On Sunday, the Independent reported that each UK citizen had accumulated a debt of 3,400 pounds ($4,976) due to the PFI program, which allowed the UK government to borrow money from private companies and banks to pay for public infrastructure including schools and hospitals and to pay those loans back with high interest.
PFI gives private companies the opportunity to get huge profits by investing in the country’s public infrastructure, but that debt becomes a heavy public burden due to high interest.
The PFI program, established by the Conservative government of John Major in 1992, was used in a small scale, but was significantly expanded by subsequent Labour governments in 1997-2010. Though PFI was created by Conservatives, the Labour took it to a higher level.
Despite the fact that in 2012 the Conservatives introduced a new program called Private Finance 2 (PF2), to be more transparent and efficient, in 2014 the British government's debt to banks and private companies grew to 5 billion pounds, reaching a total of 222 billion pounds. According to the most optimistic forecasts, the debt could reach 310 billion pounds by the year of 2050, the Independent reported.
