The real scandal of PFI (Private Finance Initiative) isn’t the lightbulbs.
It’s the massive long-term interest payments.
That’s why £60 Billion of PFI hospital investment will in the end cost the British taxpayer a criminal £250 Billion.
Under PFI schemes, private firms paid for the building of new hospitals, with trusts repaying them over 30 or more years, with massive interest payments and service charges.
While the Conservatives have been quick to slam Labour over this news, they are in reality in no position to throw stones in this particular glasshouse.
That’s because, although PFI was rolled out on a giant scale by the Blair regime, it was a stealth-privatisation scam first introduced under John Major’s Tory government in 1992.
So both main parties are to blame for this massive fraud against the public purse – as are the greedy corporations that exploited the corruption and stupidity of the Tories and Labour alike.
What’s the answer? Not bailouts or renegotiations.
Why should we renegotiate contracts that were criminal in the first place? PFI was fraudulent from start to finish.
The politicians who set up the deals should face criminal charges of malfeasance in public office. Where they ended up on the boards of companies that profited from the deals they should also face corruption charges and the seizure of assets.
The corporations that dived into the trough should also be penalised.
All PFI contracts should be ripped up, with affordable (for the taxpayer) repayment schedules being set up to return to them their genuine original investment capital (minus the rip-off charges already levied), but no payments being made for interest or other fees.
