Tony Blair appears to have given up applying for government funding for his charities because he admits it is seen as “taking money off British taxpayers”.
Mr Blair said he was put off seeking money for his organisations because of the publicity generated by previous bids. In an interview he said: “It’s just not worth the hassle.”
His admission comes after the Tony Blair Africa Governance Initiative’s (AGI) attempts to secure public funding from the Department for International Development (DfID) were revealed by The Telegraph.
In two separate applications, AGI asked to become a contractor for DfiD and also applied for a grant from a £40 million fund to fight poverty, but both were turned down.
In an interview with the New York Times Mr Blair said: “When we even thought of making an application, there was some big story about how I was about to take money off the British taxpayer. It’s just not worth the hassle.”
Documents obtained under freedom of information laws showed how Mr Blair entered into personal correspondence with Andrew Mitchell, who was International Development Secretary at the time, before the bids were submitted in 2011.
Mr Mitchell has since been replaced by Justine Greening, who is said to have been less friendly to Mr Blair’s approaches.
Mr Blair has been more successful in attempts to secure funding from the US Government. In March the Telegraph disclosed how AGI had won a £3.3 million contract to play a key role in Barack Obama’s flagship African aid programme, Power Africa.
The money represented more than AGI’s combined total income in 2012, the most recent set of accounts available.
The awarding of the contract followed a sustained lobbying campaign by Mr Blair’s aides, which began at least seven months before formal bids for the contract were opened last November.
Mr Blair has spent the seven years since he left Downing Street building a global network of business and charity ventures. Clients of his commercial consultancy firm have included the governments of Kazakhstan, Kuwait and Colombia.
However last month Mr Blair, who has built a global network of business and charity ventures, said reports of his wealth had been “greatly exaggerated”, insisting that he is worth less than £20 million.
In the interview on Wednesday with the New York Times he added: “This notion that I’m about to join the rich list or something is just ridiculous, and I’ve got no desire to do that. It’s not why I’m doing it.”
