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ACTIVISTS: Dawn Butler, far left, with campaigners

THE GOVERNMENT is coming under growing pressure to convince Barclays bank to reverse its decision to close the accounts of 250 UK money-transfer companies which allow people to send remittances to support families in various countries across the world, including Somalia, Pakistan, Ghana, Ethiopia and Poland.

More than $3.2bn of remittance a year is sent from the UK, and remittance amounts to some $530bn worldwide, which is more than the total global international development budget. This basically means that the diaspora of all nationalities are helping themselves and not relying on aid. People have come to the UK to make a better life for themselves but are also helping families back home, its vital support.

Barclays and the Government are being urged to find a solution which does not lead to the closure of this vital industry. Around 20 businesses in Harlesden alone could face closure and many of the Somali diaspora in Brent are worried that their families will no longer be able to afford an education and more worryingly not have enough to eat or drink. It is shocking that local papers are not covering this issue and the national papers are not covering it to the degree one would expect from such a catastrophe, is it because of the area it affects? If there was a war in those countries it would make the front page, yet instead of helping to prevent unrest but ensuring remittances continue many are burying their head in the sand.

Somalia presents a unique problem: it does not have a banking sector. That means not only will Somalia be affected when remittance flows stop, humanitarian aid organisations such as Oxfam will lose the ability to send money to the region. Some 40% of people in Somalia who depend on remittance would be affected by that decision.

Simply put there is no other legal way of sending money to Somalia. If these firms are closed, people will have to carry money from airport to airport, and all that’s achieved is that everyone will end up a criminal we cannot and we should not risk criminalising people who are simply trying to support their families”.

A number of countries have been making diplomatic representations. British-Somali Olympic and world champion runner Mohamed Farah wrote to Prime Minister David Cameroun and added his name to a petition calling on the bank to extend its deadline of August 12, asking his 800,000 Twitter followers to do the same. This among other campaigns was successful in convincing Barclays to extend the deadline by four weeks, but what happens then? The cynic in me thinks that it has been extended just so that Cameron and Clegg can make the announcement when Parliament returns.
Rushanara Ali MP has said: "Countries across Africa and Asia will be badly affected and none more so than Somalia... this decision will cost lives, quite apart from potentially triggering a new crisis in the region... shutting this vital lifeline risks giving people no other choice but to send money through dangerous and alternative methods out of desperation.

Oxfam UK is pressing the UK government to act pointing out that the impact of the decision will be felt by ordinary people, families and communities, and that aid agencies and charities will be left to plug the gap. It said if the bank wasn't prepared to find a solution then the government should.

They must find a way round this and quickly so what’s the solution? Long term countries will aim to develop their own regulated banking system, and maybe the expansion of mobile phone banking system will be the solution but all that is a long way off, therefore in the interim surely Cameron and Clegg’s Government can call on Lloyds, of which we the public own 39 per cent, and RBS, of which we own 81 per cent, to provide strictly regulated accounts for the remittances businesses.

Dawn Butler is a former Minister for Young Citizens and Youth Engagement