are a poor way to judge the effectiveness of aid programmes. Independently run randomised control trials objectively prove direct cash assistance reduces extreme poverty and builds long-term resilience.'
But John O'Connell, chief executive at the TaxPayers' Alliance, said: 'This is a damning example of UK taxpayers' money being sprayed abroad with no accountability and little to show for it. Ministers need to get a grip.'
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