Good People, When a problem of multitude involving "Land Grabbing" is looming about to endanger life it is fundamentally right for people to stand up and demand that problem be fixed. In a haste, leaders must be taken to tax and they must take full responsibilities and immediately accept to engage people to help in finding ways and means for resolution and recovery. Good people must unite to get to the bottom and root-cause of the problem for any reasonable good results. Those who are found to have participated and stolen public wealth and resources must be made to pay back. We must never ran away from the problem leaving only a few people who most likely were the reason for the problem to fix the problem will never work. Africa has the resource needed to feed the world's economic engine, a driver needed for progressive development. Africa is where the Emerging Economy all eyes in the Global Economic success depend on, but without Africa being put on a secured plan where the Chinese and the BRICS will not find room to mess Africa in a worse-case-scenario than what Africa has been exposed to ..... and where we all shall regret finding ourselves in deeper troubles to a point of no return. Wake up good people so we all can unite to work with Africa to our mutual advantage secured under fair and balanced Partnership Development where all shall benefit equitably. Again I say, Wake-Up !!! Judy Miriga Diaspora Spokesperson Executive Director Confederation Council Foundation for Africa Inc., USA http://socioeconomicforum50.blogspot.com How to Rob Africa -People Power- Al Jazeera English Published on Nov 8, 2012 A film by Stanley Kwenda, Clive Patterson and Anas Aremeyaw Anas The world's wealthy countries often criticise African nations for corruption - especially that perpetrated by those among the continent's government and business leaders who abuse their positions by looting tens of billions of dollars in national assets or the profits from state-owned enterprises that could otherwise be used to relieve the plight of some of the world's poorest peoples. Yet the West is culpable too in that it often looks the other way when that same dirty money is channelled into bank accounts in Europe and the US. International money laundering regulations are supposed to stop the proceeds of corruption being moved around the world in this way, but it seems the developed world's financial system is far more tempted by the prospect of large cash injections than it should be. Indeed the West even provides the getaway vehicles for this theft, in the shape of anonymous off-shore companies and investment entities, whose disguised ownership makes it too easy for the corrupt and dishonest to squirrel away stolen funds in bank accounts overseas. This makes them nigh on impossible for investigators to trace, let alone recover. It is something that has long bothered Zimbabwean journalist Stanley Kwenda - who cites the troubling case of the Marange diamond fields in the east of his country. A few years ago rich deposits were discovered there which held out the promise of billions of dollars of revenue that could have filled the public purse and from there have been spent on much needed improvements to roads, schools and hospitals. The surrounding region is one of the most impoverished in the country, desperate for the development that the profits from mining could bring. But as Kwenda found out from local community leader Malvern Mudiwa, this much anticipated bounty never appeared. "When these diamonds came, they came as a God-given gift. So we thought now we are going to benefit from jobs, infrastructure, we thought maybe our roads were going to improve, so that generations and generations will benefit from this, not one individual. But what is happening, honestly, honestly it's a shame!" What is happening is actually something of a mystery because though the mines are clearly in operation and producing billions of dollars worth of gems every year, little if any of it has ever been put into Zimbabwe's state coffers. Local and international non-governmental organisations say they believe this is because the money is actually being used to maintain President Robert Mugabe's ruling Zimbabwe African National Union - Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) in power. True or not, it is clear that the country's finance minister, Tendai Biti, has seen none of it. A representative of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, which sits in uneasy coalition with ZANU-PF, he says he has no idea where it is going. "We have got evidence of the quantities that are being mined, the quantities that are being exported but nothing is coming to the fiscus .... All I know is that it's not coming to the treasury. So that is a self-evident question. It is not coming to us. That means someone is getting it. The person who is getting it is not getting it legally. Therefore, he's a thief, therefore she's a thief." Sadly, as Stanley Kwenda has realised, it is typical of a problem found all over Africa. The continent is rich is natural resources that are being exploited for big profits, but the money is rarely used for the benefit