The Times - UK (2020-08-28)

16 2GM Friday August 28 2020 | the times

News

Britain built classrooms for 120,
children in Pakistan after being warned
the buildings could collapse on them,
an investigation by The Times shows.
Officials running British aid’s biggest
education infrastructure programme
paid a firm more than £50 million to
carry on building in an earthquake
zone. Yet ultimately the classrooms
were abandoned over design flaws,
leaving pupils being educated in tents
or crammed into existing buildings in
the midst of the pandemic.
The school pupils’ plight prompted
an outcry when it first emerged last
year but The Times has discovered that
warnings about the project were
sounded long before to officials at the
Department for International Devel-
opment (Dfid).
Despite independent assessment of
the school plans raising concerns that
the buildings might not be structurally
sound, ministers were kept in the dark
for years. Boris Johnson even laid a
plaque at one of the schools commemo-
rating Britain’s generosity to Pakistani
children’s education while unaware of
design safety concerns.
The girls’ school he inaugurated in
Lahore has since been evacuated.
Investigations reveal that the project
was beset by problems after Dfid chose
IMC Worldwide, a project manage-
ment business based in Redhill, Surrey,
in 2013 to build 30,000 classrooms for a
million children.
The company doubled the price of
construction before work began, halv-
ing the number of buildings that could
be provided. Despite independent ex-
perts warning about design safety, Dfid
paid for building to continue.
When ministers were finally alerted,
Britain told Pakistan to stop using the
classrooms until the problems could be
remedied. However, this has led to
another issue: the government insists
that IMC, rather than taxpayers, must
pay for safety improvements but the
business may be unable to afford this.
The programme has been slashed to
fewer than 8,000 classrooms, the cost
of each soaring from £3,000 to £21,000.
Sarah Champion, chairwoman of the
international development committee,
told The Times: “I do not know of a
worse example of aid misspend. It has
shocked me to the very core that it went
on for so long. This is a scandalous mis-
use of taxpayers’ money. The lack of ac-
countability all the way through —

The building programme had a bud-

get of £184 million including £164 mil-

lion from Britain but ran into problems

from the start. A disturbing arrange-

ment to remove experienced staff at the

behest of the Pakistani authorities was

known about by civil servants but has

only emerged publicly through investi-

gation by The Times.

IMC’s registration was cancelled in

June 2014 by the Board of Investment

in Pakistan which objected to two

respected Britons on the programme.

The company withdrew them from

Pakistan in January 2015. Under pres-

sure, Islamabad let one return but in-

sisted the other, whose duties included

weeding out corruption, must be

dropped. Dfid was unable to sign its

contract with IMC until the row was re-

solved in April 2015.

IMC increased the price per class-

room from £3,000 to £6,000 weeks

Merger will

mean less

scrutiny

Behind the story

T

he betrayal of

Pakistan’s

schoolchildren

by Britain has

been exposed

but future scandals risk

being swept under the

carpet (Dominic Kennedy

and George Grylls write).

As Boris Johnson

scraps the Department

for International

Development (Dfid), he is

also abolishing the group

of MPs dedicated to

scrutinising the £

billion aid budget.

Persistent digging by

the international

development committee

uncovered details of how

children were being

taught in tents six years

after the government

awarded a contract to a

British firm to provide

classrooms for a million

pupils.

The prime minister is

merging Dfid, which he

lampooned as a “giant

cashpoint in the sky”,

with the Foreign Office.

Sarah Champion,

chairwoman of the

committee, told The

Times: “Going forward

with the merger, the level

of scrutiny of these

projects is only going to

get less.

“I’m particularly

concerned that one of the

first things the

government announced

when they put the merger

into the public domain

was that they were

winding up my

committee.

“Were it not for the

International

Development Committee

picking away at this and

not accepting that

everything was OK, I

don’t think it would have

got into the public

domain.

“The fact that they are

trying to remove the one

body that’s exposed this

scandal is very

concerning to me.”

Select committees

such as hers usually

shadow a government

department but there are

exceptions.

The public accounts

committee, the audit

committee and the

committee on the future

relationship with the

European Union have

duties beyond

examining a single

Whitehall body.

Only three quarters of

the aid budget is spent by

Dfid, the rest by other

departments, so a broad-

based new development

committee would be

appropriate.

The newly merged

Foreign, Commonwealth

& Development Office is

likely to be shadowed by

the foreign affairs

committee.

While this group of

MPs, led by Tom

Tugendhat, provides

effective scrutiny of

overseas issues,

development experts fear

they will have too much

on their plate to

rigorously challenge

development issues.

