Sheep magazine Archive 2: issues 10-17

Artwork: John Phillips
PFI
If you think there is no money for NHS
funding you’d be right – Private Finance
Initiatives (PFI) has sucked it dry
The total UK Private Finance Initiatives (PFI)
debt is over £300bn. To put it more simply:
this debt would cover the entire NHS budget
for approximately two and a half years
From the Independent
by Yousef El-Gingihy,
who is the author of
How to Dismantle the NHS
in 10 Easy Steps
published by Zero books
Up and down the UK, Private Finance
Initiatives (PFI) are destroying public
services. Introduced by John Major’s
government and expanded by New Labour,
the Private Finance Initiatives (PFI) policy
was designed to use private financing to
build and run public sector infrastructure
projects. Private Finance Initiatives (PFI)
consortia consist of bankers, construction
companies and facilities management firms.
The projects work like a mortgage, with
repayments on the work completed made
over decades. There is just one snag: the
interest rates for Private Finance Initiatives
(PFI) agreements are scandalously high.
The NHS has more than 100 Private
Finance Initiatives (PFI) hospitals. The
original cost of these 100 institutions was
around £11.5bn. In the end, they will cost
the public purse nearly £80bn. The total
UK Private Finance Initiatives (PFI) debt is
over £300bn for projects worth only £55bn.
This means that nearly £250bn will be
spent swelling the coffers of Private Finance
Initiatives (PFI) groups.
5
JULY & AUGUST 2016