Subsidised Ostriches & Golden Eggs

[Silent Orchestra]

Failed asylum seekers have been handed £36million to open businesses, including a beauty salon, a vineyard and even an ostrich farm, back in their homelands.

More than 23,000 have taken advantage of generous handouts worth up to £4,000 each.

The revelation reignited a row over Labour's controversial policy of "bribing" bogus refugees to leave the country.

Critics said the Government had created a climate where a false claimant could not lose.

They also warned it could encourage more people to head to Britain to lodge a claim.

Details emerged for the first time of how the failed asylum seekers - who could have been forcibly deported - are spending their support package.

One man, a 35-year-old Iranian, opened an ostrich farm after spending four years in the UK.

The vineyard, near Tirana, was opened by an Albanian man who produces organic grapes and raki, a local spirit.

The beauty salon in the Zimbabwean capital of Harare was opened by a woman who went home last year after six years in Britain.

Other businesses that have benefited include a fishing firm in Angola, a ferry in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a dress shop in Sudan, a car dealership in Kenya, a laundry in Afghanistan, a shoe shop in China, a hotel in Nepal, a garment factory in Sri Lanka, an internet cafe in Ecuador and a market stall in Jamaica.

The payouts are worth up to £1,000 in cash at the airport, followed by £3,000 in support to open a business.

Other perks available, provided the £4,000 is not exceeded, include private schooling for the failed asylum seeker's children.

The Home Office pays around two thirds of the bill, with the remainder coming from the EU - itself funded by the taxpayer.

Shadow home secretary David Davis said: "The price of the Government's failure to secure our borders is all too clear.

"Given their inability to deport illegal immigrants, they have had to resort to bribing them - with the taxpayer picking up the bill."

Sir Andrew Green, chairman of Migrationwatch UK, said failed asylum seekers were being given a "no loss" option.

He added: "Either they succeed with their claim and are given a meal ticket for life, or they fail and return home much the wealthier. The sum of £4,000 is a fortune in most source countries."

Matthew Elliott, chief executive of the TaxPayers' Alliance, said: "Giving failed asylum seekers business grants smacks of rewarding criminality and will act as a honey trap for even more illegal migrants".

The Voluntary Assisted Return Programme has cost £36million since its launch in 1999. The budget for next year is £22million.

The Home Office says the policy is cheaper than forcibly deporting failed refugees - a process which costs £11,000 each.

But opponents say it is evidence of desperation in the Government's attempt to clear a growing backlog.

Throughout 2006, officials managed to deport only 18,280 failed asylum seekers, while 20,700 were added to the list awaiting deportation.

The Treasury has instructed the Home Office to significantly increase the number of bogus refugees dealt with each year.

Sex slaves smuggled into Britain are to share millions in compensation for their 'pain and trauma'.

The Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority has agreed to hand over £140,000 to the first four cases to come before it.

The women had suffered a "sustained period of sexual abuse" after being trafficked into the UK by a syndicate of British criminals.

A further 10,000 are estimated to be eligible under a new interpretation of guidelines by the CICA, a Government agency.

Of the first four, one girl was brought into the UK five years ago at the age of 13.

Another was trafficked in 2003 when she was 16.

The decision will re-open controversy over the way victims of sex trafficking should be treated. Ministers recognise the danger that offering them help - including compensation - could encourage illegal immigration.

[Ivor Biggun]

And people ask me why I hated living in UK.

[Silent Orchestra]

This week's festive edition of You Couldn't Make It Up comes from an ostrich farm in Iran and is brought to you as part of a £36 million sponsorship deal with the Government.

That's how much ministers have spent so far bribing illegal immigrants to go home.

Failed asylum seekers are being given grants of £4,000 each to help them set up businesses in their country of origin.

As well as the aforementioned Iranian ostrich farm, British taxpayers are also bankrolling a beauty salon in Zimbabwe, a car dealership in Kenya, an Islamic dress shop in Sudan, a ferry in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a hotel in Nepal, a shoe factory in China, a market stall in Jamaica and an internet cafÈ in Ecuador.



