The well oiled Whitehall machine seems to have managed the impossible in the first week of March. While providing more aid to the disaster in Mozambique than almost any other member of the international community, it has managed to give an impression of bureaucratic incompetence and unnecessary delay. Tony Blair could have been doing his follow up to Kosovo as the Saviour of Africa. Instead we have an apparent row between the MOD and DIFD stealing the headlines.
What are the facts? Mozambique deserves particular help from the UK. It has done a remarkably good job of dragging itself forward after years of debilitating post colonial civil war. The colonial power was Portugal, and it speaks volumes that the new democratic government there chose to join the Commonwealth. The UK has taken a lead in forgiving debt to Mozambique, and has provided significant aid, which has been generally well spent. The current flood disaster could not have been predicted. It is not an annual weather phenomenon as it is in Bangladesh. It may be a result of global warming, which seems to be giving rise to more intense weather events. The aid agencies, such as Oxfam, had expected the waters to subside when the first flooding happened 3 weeks earlier.
Once the catastrophic inundation occurred, it was clear that helicopters were the only way to rescue people and transport food, water and medical supplies to the regions. Maputo is some 5,500 miles from London. A helicopter flies at about 150 mph. Simple calculations show that it will take 5 days of flying over 7 hours a day even if it were possible to travel in a straight line. Overflying rights, fuel availability, servicing facilities and terrain would all make it considerably longer. The preferred alternative is to transport helicopters over such distances by sea or air. From a technical point of view, sea is best as the helicopter can be serviced and made ready during the voyage. Fuel and spares can also be carried. However, sea travel takes even longer, although there is more assurance that they will arrive in flying condition. Air freighting is quickest. However, each helicopter has to be prepared as freight. The rotors are removed and other major sections may need to be stripped down. The rescue operation needs the biggest helicopters possible, but that limits the aircraft available to carry them to Russian or US military cargo aircraft.
The MOD undoubtedly considered all these options and decided the fastest way that it could offer assistance would be to hire an Antonov transport to carry 4 stripped down Puma helicopters. It would take time to prepare the Pumas and also time and engineering facilities to rebuild them at the other end. The Antonov hire does not come cheap (£270,000 quoted in the Press). For all these reasons, it would be entirely rational for DIFD to decide that more could be done more quickly by spending the aid money in South Africa rather than the MOD. All of this could have been explained as the decisions were made.
Instead there has been an unseemly debate over whether the UK help was delayed because the MOD wanted to charge DIFD full costs rather than marginal costs. We are all quick to criticise the MOD when it appears to be being incompetent in its budgetary processes. It has been suggested that the Government should provide instant resources for such catastrophes. It can and it does. Yet the provision of a pot of gold does not change the potential for a fight over how much each department will gets for its tasking. The MOD is being asked to do more and more without a budget uplift. It is scarcely surprising that it wants to be clear on the budgetary implications of taking on every new task. The pressures of accountability are making joined-up government creak. Perhaps the role of the Treasury in such unpredictable circumstances needs to be better defined.