AFRICA’S image and that of her people has often been the subject of heated debate in media circles. More often, the narrative that has shaped the image of this vast and populous continent is by others for Africans.
For long, the continent has been viewed by foreigners as a photo-opportunity to illustrate victimhood and desperation. Images of emaciated children, with pot-bellies, fending off flies from their faces and women with flat breasts due to hunger are all meant to depict the degree of helplessness that characterises the lives of the people of this continent.
The African continent in this old narrative is stark in a vicious cycle of poverty and conflict with no end in sight.
This old narrative viewed as stereotyping Africans has of late come under challenge from proponents of the new narrative who seek to give positive trends and underlying successes by Africans. Evangelists of the new narrative are usually Africans writing their own discourse for their own people.
The new narrative aims to articulate the history, vision, philosophy and aspirations of Africans, who for long, claims to have been inaccurately portrayed in the media on the global stage. By so doing, Africans define themselves as opposed to being defined by others; they shape their story contrary to having it shaped by others; and articulate their agenda to be heard on the international arena.
Proponents of the new narrative have been energised by the story of the “rising” Africa backed by Western institutions like the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which projects that growth south of the Sahara is expected to surge to 6,1 % in 2014, well ahead of the global average of 4%. As The Economist’s piece pointed out recently: “Over the past decade, six of the 10 fastest growing countries were African.” The list of some of the so-called fastest growing African economies is headed by Angola, Congo, Ethiopia, Lesotho, Malawi, Nigeria, Rwanda and Tanzania.
How far have Africans been able to articulate their narrative and how loud are their voices? To what extent is the international audience prepared to listen to this new narrative and has it changed Africa’s image? The new narrative can only hold if Africans become self-sufficient and be able to sustain themselves without depending on others for survival. Africa’s dependence on foreign aid has not helped in her quest to articulate this new narrative.
Over the past 60 years, Dambisa Moyo notes, Africa received at least US$1 trillion of development-related aid from developed countries. This figure amounts to roughly US$50 billion of international assistance being received by Africa each year. Ethiopia, which is heralded as one “rising” African state, has more than 90% of her annual budget made up of donor funding. The same also applies to Malawi whose economy is unsustainable without foreign aid yet the two countries are paraded in international media as African success stories.
Most African leaders attend to international conferences not to contribute to discussions carried out at such forums, but to beg for aid which rarely reach its recipients. Given this disturbing scenario, it therefore means the agenda pursued by most African states is dictated by foreigners (donors) since he who pays the piper calls the tune.
Africa’s voice can only be heard and listened to when she is able to stand on her own without need for support from outsiders. Since when have beggars been privileged to become choosers and to influence policy on the international arena? Dependence on foreign aid chokes Africa’s voice, thus robbing her of influence which makes her narrative weak.
The continent’s misery to an extent is self-inflicting although external forces play a part in complicating the situation. Most African governments are corrupt and the practice deprives the continent of the much-needed revenue to uplift its people’s lives.
A study by the African Development Bank (AfBD) and the Global Financial Integrity, reveals that from 1980-2009, Africa has lost US$1,2 trillion to US$1,4 trillion in illicit financial outflows, or dirty money, like corruption, tax evasion, bribes and other criminal challenges.
This figure, as Obadia Ndaba argues, is more than three times the total amount of foreign aid received in the same period. It therefore implies that Africa does not necessarily need foreign aid if she manages her resources properly. The same AfDB report says that South Africa, Africa’s largest economy, has lost US$170 billion in net resources over a period of 30 years in illicit outflows.
Nigeria, Africa’s second largest economy, is reported to have lost over US$400 billion to oil corruption alone since independence in 1960 from another report in 2012. South Africa lost US$103 million in the fiscal year 2011-2012, up from US$38,5 million in 2001-2010, according to The Real State of the Nation report by the government.
Zimbabwe’s Parliamentary Committee on Mines and Energy recently reported to parliament recently that millions of dollars in royalties paid by diamond firms in eastern Zimbabwe have disappeared.