INDIA

PAKISTANA

Magnitude scale

Khyber

Pakhtunkkhwak Punjab

Earthquake

fault line

2015 7. 5

magnitude

earthquake,

280 killed

2005 7. 6 ,

79,00 0

killed

100 miles

3 4 5 6 7

Each level is ten times stronger than previous

8+

For Boris Johnson it was a chance to

boast that Britain was on the side of

girls and women in Pakistan.

“Kinnaird Girls’ School #Lahore just

one example of #UKAid supporting

girls’ education,” he tweeted in 2016. As

an afterthought he said: “Also met some

of #Pakistan’s women’s cricket team.”

It was a whirlwind trip for Mr John-

son as foreign secretary. He had just

popped to Islamabad to take selfies with

Imran Khan, the cricketer turned poli-

tician who is now prime minister.

Britain paid to provide the Kinnaird

school, founded by a Scottish family in

Fears of collapse force

pupils back into their

overcrowded old school

Haroon Janjua Lahore

Dominic Kennedy, George Grylls

1913, with 23 new classrooms and 11

lavatories under the aid budget’s most

ostentatious education infrastructure

programme.

The schoolgirls gave Mr Johnson a

red carpet welcome and drum salute.

He cut a ribbon, unveiled a plaque,

grabbed a cricket bat and let the pupils

bowl. In buoyant mood, he told report-

ers: “The school has everything it needs

to be successful: amazing teachers, a

beautiful new building, all this [support]

coming from the UK and, most impor-

tantly, its bright students keen to learn.”

In reality Britain has left the school-

girls with a frightful mess. “There are

cracks in the new building, they are not

fit for use and we have evacuated the

News Times investigation

UK gave firm £50m aid to carry

from procurement to health and safety

to delivery — was genuinely shocking.

Are there other projects like this that

are going as catastrophically wrong?

“There were two large failings. One,

it seems that civil servants kept the in-

formation from ministers. But two, the

ministers have known about this and I

do not believe that they have got a grip

on the scale and the severity of the

problem still now.”

The select committee is being termi-

nated next month as Dfid is merged in-

to the Foreign Office. Ms Champion

fears there will be less parliamentary

scrutiny of aid, although she said this

affair “may well be symptomatic of

other large-scale projects that Dfid is

running”.

One province where classrooms

were being built, Khyber Pakh-

tunkhwa, is highly vulnerable to earth-

quakes with 6,704 school buildings

damaged in 2005 and 815 in 2015.

after claiming that costings were on

track. Dfid caved in, cutting the number

of classrooms from 30,000 to 16,000.

Building began in September 2015.

The first warning that British-built

classrooms were potentially dangerous

was sounded in October 2016 by

Halcrow Pakistan, a civil engineering

firm hired by Dfid for independent veri-

fication, a month before Mr Johnson

visited the school in Lahore.

“We confirmed these schools’ struc-

ture is unsafe primarily over the weak

suggested construction model,” a Hal-

crow Pakistan source told The Times.

Two more independent experts

flagged concerns. Dfid was warned

about unsafe designs, that some build-

ings should not be used and might col-

lapse. Dfid officials paid IMC to keep

going while checks continued. Since

the alarm was first raised, nearly 3,

classrooms have been built. Priti Patel,

then the international development

secretary, was never informed about

the problems. Nor were her successors

Penny Mordaunt and Rory Stewart.

Pakistan is the largest recipient of

British aid. Only in June 2019, when

Alok Sharma had taken over the de-

partment, were ministers alerted, as

University College London provided

Dfid with a draft review of design safety.

IMC’s response to an outcry from

MPs included an assurance that it had

provided children forced out of their

classrooms with 541 “high quality tents”.

Although Dfid regarded the Pakistan

schools initiative as a “payment by re-

sults” programme, IMC was always

paid. Administration costs were high.

Only 63 per cent of income went on

construction with 37 per cent going to

“technical assistance” such as fees and

expenses for IMC staff.

IMC said the budget reflected the

programme’s scale covering 1,300 loca-

tions over 130,000 sq km of challenging

terrain. Gavin English, IMC managing

director, said: “Many newly construct-

ed buildings develop some cracks, the

majority of which are non-structural.

“Building designs were approved by

engineering consultants registered

with the Pakistan Engineering

Council.” As Dfid raised concerns, IMC

had responded fully.

Dfid said: “The safety of children is

our number one priority. It is complete-

ly unacceptable that schools, which UK

aid commissioned IMC to build, have

not been built to the necessary stan-

dards. IMC have committed to retrofit

unsafe schools and classrooms to en-

sure these are fit for purpose.”

George Grylls, Dominic Kennedy
Haroon Janjua Lahore