The gift that keeps on giving

The UK defence forces face £34 billion in cuts, the state itself is snipping back in various areas (the wrong ones to be sure but still snipping) and yet still the lunatics in charge of the Ministry of Defence manage to give away £1.7 million to Uganda in the way of a gift of helmets and body armour.
Express.

DEFENCE chiefs squandered nearly £1.7million of taxpayers’ cash on helmets and body armour for the Ugandan army last year.

The equipment was handed to the African nation as a “gift”, the Ministry of Defence’s annual accounts showed yesterday.

Rank and file military personnel, many of whom face redundancy as a result of £34billion of defence cuts, will be outraged that equipment is being given away to foreign armies.

It follows complaints that the lives of British service personnel have been put at risk by a failure to deliver body armour, helicopters and other equipment in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

Other financial losses range from £5.4billion for scrapping aircraft to £2.4million for repairs after the nuclear submarine HMS Acute ran aground in a training exercise.

Another £1.7million was lost in a bizarre legal row over supply of furniture.

Yes I know that £1.7 million is just a drop in the ocean, but these days it could be the difference between some squaddie having decent gear without having to buy his own. Personally I think I could have made wholesale cuts to the nations budget, yet actually increased the money going to frontline services. Course that would mean leaving the EU, scrapping the foreign aid budget, placing a cap on council executive salaries, scrapping 90% of quango's. refusing funding for translation services, scrapping the HRA and removing foreign criminals and illegal immigrants, placing all minimum wage jobs for UK residents only and scrapping benefits for any other than mums, sick/disabled and pensioners who refuse to take them.
And that would just be in my first week as I don't believe in pushing too hard, following week I'd be taking a chainsaw to the civil service upper management (probably figuratively)
That's always been the problem with public services, they don't see what they do as being with our money, they don't have to balance budgets as there's always next year and the magic taxpayer money tree.
This needs to change.