of the people. Instead it goes to line the pockets of corrupt officials who then often smuggle it out to be deposited in secret offshore bank accounts in the developed world. So who facilitates these transactions? And how and why does the developed world make it so easy to launder this dirty cash? In this revealing investigation for People & Power, Kwenda and the Ghanaian undercover journalist Anas Aremeyaw Anas, set off to find out. Posing as a corrupt Zimbabwean official and his lawyer, their probe takes them deep into the murky world of 'corporate service providers' - experts in the formation of company structures that allow the corrupt to circumvent lax international money laundering rules. It just so happens that the pair's enquiries take place in the Seychelles but, as they discover to their horror, they could just as easily be in any one of a number of offshore locations (or even in the major cities of Europe and the US) where anonymous companies can be set up for the express purpose of secretly moving money and keeping its origins hidden from prying eyes. Investors deny Africa land grab claims Published on Jul 12, 2012 http://www.youtube.com/WorldNewsPoint "Blood diamonds" Published on Jul 17, 2012 The Kimberley Process, set up under the auspices of the United Nations, aims to put an end to the traffic in so-called "blood diamonds" and the use of the proceeds to finance guerrilla wars. Blood Diamonds - The True Story Published on May 3, 2012 This documentary examines the little-known truth about how the worldwide diamond trade has funded wars across western and central Africa, leading to the deaths of millions of people. Update on the Kimberley Process Uploaded on Apr 28, 2011 Elly Harrowell a Campaigner for Global Witness provided an update on the Kimberley Process at Objective Capital's Precious Metals Diamonds & Gemstones Investment Summit. Final hearing of the Special Court for Sierra Leone in the war crimes trial of Charles Uploaded on Feb 2, 2009 United Nations, 2 February 2009 - Stephen Rapp, Chief Prosecutor for the Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL), has heard on 30 January at The Hague the 91st and final prosecution witness in the war crimes trial of former Liberian president Charles Taylor. The Special Court for Sierra Leone was set up jointly by the Government of Sierra Leone and the United Nations. It is mandated to try those who bear the greatest responsibility for serious violations of international humanitarian law and Sierra Leonean law committed in the territory of Sierra Leone since 30 November 1996. Blood Diamonds - Sierra Leone Uploaded on Jan 31, 2008 February 2006 The Truth Behind Africa's Conflict Diamonds Uploaded on Nov 24, 2008 This video was prepared for the WRIT 340 class at the University of Southern California. It is for educational purposes only and is covered by the Fair Use doctrine. "Plundering of Africa Through Secret Mining Deals," Kofi AnnanMay 10, 2013 By Leave a Comment  Mr. Kofi Annan, former UN Secretary-General and Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, former Nigerian President Tax avoidance, secret mining deals and financial transfers are depriving Africa of the benefits of its resources boom, ex-UN chief Kofi Annan has said. Firms that shift profits to lower tax jurisdictions cost Africa $38bn (£25bn) a year, says a report produced by a panel he heads. "Africa loses twice as much money through these loopholes as it gets from donors," Mr Annan said. It was like taking food off the tables of the poor, he said. The Africa Progress Report is released every May – produced by a panel of 10 prominent figures, including former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo and Graca Machel, the wife of South African ex-President Nelson Mandela. 'Highly opaque' African countries needed to improve governance and the world's richest nations should help introduce global rules on transparency and taxation, Mr Annan said. The report gave the Democratic Republic of Congo as an example, where between 2010 and 2012 five under-priced mining concessions were sold in "highly opaque and secretive deals". This cost the country, which the charity Save the Children said earlier this week was the world's worst place to be a mother, $1.3bn in revenues. This figure was equivalent to double DR Congo's health and education budgets combined, the report said. DR Congo's mining minister disputed the findings, saying the country had "lost nothing". "These assets were ceded in total transparency," Martin Kabwelulu told Reuters news agency. The report added that many mineral-rich countries needed "urgently to review the design of their tax regimes", which were designed to attract foreign investment when commodity prices were low. It quotes a review in Zambia which found that between 2005 and 2009, 500,000 copper mine workers were paying a higher rate of tax than major multinational mining firms. Africa loses more through what it calls "illicit outflows" than it gets in aid and foreign direct investment, it explains. "We (Africans) are not getting the revenues we deserve often because of either corrupt practices, transfer pricing, tax