BRITAIN’S GROUNDNUT SCHEME£34,000,000 SPENT FOR NO RETURN AS YET

Greymouth Evening Star, 13 June 1950, Page 5

BRITAIN’S GROUNDNUT SCHEME—£34,000,000 SPENT FOR NO RETURN AS YET

LONDON, June 12 (Rec. 11 a.m.).—The basic fault of the British groundnut scheme in East Africa was the failure to realise the impracticability of the original plan in the conditions that existed immediately after the war, according to the Committee of Public Accounts. The committee’s view is contained in a report presented to Parliament today. . . The report said it was regarded as urgent to obtain results m the shortest possible time. This had led to a deliberate decision to make normal commercial methods a secondary consideration compared with the fastest possible rate of proceeding with the scheme.

“Indeed, the sense of urgency was so great that the whole project was pushed forward with a degree of deliberate risk-taking in the hope that the 1948 harvest would produce some improvement in a dangerous situation,” the report says. “An immense development and production drive was set on foot at a time when nothing but second-hand plant and machinery were available and before a balanced administrative, financial and accounting system had been created which could bear the weight of the initial surge of expenditure.” The report added that up to April of this year the groundnuts scheme had had" £34,650,000 advanced to it

for its operation, but so far there had been no appreciable revenue from it. The committee said it was hoped that there would be small revenue from the scheme this year, although it was realised that there could be no considerable revenue until the 1951 harvest.