It's nuts! Britain is STILL giving aid to Brazil - even though it's richer than we are

Millions handed over in development aid in recent years

Money still going to 'operational' projects in the Latin American powerhouse

Taxpayers are funding aid to Brazil even though it has become richer than Britain, Whitehall officials admitted yesterday.

Millions has been handed over in development aid in recent years despite the rapid rise of Brazil to the top rank of world economies.

And money is still going to the Latin American powerhouse in the week it was revealed to have overtaken Britain in the world’s economic league table.

Good times: Brazil, famous for its carnival in Rio de Janeiro (pictured), overtook Britain in the world's economic league table

The continuing aid to Brazil comes against a background of deepening criticism of the Coalition’s foreign aid plans and its determination to keep raising spending on development in supposedly poor countries.

David Cameron and his ministers are pledged to raise aid spending, currently worth £9billion a year and 0.57 per cent of national income, to 0.7 per cent. Aid spending went up by £1.24billion in the last financial year alone.

Yet money continues to be poured into wealthy and fast-growing countries such as India, and even aid to China, second in the world economic league, was ordered to come to an end only this year.

Much of the money which does go to genuinely poor countries is said by some analysts to be soaked up in corruption or pointless projects.

Brazil was this week listed as sixth in the world economic league table by the Centre for Economics and Business Research. The City think tank found that the country’s economy will produce more than $2.5trillion this year, pushing ahead of UK economic product, which will be just under the $2.5trillion mark.

According to figures on the website of the Department For International Development, £13.6million worth of taxpayer-funded development schemes for Brazil remain ‘operational’.

They include a scheme to work up environmental projects billed at almost £9million, another to ‘improve flexibility, agility and responsiveness in the implementation of DFID regional objectives’ worth more than £1.2million, and unidentified schemes costing more than £2.4million.

DFID officials said yesterday that the spending was ‘historic’ and included projects dating from the 1990s, and that they were listed as remaining in operation only because of ‘an IT error’.

But they acknowledged that taxpayers’ money is still going in aid to Brazil, in the form of a £730,000 ‘large emerging economies programme’ to ‘develop a shared agenda and promote global poverty reduction objectives.’ This project, DFID said, is to be wound down ‘at the earliest opportunity’.

Tory MP Douglas Carswell said the figures showed the ministry was ‘not about helping economies to grow’. He added: ‘Aid spending is more about the commitment of DFID officials to expanding their own budgets than helping economic growth.

Powerhouse: Brazil has been listed as sixth in the world economic league table by the Centre for Economics and Business Research

‘If we really wanted to help economic growth in poor countries we would do it through free trade and cutting tariffs.’

Robert Oxley, of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: ‘The international aid budget is full of too many contradictions like this. Why should British taxpayers fund aid programmes in an economy bigger than our own?’

‘DFID should cut its subsidies to countries who don’t need it and focus on helping the world’s poorest. It’s no surprise that the Brazil has leapfrogged the UK’s economy when ours is still tied down by red tape and plagued by interfering politicians.’

In March, ministers announced the end of development aid to 16 countries considered no longer to need it. They included China, Russia, Vietnam, Serbia and Iraq – but Brazil was not mentioned.

A DFID spokesman said: ‘These are old projects in Brazil, most of which date back to the 1990s.’