McCully chops $1.95m from Pacific aid plan

Foreign Minister Murray McCully has axed the $1.95 million-a-year funding for a development programme in the Pacific before making more sweeping changes to the way the half-billion-dollar aid budget is spent.

Labour MP Phil Twyford yesterday revealed Mr McCully had cut funding for the Foundation of the South Pacific International (FSPI), a group of non-government organisations that work in nine Pacific countries.

The cut comes as Mr McCully plans to restructure the Government's development agency NZAid so there is more political control over how the money is spent.

Mr Twyford said cutting funding for the project was "a classic example of government tampering".

"The project supports hundreds of village communities across seven Pacific countries, helping with issues like conflict resolution and natural resource management."

It was an unprecedented level of ministerial intervention in aid. "Not content with his secretive internal review process [of NZAid], the minister is also intervening in the running of the detail of the aid programme, axing projects he personally does not like."

A spokesman for Mr McCully said $1.2 million of the funding had been going towards salaries and overheads of FSPI's backroom staff, and $750,000 to a "governance programme aimed at improving relationships between civil societies and governments".

The programme "did not square with his desire for moneys to go towards projects that make a tangible difference to people's lives".

The spokesman said the Government was still helping to fund two other FSPI projects, giving $400,000 a year to a youth mental health programme and $500,000 to a disaster risk programme.