Wasted, the millions Britain has poured into aid for Congo: Damning report reveals EU projects have failed to deliver any results UK gave the the civil-war ridden country £240m between 2003 and 2011 Report assessed aid programmes which received £1.6billion Brussels criticised for bureaucratic mistakes One thousand police officers training in 2005 vanished without a trace Sixteen development projects focused on boosting peace and justice Hundreds of millions of pounds of British aid money poured into a corrupt and conflict-ravaged African country have been wasted, a damning official report reveals. More than half of European Union projects aimed at bringing stability to the Democratic Republic of Congo have failed to deliver any results, spending watchdogs say. Auditors issued the scathing findings after assessing aid programmes which received £1.6billion funding from the EU between 2003 and 2011. During that period the UK gave the DR Congo - a vast mineral-rich nation plagued by poverty and civil war - around £240million through the EU. But more than half the European aid has effectively been poured down the drain. In one instance, bureaucrats in Brussels were criticised after it emerged that 1,000 police officers trained in 2005 had "vanished without trace" by last year. For decades the authorities in the capital Kinshasa have struggled to tackle rebels intent on seizing power. The 16 development projects focused on boosting peace, security and justice, good governance, health and education. But the European Court of Auditors found that progress was "slow, uneven and limited." The auditors said: "Fewer than half of the programmes examined have delivered, or are likely to deliver, most of the expected results. Sustainability is an unrealistic prospect in most cases. The report concluded the EU needed to "improve significantly its aid effectiveness" in DR Congo. The auditors urged the European Commission to tighten up monitoring of such programmes to ensure money was not misspent. And they noted that fraud and corruption remained big problems in the troubled nation. The report found that despite the DR Congo being one of the world's poorest countries, MPs" salaries were increased ten-fold from just over £800 in 2003 to £8,000 last year, although this rise did not come from EU funds. Marta Andreasen, a Tory MEP and former EC chief accountant, said: "This is the same old story. The commission is not ensuring that taxpayers" money is being spent properly. The question has to be asked: When will the European Commission wake up and treat the money that is entrusted to them with respect? Britain's Department for International Development (DfID) said: "The EU needs to raise its game. That's why we are calling on EU institutions, MEPs and other member states to improve performance and results. EU development commissioner Andris Piebalgs said it was premature to judge projects which had not been completed. In the last elections in DR Congo in 2011, president Joseph Kabila faced allegations of vote-rigging. He has also been accused of cracking down on opponents. The new revelations highlight the controversy of hard-pressed British taxpayers being asked to fund spurious aid projects. The EU has been criticised by auditors for failing to measure the impact of the handouts, with much of the money lining the pockets of corrupt regimes. The Government has carried out a review of how aid money is spent. But ministers have insisted on increasing the DfID's budget at a time of austerity at home. In August the Daily Mail revealed that oil-rich Nigeria was spending millions to put a man into space - as Britain handed it more than £1billion in aid. And in 2011 it emerged that British aid money was used by Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni to buy a £30million private jet.