One firm, Mbada Diamonds, which works with in partnership government, says it has paid US$293 million in taxes over four years, but Treasury is reported to have just received US$80 million in total during the 2011-2012 period, with the remainder unaccounted for.
The chairperson of the parliamentary committee, Edward Chindori-Chininga, mysteriously died in a road accident less than a week after tabling the findings of the committee in what many suspect to be elimination by those involved in the murky world of diamond dealings.
The resource drain from Africa over the past 30 years, Professor Mthuli Ncube, chief economist and vice-president of the AfDB argues, is almost equivalent to Africa’s GDP and is holding back Africa’s lift-off.
This spiral web of corruption sucks the continent’s wealth, leaving her unable to sustain the livelihood of her people, but reduces them to beggars. Once they are reduced to paupers, they are robbed of a voice and influence at home and on the international stage which in turn influences their ability to articulate their issues.
The narrative of a rising Africa might suit a clique of the African elite and Western chief executive officers, but it won’t do anything to improve the lives of ordinary Africans.
The image of an African man with a mobile phone does not in any way reflect a rising Africa at a time the continent grapples with rising unemployment, deplorable living conditions, with the majority of the population living on less than a dollar in a day.
It is a narrative peddled by the African elite and their foreign partners who benefit from the discourse at the expense of ordinary Africans.
Poor governance compound Africa’s plethora of problems. In spite of the continent’s vast economic wealth, the continent is still the poorest on the planet.
The African Progress Panel, headed by former United Nations secretary-general Kofi Annan, reveals that secret mining deals and financial transfers, corruption and weak leadership, have immensely contributed to the impoverishment of the continent. The report gave the example of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), which is estimated to possess in excess of US$24 trillion under its soil, but is reported to be the poorest country in the world according to the UN Human Development Index.
According to the same report, the DRC lost US$1,4 billion in secret deals as well as from five underpriced ventures involving top government officials in partnership with foreigners.
The report noted that “the figure was equivalent to double DRC’s health and education budgets combined”.
The African Progress Panel’s 2013 African Progress Report at the World Economic Forum on Africa in Cape Town recently concluded that Africa is losing more through illicit financial outflows than it receives in aid and foreign direct investment.
Foreigners collude with the African elite to drain the continent’s wealth taking advantage of weak and corrupt regimes through trade mispricing, misrepresentation of export and import values along other illicit outflows costing the continent US$38,4 billion and US$25 billion respectively between 2008 and 2010.
Foreign companies operating in Africa are also involved in this plunder of the continent’s resources. As noted by the report, “activities of these companies are characterised by extensive use of offshore registered and low tax jurisdictions”, and that “these arrangements come with weak public disclosure and extensive opportunities for tax evasion”.
The myth of Africa’s rise, peddled by the African elite and their foreign collaborators, comes from a straightforward interpretation of high growth rates and increased foreign investments in parts of the continent, without taking into consideration the continent’s dependence on the extractive industry as opposed to manufacturing.
In The Myth of Africa’s Rise, Rick Rowden highlights how Africa’s rising evangelists “don’t mention manufacturing, or its disturbing absence, in Africa”.
A recent UN report shows that manufacturing has stagnated across most of Africa and has even regressed in 23 African countries. As Patrick Smith, editor of Africa Confidential argues, “there is a lack of value added on the African side”.
Parselelo Kantai observes “what is happening on the continent is a new era of massive extraction, catalysed mostly by Chinese domestic demands”.
The continuous looting of Africa’s wealth by outsiders in collaboration with the African elite will continue for generations and as long as the trend is not stopped, Africa will remain poor.
Muchayi is a political analyst who can be contacted on wmuchayi@gmail.com
Source: Zimbabwe independent
Showing posts with label Nigeria. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Nigeria. Show all posts
Friday, July 5, 2013
Thursday, November 29, 2012
FirstRand to expand its asset management business division
FIRSTRAND plans to grow its asset management business as it widens revenues from business segments that require less regulatory capital.