evasion and all sorts of activities that deprive us of our due," Mr Annan said. "Transparency is a powerful tool," he said, adding that the report was urging African leaders to put "accountability centre stage". Mr Annan said African governments needed to insist that local companies became involved in mining deals and manage them in "such a way that it also creates employment". "This Africa cannot do alone. The tax evasion, avoidance, secret bank accounts are problems for the world… so we all need to work together particularly the G8, as they meet next month, to work to ensure we have a multilateral solution to this crisis," he said. For richer nations "if a company avoids tax or transfers the money to offshore account what they lose is revenues", Mr Annan said. "Here on our continent, it affects the life of women and children – in effect in some situations it is like taking food off the table for the poor." Source: BBC By Pascal Fletcher
JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Africa's economic development is being held back by a "hemorrhage" of illicit financial flows, which may be getting worse, the African Development Bank said on Friday, calling for reforms to stem the losses. A draft report to be presented at the AfDB's annual meeting in Morocco later this month shows net resource outflows from Africa totalling up to $1.4 trillion over the 30-year period to 2009, far exceeding inflows to the continent. Illicit financial flows were "the main driving force" behind $1.2-1.3 trillion of the three-decade net drain, it said. This is about four times Africa's current external debt and almost equivalent to its current GDP. "The trend is continuing, it could even be increasing," AfDB Chief Economist Mthuli Ncube said in a phone interview. Figures for the period since 2009 were not yet fully available. "We need to block the leakage ... It is holding back Africa's lift-off," he added. The report, by the AfDB and the Washington-based advocacy group Global Financial Integrity and made available to Reuters, called for anti-corruption agencies and laws, and mechanisms to combat money-laundering, to be reinforced and for government budget processes to be made more transparent. The illicit outflows between 1980 and 2009 were often linked to the extraction of oil and minerals and covered criminal activities like money-laundering, tax evasion and transfers from corruption, kickbacks and contraband, the report said. But they also included what the report called "mispricing of trade" - for example, opaque business deals negotiated with local authorities which flout or ignore existing legislation. The study on illicit transfers comes as the world's least developed continent experiences an economic growth surge, outpacing global averages. The World Bank and IMF see Sub-Saharan Africa's GDP accelerating to over 5 percent in coming years, driven by investment and high commodity prices. "This is the poorest region in the world and that is why we are shining a torch on this ... Africa needs these resources more than any other region," Ncube said, adding, "There is a lot to lose if nothing is done." Global Witness welcomes Kofi Annan's call for financial transparency in African resource deals9th May 2013 Campaign group Global Witness has backed a call by prominent figures including Kofi Annan, Bob Geldof and Graca Machel for Africa's natural resource wealth to be used for the benefit of its people. This year's report from the Africa Progress Panel, Equity in Extractives, [1] calls for:
Global Witness[2] endorses these recommendations as essential to lifting the veil of secrecy that facilitates corruption, state looting and worse. A Global Witness briefing published today highlights how hidden company ownership, for example, is a major barrier in the fight against poverty.[3] Global Witness campaigner Rosie Sharpe, said: "It is hugely significant that such a prominent and respected figure as Kofi Annan has come out publicly to criticise the lack of transparency in natural resource deals and highlight the importance of increased financial transparency and better governance for African development. What's needed is for the names of the real, 'beneficial' owners of companies and trusts to be put in the public domain." David Cameron has made company ownership transparency a priority for the UK's G8 presidency. Last month he wrote to European leaders to call on the EU and G8 to 'break through the walls of corporate secrecy'. The Africa Progress Panel highlights the cases of the Democratic Republic of Congo and Guinea to show what can go wrong with natural resource deals. It reveals that Congo lost at least $1.36 billion from the under-priced sales of mining assets between 2010 and 2012, in deals involving companies registered in British overseas territories. This is almost twice the country's annual spending on health and education combined.[4] Three of the deals involved a FTSE 100 mining company, the Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation, which is currently the focus of a Serious Fraud Office corruption investigation. ENRC has said that it is "cooperating fully with the SFO". "The involvement of British tax havens in depriving Congo of over $1 billion in mining revenues should be a huge embarrassment to the UK government, especially as it stands to become Congo's biggest aid donor" said Daniel Balint-Kurti of Global Witness. The Panel's report strengthens the imperative for David Cameron to act on his pledge to make transparency a key issue at the G8 and follow through with a promise to publish not only the beneficial owners of British companies, but also those located in the UK's overseas territories and crown dependencies. This would go a long way to preventing the sort of deals that impoverish places like Congo and Guinea - as well as helping to prevent tax evasion, drugs and arms smuggling, and terrorist financing. / Ends Contact:
