The Pope is set to visit Britain in September 2010 and the cost of trip is like to set back taxpayers a whopping £12 million. It is estimated that the total outlay for the four day stay could reach as much as £24 million, with the Catholic Church footing the remainder of the bill. The trip will be Benedict’s first official Papal visit to the UK and will comprise of both pastoral events and formal state business. Security will be stepped up, with the the visit set to spark outrage amongst protestors not only concerned with the gross overspend but the also because of the scandal surrounding child abuse within the Catholic Church and other controversial views.
With the number of malnourished people worldwide standing at just over 1.2 billion and increasing annually, a £12 million price tag for a four day visit seems obsurd, as the money could be put to much better uses. The charity Helen Keller International is working to reduce malnutrition in line with the Millenium development Goal which aims to halve the proportion of people who suffer from hunger by 2015. They’re attempting to achieve this via a variety of projects, one of which included the production of ‘self-sustaining food production gardens’ in countries across Asia, at a cost of just $9 (about £6) per garden. These gardens can provide food for whole families as well as creating a source of income. The £12 million being spent by the UK Government on the Pope’s visit could be used to create two million of these gardens and improve the lives of millions of people.
Can this huge sum of money really be justified when there are millions of people worldwide lacking even the basic tools for survival, not forgetting the fact the UK’s government has the largest deficit of all the G20 nations and is currently imposing tight public spending cuts which will doubtless effect a large proportion of its own population?
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