Oh, I nearly forgot the fish farm in Angola and the Albanian vineyard.

A Sunday newspaper reporter turned up at the Home Office-funded International Organisation of Migration posing as a bogus refugee from India.

He said had been living here illegally for 11 years and had most recently been making a living selling drugs.
He told his case officer that he wanted to return to India to open a travel agency to help more illegal immigrants come to Britain.

Despite his admission of criminality and the dubious nature of his alleged enterprise - which would actually make illegal immigration worse - the official drew him up a business plan and promised him a grant of £4,000, enough for an airline ticket, rent, a car, office equipment and three months' money for two members of staff.

So far, more than 23,000 people have taken advantage of this ludicrous scheme.

Why wouldn't they, especially when there's nothing to stop them returning to Britain when the money runs out?

With warped logic, the Home Office tries to justify this lunacy by claiming it works out cheaper than forced deportation, which costs £11,000 a head.

Where do they get that figure from? How much can a pair of handcuffs and a one-way goat class ticket cost?
One lucky recipient of the Government's largesse is a 31-year-old Kosovan, Valent Xhigolli, who was smuggled here from Albania.

After being turned down for asylum, he shacked up in a bedsit in Wembley, living on benefits.

Mr Xhigolli is now the proud owner of a car workshop in Kosovo, courtesy of the mug British taxpayer. He arrived in the back of a lorry and left on a gravy train.

Then there's the 30-year-old Armenian, who came here illegally, but after three years decided he was homesick. "I realised that London was not for me. I felt like an alien," he grumbled.

You and me both, pal. The difference is that if I applied for a government grant to go and open a beach bar in Barbados, I'd be told to take a running jump.

We bought him a farm. There couldn't be a more graphic illustration of the extent to which those in charge of what passes for our immigration system have lost all touch with reality.

They don't have the faintest idea how many people are living here illegally, who or where they are.

But they are willing to write out a blank cheque to encourage them to go home.

The scheme is being advertised in foreign language newspapers.

There's nothing to prevent anyone turning up on a day trip to London, claiming to have been here for years and volunteering to go home in exchange for a grant to open a tattoo parlour in Tirana.

It defies belief, even in the Looking Glass world of New Labour.

How many British citizens could use a nice little start-up grant to escape their mundane jobs and set themselves up in business?

While NHS patients are being denied life- saving drugs on the grounds they're too expensive, the Government is playing Father Christmas, throwing money at hairdressing salons in Harare.

A few years ago, after the Afghan airliner hijack at Stansted, I invented a game show called ASYLUM! in which contestants from all over the world merely had to set foot in Britain to be showered with benefits, free homes and cars.

It took on a life of its own and ended up doing the rounds on the internet. A columnist on another newspaper actually downloaded it and passed it off as all her own work.

But despite my fertile imagination, I never thought that the Government would start shovelling four grand in the direction of bogus refugees to help them open ostrich farms and internet cafes in their homelands. Even I couldn't make that up.

[November Rain]

£4,000 in one-off payments as opposed to how much in housing benefits, healthcare, legal aid to fight their cases, & other benefits?

[Loombucket]

Ministers recognise the danger that offering them help - including compensation - could encourage illegal immigration

Now that is the one statement that I do not believe. Why was I born in England? I could be making a bladdy fortune!!!

I am just waiting for the announcement, from 'our men in suits' that the hard drive with all the governments names and addresses, telephone numbers and bank details have been lost from an IT company in Latvia.

To quote from one of my heros - Douglas Adams - "It is a well known and sadly lamented fact that people who are able to put themselves in a position of power are ipso facto, those least suited to do it".

[Hootad Binky]

Bizarrely, it's probably cheaper this way. Just rack it up to "foreign aid."

[smeden]

people who smugle girls to western europa and force them into prostitusion should be hunted down by police there are plenty girls who come by them selv