UGANDA receives almost £100million in British foreign aid every year despite driving out hundreds of gay people who then seek asylum in the UK, it emerged yesterday.
More than 200 gay Ugandans in the past two years have successfully claimed their sexual orientation could expose them to persecution and abuse at home, official figures show.
None of the aid cash sent is being used to address the treatment of gay people in the east African country.
Instead, the 21 current projects funded by the Department for International Development (DfID) are schemes to improve roads, make contraception more easily available, tackle corruption and promote renewable energy.
The Daily Express has led the way with the Stop The Foreign Aid Madness crusade calling for the Government to cut the target of spending at least 0.7 per cent of national income. Senior backbench Tory MP Jacob Rees-Mogg said: “The need for emergency overseas aid is clear, but expenditure by the Government of large amounts of money hasn’t proved very successful.”
A poll commissioned by the Daily Express showed 84 per cent of voters want at least some of the foreign aid cash spent on the NHS instead.
Reader Robert Barnes, 52, of Oldham, has also set up an online petition. Last year 293 Ugandans made applications for asylum. Home Office figures show 129 were successful, 110 because they claimed they were gay and it would be a breach of their human rights to make them return home.
Ugandan badminton player Megan Nankabirwa, 30, and her female partner were granted asylum last year after she competed in the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.
Separate figures show there has been a 450 per cent rise in the total number of people seeking refuge in the UK because of sexuality since 2014, from 200 to 1,115. Most were gays and lesbians from Pakistan. Yet the country received £463million in UK aid in 2016.
A Government spokesman said: “DfID supports a programme focused on protecting minority rights in Uganda which is aimed at achieving improvements in the treatment of and attitudes towards LGBT people.”