Group CEO Sizwe Nxasana said on Thursday in an interview the asset management business already had assets under management and administration of about $100bn.
The plan was to progressively grow these assets in South Africa and sub-Saharan Africa over the next few years, Mr Nxasana said at the conclusion of FirstRand’s annual general meeting in Sandton.
The asset management business was being run through Ashburton Investments, a unit of FirstRand.
"We have about R100bn in assets under management or administration. It is a business we think there is opportunity to create more scale by leveraging on the internal skills we have," Mr Nxasana said. "We want to originate business in various asset classes such as equities, real estate and infrastructure in South Africa and Africa," he said.
Mr Nxasana would not say what the target value of assets under management was for Ashburton over the next few years. "We have a base from which to start growing the business but this is a journey rather than a process," he said.
Mr Nxasana also said FirstRand would next year prefer to concentrate on investing in the businesses it had or planned to establish outside South Africa.
"We have projects in Mozambique, Tanzania, Nigeria, Ghana, Zambia and India which gives us more than enough to focus on," he said.
Speaking at the annual meeting, FirstRand non-executive chairman Laurie Dippenaar said the group’s remuneration strategy was neither excessive nor did it reward failure.
Group executives were paid on the basis of them achieving targets such as creating shareholder value by increasing return on equity.
Mr Dippenaar said in FirstRand’s annual report released at the meeting that some global banks produced return on equity that was well below cost of capital but paid executives and staff up to 80% of the return. FirstRand’s return on equity was on the other hand about 20% and it paid out 45% of that to executives and staff.
Source: Business Day
Group CEO Sizwe Nxasana said on Thursday in an interview the asset management business already had assets under management and administration of about $100bn.
The plan was to progressively grow these assets in South Africa and sub-Saharan Africa over the next few years, Mr Nxasana said at the conclusion of FirstRand’s annual general meeting in Sandton.
The asset management business was being run through Ashburton Investments, a unit of FirstRand.
"We have about R100bn in assets under management or administration. It is a business we think there is opportunity to create more scale by leveraging on the internal skills we have," Mr Nxasana said. "We want to originate business in various asset classes such as equities, real estate and infrastructure in South Africa and Africa," he said.
Mr Nxasana would not say what the target value of assets under management was for Ashburton over the next few years. "We have a base from which to start growing the business but this is a journey rather than a process," he said.
Mr Nxasana also said FirstRand would next year prefer to concentrate on investing in the businesses it had or planned to establish outside South Africa.
"We have projects in Mozambique, Tanzania, Nigeria, Ghana, Zambia and India which gives us more than enough to focus on," he said.
Speaking at the annual meeting, FirstRand non-executive chairman Laurie Dippenaar said the group’s remuneration strategy was neither excessive nor did it reward failure.
Group executives were paid on the basis of them achieving targets such as creating shareholder value by increasing return on equity.
Mr Dippenaar said in FirstRand’s annual report released at the meeting that some global banks produced return on equity that was well below cost of capital but paid executives and staff up to 80% of the return. FirstRand’s return on equity was on the other hand about 20% and it paid out 45% of that to executives and staff.
Source: Business Day
Wednesday, September 12, 2012
What We seek to achieve
The African continent is very rich and diverse. There are abundant human and natural resources in the continent. But the continent has the worst development indices in the world: maternal mortality, infant mortality, literacy rate, HIV/AIDs prevalence, poverty rate, life expectancy etc.
More than half of the population of African people are living in abject poverty. Most countries in sub-Saharan Africa are unlikely to achieve the modest Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) adopted by world leaders at the UN Millennium Declaration in 2000. Many African countries continue to suffer food shortages. Some countries are in conflict. We have experienced democratic reversals in some countries with the military coming to power in Guinea Bissau.
