In a recent nomination of mine, it was suggested that I don’t like charities and I stated that Oxfam in particular was worthy of a cunting on its own right – so here it is.
Oxfam have always been totally out of touch with reality. I remember many years back in a former life being asked to test a new computer system which was designed to be rolled out in the African villages to keep track of project costs. I had an ideological problem with this. It goes along the lines of the old saying ‘give a man a fish and he’ll eat it but teach him how to fish and you’ll feed him for life’ or something like that.
This computer system was going to put local clerical workers employed by Oxfam out of work – which seemed to me to be going against the whole ethos of the organisation.
Then it got better. ‘I’m not happy with your rate’ says the Oxfam manager. ‘For every £1 and hour I can knock off it, I can feed a starving family in Africa for a week.’ ‘Tell you what’ says I, ‘I’ll match every £1 an hour you knock off your salary.’ Not only that, but how many people could they have fed for the cost of the computers?
This is the organisation whose former chief executive Dame Barbara Stocking saw her pay rise over three years, while revenues fell but donations increased. In a statement, Oxfam said Lady Stocking was due to paid £119,560 in 2012/13 – which means that her pay increased by 19 per cent from £100,008 in 2009/10 “which is in the lower quartile of what other large charities paid for their chief executives”. Isn’t that a bit like saying it’s OK to give a fat cat banker a whopping great bonus because all the banks do it?
And I wonder how many starving families in Africa she could have fed on that pay rise. After all, at the time she earned more than David Cameron.
I’m not anti-charities as such. If people want to give them money, then fine. Go ahead. But as far as I’m concerned, I’ve got better things to spend my money on than helping to fund political campaigns I don’t agree with and to piss up the wall on top heavy admin costs.
There are far too many charities and as far as I am concerned Oxfam should be the first to get the chop…
Nominated by: Dioclese
(More skeletons in Lady Stocking’s cupboard, Day Admin – Daily Mail News Link )