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I worked at Oxfam, and I’m not surprised by the allegations

Please send your letters to letters@independent.co.uk

Monday 12 February 2018 17:35 GMT
Comments
All I can hope is that this scandal gives others, like me, the confidence to come forward and speak up about similar third sector failings
All I can hope is that this scandal gives others, like me, the confidence to come forward and speak up about similar third sector failings

As a previous Oxfam employee, I am deeply saddened by what happened in Haiti. I was not surprised at the revelation. For those who say that the charity’s Haiti debacle is an “old issue”, I can say that it most certainly is not; all I can hope is that this scandal gives others, like me, the confidence to come forward and speak up about similar third sector failings and wrongdoings.

Kate Binns
Address supplied

This Government is full of hypocrites

How dare this Government seek to adopt the moral high ground over Oxfam.

A few Oxfam workers in the field commit sexual abuse. What is the Government’s immediate response? A threat to withdraw funds, hence hurting thousands of innocent people in desperate need – hardly a manifestation of fairness and compassion.

Penny Mordaunt, the Secretary of State, also has the audacity to condemn Oxfam for “lack of moral leadership”. That is from a Government that permits Saudi arms sales with horrendous consequences for numerous innocent civilians and whose policies harm the most vulnerable here in the UK (see independent reports such as the one by the United Nations’ Rights of Persons with Disabilities).

For this Government to adopt the moral high ground over Oxfam is itself to display the immorality of hypocrisy.

Peter Cave
London W1

I don’t think I have ever seen so much cant and hypocrisy from Tory politicians as we have vis a vis Oxfam.

Several years ago some police officers were prosecuted for forcing prostitutes to have sex with them. They were duly prosecuted and dismissed from the service. Nobody suggested taking away funding from the police or demanding strong moral leadership. Even the dreadful Priti Patel has jumped on the bandwagon in a vain effort to regain some standing in her party.

DG Leddy
Surrey

I see that the disgraceful events at Oxfam are now empowering certain people to question the overseas aid budget.

This is a completely different matter. If anyone asked me, I would state that the budget needs increasing quite a lot, but not to organisations with no accountability and feeble internal safeguarding procedures.

What concerned me greatly is that the chief executive, Mark Goldring, said: “Oxfam had no formal obligation to tell anybody anything.” Who does he think he is? We, the taxpayers, give his organisation millions, and the rest is from decent generous members of the public.

The BBC have to publish senior salaries – so should charities, and they should by law have to inform the Charity Commission of systemic abuse, corruption, bullying and so on.

Robert Boston
Kingshill

The next Tory leadership contest isn’t looking too promising

The headline of your report on the public’s preference for a successor to Theresa May (Jacob Rees-Mogg is second favourite to succeed Theresa May if she is forced out, exclusive new poll reveals) is somewhat disingenuous.

The article states that “none of the above” was a clear winner with 57 per cent of those polled, with Boris Johnson at 13 per cent and Jacob Rees-Mogg at 7 per cent, both trail very far behind. The public’s view of the Tory party leadership-in-waiting might be more accurately summarised as “a plague on all your houses”.

David Harper
Cambridge

This could be the downfall of the EU

What Britain does not seem to comprehend is that any favourable deal – keeping the good bits and getting rid of the bad bits – will upset other EU member states that might want the same kind of flexible arrangement, and it will signal the end of the EU.

Peter Fieldman
Madrid

Listen to the experts!

So Daniel Hannan thinks that we shouldn’t care about the staff of the EU medicines whose jobs are being moved to Amsterdam.

These people are the experts in science who authorise new medicines. Do Brexiteers like Hannan and others not understand the basic fact that any pharma company is more likely to launch a new drug in the EU27 before it applies for UK launch once we lose the EMA and leave the single market?

The cost of applying for new medicines for biotech start ups is very expensive so it is inevitable that the UK will lose out on getting new innovative cancer, or other, treatments. Rather than simple platitudes from politicians and commentators who have never worked in an industry maybe these “experts” should talk to those who have done, before they tell us the loss of the EMA is not something to worry about.

Chris Key
Address supplied

Shortage of GPs

You report in your article “NHS £100m international recruitment drive achieves only sixth of initial target” that “the NHS has admitted that it is already a long way behind target in its bid to recruit thousands of GPs from Europe and further afield”. I wonder why that is?

Chris Elshaw
Hants

An end to Brexit

I agree with Brian Rushton, Letters, that we should invoke the spirit of Churchill and Thatcher. They were both pro-European, so let’s stop all this Brexit nonsense in their memory.

Alan Pack
Kent

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