All of these make the development of Africa a huge challenge. The continents efforts to grapple with the developmental challenges have been complicated by its colonial history, globalisation, leadership failures and adoption of development approaches that have been proved to be inadequate. The importance of leadership for the success of organizations and nations cannot be overemphasized. Some scholars have pointed out that everything rises and falls on leadership.
Despite this recognition, there is scarcity of leaders all over the world. There is a saying that the world is filled with followers, supervisors and managers but very few leaders. There are four kinds of people in the world: those who watch things happen; those who let things happen; those who ask what happened and those who make things happen. Leaders are those who make things happen.
A visionless, insecure and incompetent leadership is a killer of organization and nations. Similarly, strategy is very crucial to the development and performance of any organisation or nation. Strategy occupies a central position in the focus and proper functioning of any organization or nation.
This is because it is a plan that integrates an organizations or nations major goals, policies and action into a cohesive whole. A well formulated strategy should therefore help to marshal and allocate an organisations or nations resources into a unique and viable posture based on its relative internal competencies and shortcomings, anticipated changes in the environment, and contingent moves by others. Strategies help to create a sense of politics, purpose and priorities.
A dynamic and visionary leadership combined with appropriate strategy process will produce a correct development approach that will lead to the prosperity and development of Africa.
The African Centre for Leadership Strategy and Development is poised to contributing to the transformation of Africa through building dynamic and visionary leadership and proposing appropriate strategies and development approaches.
The major focus of work will run from Nigeria partnering with organisations across Africa.
Source: African Centre for Leadership Strategy and Development
More than half of the population of African people are living in abject poverty. Most countries in sub-Saharan Africa are unlikely to achieve the modest Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) adopted by world leaders at the UN Millennium Declaration in 2000. Many African countries continue to suffer food shortages. Some countries are in conflict. We have experienced democratic reversals in some countries with the military coming to power in Guinea Bissau.
All of these make the development of Africa a huge challenge. The continents efforts to grapple with the developmental challenges have been complicated by its colonial history, globalisation, leadership failures and adoption of development approaches that have been proved to be inadequate. The importance of leadership for the success of organizations and nations cannot be overemphasized. Some scholars have pointed out that everything rises and falls on leadership.
Despite this recognition, there is scarcity of leaders all over the world. There is a saying that the world is filled with followers, supervisors and managers but very few leaders. There are four kinds of people in the world: those who watch things happen; those who let things happen; those who ask what happened and those who make things happen. Leaders are those who make things happen.
A visionless, insecure and incompetent leadership is a killer of organization and nations. Similarly, strategy is very crucial to the development and performance of any organisation or nation. Strategy occupies a central position in the focus and proper functioning of any organization or nation.
This is because it is a plan that integrates an organizations or nations major goals, policies and action into a cohesive whole. A well formulated strategy should therefore help to marshal and allocate an organisations or nations resources into a unique and viable posture based on its relative internal competencies and shortcomings, anticipated changes in the environment, and contingent moves by others. Strategies help to create a sense of politics, purpose and priorities.
A dynamic and visionary leadership combined with appropriate strategy process will produce a correct development approach that will lead to the prosperity and development of Africa.
The African Centre for Leadership Strategy and Development is poised to contributing to the transformation of Africa through building dynamic and visionary leadership and proposing appropriate strategies and development approaches.
The major focus of work will run from Nigeria partnering with organisations across Africa.
Source: African Centre for Leadership Strategy and Development
Saturday, June 16, 2012
US expands covert military surveillance in Africa
The Obama administration is expanding its intelligence operations in sub-Saharan Africa, according to a lengthy report in the Washington Post. The increased surveillance is part of rapidly expanding military operations in Africa that are being carried out under the pretext of the “war on terror,” but are directed in large part at countering rising Chinese economic connections on the resource-rich continent.
The focus of the Post’s report was on aerial surveillance programs used to gather intelligence on local militant groups. The vast majority of these operations are being run by private companies, which are responsible for supplying pilots, sensor operators, intelligence analysts, mechanics, and linguists.