Notes to editors [1] The 2013 Africa Progress Report, "Equity in Extractives", will be launched by Kofi Annan and the Panel on 10 May 2013 at the World Economic Forum on Africa in Cape Town, South Africa. Global Witness was among several contributors to the report. For more information see www.africaprogresspanel.org or contact Amy Barry on amy@amybarry.net or +44 7980 664397. [2] Global Witness investigates and campaigns to prevent natural resource-related conflict and corruption and associated environmental and human rights abuses. For more information see www.globalwitness.org. Global Witness was instrumental in setting up the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative and has been leading campaign efforts to address the role of banks and other service providers in facilitating the sort of state looting and corruption that is highlighted by the Africa Progress Panel's report. [3] Global Witness's report 'Anonymous companies: how hidden company ownership is a major barrier in the fight against poverty and what to do about it' is available from: http://www.globalwitness.org/library/anonymous-companies-global-witness-... or can be downloaded below. [4] The Panel's report states that Congo "lost at least $1.36 billion in revenues from the under-pricing of mining assets that were sold to offshore companies" in five major mining deals. The figure of $1.36 billion lost to Congo is based on the price at which assets were sold to offshore companies compared to the price at which the offshore companies sold on (or "flipped") those assets to multinationals, or where this data is unavailable against the average of commercial valuations for the assets. The sources of all information are fully referenced in the Panel's report. As set out in footnote 105 of the Panel's report (p. 112), Congo spent $185 million on health in 2012 and $513 million on education. Conflict DiamondsOn 5th December 2011 Global Witness announced its departure from the Kimberley Process, the international certification scheme established to stop the trade in blood diamonds. The Kimberley Process's refusal to evolve and address the clear links between diamonds, violence and tyranny has rendered it increasingly outdated. Global Witness was among the first organisations to bring the world's attention to the problem of conflict diamonds. Our report, A Rough Trade, released in 1998, exposed the role of diamonds in funding the civil war in Angola. This thrust the secretive practices of the global diamond industry into the spotlight for the first time. Growing international pressure from Global Witness and other organisations played a crucial role in forcing governments and the diamond industry take action to eliminate conflict diamonds from the international trade. Our 2010 report, Return of the Blood Diamond, takes a detailed look at how Zimbabwe's Zanu PF political and military elite are seeking to capture the country's diamond wealth through a combination of state-sponsored violence and the legally questionable introduction of opaque join-venture companies. Global Witness was co-nominated for the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize for its work combating conflict diamonds. What are conflict diamonds? Conflict diamonds – also known as blood diamonds – are diamonds that are used to fuel violent conflict and human rights abuses. They have funded brutal wars in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Angola, Democratic Republic of Congo and Côte d'Ivoire that have resulted in the death and displacement of millions of people. Diamonds have also been used by terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda to finance their activities and for money-laundering purposes. Following several years of campaigning, and negotiations between diamond producing and trading countries, industry and civil society, the international diamond certification scheme known as the Kimberley Process was established in 2003. Nearly ten years on, and despite intensive efforts by a coalition of NGOs including Global Witness, the scheme's major flaws and loopholes have not been addressed and most of the governments that run the scheme continue to show no interest in reform. Read a message about why Global Witness decided to leave the Kimberley Process from Founding Director Charmian Gooch. The Kimberley Process 10 years on
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