Blair’s company ‘to earn 27m pounds for advising Kuwait on how to govern itself’

LONDON - Former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair’s company is apparently set to make 27 million pounds for advising the oil-rich Kuwaiti government on how to govern itself.

Blair’s spokesman dismissed the claims as exaggerated but said a team from Tony Blair Associates will be working with the Kuwaitis for ’several years’.

The first client of Tony Blair Associates, the London-based firm set up in 2009 to recommend “political and economic trends and governmental reform”, was Kuwait.

The firm was contracted to produce “Kuwait Vision 2035″, a report into the kingdom’s political and economic future which was delivered earlier this year.

A government source in Kuwait said “at the moment they have gone over the 12million dinar mark” for “on-going consultancy work related to the report”.

“Mr Blair got the work because of his high international profile and vast experience of government,” the Daily Mail quoted the source as saying.

“The fact that he helped defeat Saddam Hussein’s Iraq didn’t harm his bid either.

“He is regularly over here nowadays, as are his staff. In turn his Kuwaiti trainees have been invited to London. They will be shown around Whitehall and pick up tips learnt from Mr Blair’s time running the UK,” the source added.

However, a spokesman for Blair dismissed the fees claims, saying: “The fees are nowhere remotely near that sum and they were in respect of a full-time team of people hired for the project over several years.

“The work done is all a matter of public record and has been reported extensively in Kuwait and elsewhere.” (ANI)