According to the report, about a dozen airbases have been developed in Africa since 2007. These bases are generally small additions to existing airfields in various African countries and are used to run small aircraft, disguised as private planes, and equipped with discreet surveillance equipment. Permission for these operations is usually granted by the local government in exchange for the US sharing the intelligence it gathers.
The program targets a wide variety of different groups on the pretext of combating terrorism. These include the loose affiliation of Tuareg secessionists and Islamists in Northern Mali, the Lord’s Resistance Army in Central Africa, and al-Shabab in Southern Somalia. Although humanitarian concerns and the threat of global terrorism are being used to justify these operations, they in reality comprise part of a new Scramble for Africa, as the US and Europe compete over the area’s natural resources and seek to minimize Chinese influence.
In particular, the Post report cited two targets of growing interest on the part of the US military: Boko Haram in Nigeria, and the Lord’s Resistance Army’s operations in Sudan and South Sudan. In the case of Nigeria, which provides over 8 percent of the United States’ crude oil, the economic motivation for “anti-terrorism” is particularly clear.
Since the very beginning of AFRICOM’s operations, the US has been preparing plans for possible military intervention in Nigeria. In 2008, the US Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania conducted a series of “wargame scenarios” concerning possible interventions for AFRICOM, and estimated that it would take 20,000 troops to control the Niger Delta oilfields. At a February 18, 2008 AFRICOM conference, Vice Admiral Robert T. Moeller stated that the guiding principle of AFRICOM was to protect “the free flow of natural resources from Africa to the global market.”
Only a month later, the first commander of AFRICOM, General William Ward, declared that due to the US’s increasing reliance on African oil, the “number one theater-wide goal” would be combating terrorism. Although the US did not intervene militarily, the political significance of AFRICOM’s preparations could be seen when millions of Nigerian workers participated in a general strike against president Goodluck Jonathan’s end to fuel subsidies. Jonathan used a series of bombings claimed by Boko Haram to institute martial law and suppress the growing strike movement.
In the case of the Lord’s Resistance Army, the argument for “humanitarian intervention” is used to provide a similar cover for economic aims. According to The Post, AFRICOM is seeking a base in South Sudan that would both support the hunt for the LRA’s leader Kony and allow the US greater influence in the growing conflict between Sudan and South Sudan.
At the center of the Sudanese conflict are disagreements over oil revenues. Since South Sudan gained independence in 2011 it has been in continuous conflict with Sudan over control of oil fields in the border region and the fees to be paid to Sudan, whose pipelines are the only conduit available to export its oil. In April, while Sudan and South Sudan were engaged in regular border skirmishes, South Sudanese president, Salva Kiir, traveled to China in an attempt to gather support for construction of an alternate pipeline through Kenya.
China is a major investor in both Sudanese and South Sudanese oil infrastructure. Through an increased military presence, the US government hopes to offset Chinese economic influence. Last year in her tour of Africa, US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, said, “We don’t want to see a new colonialism in Africa,” in reference to Chinese influence on the continent.
Ultimately the aerial surveillance programs will be used to lay the groundwork for future military intervention. Last October, Obama deployed 100 military advisors to central Africa in order to work toward “the removal of Joseph Kony.” In Somalia, drones and special forces strikes are also being used to the same bloody effect as in Pakistan, Yemen, and Afghanistan. Although the surveillance program in West and Central Africa is currently unarmed, several officials quoted in the Post emphasized the potential to expand the program.
According to the report, AFRICOM already had plans for a drone program against the LRA, but it was canceled without explanation. Recently, however, the Senate Armed Forces Committee authorized $50 million to expand surveillance operations in Africa and emphasized the need for aircraft that can “loiter over areas of interest for extended periods of time,” i.e., drones. One anonymous US military official told the Post that if they wanted to fly drones “I’m certain we could get the access and overflight [permission] that is necessary to do that.”
Source: World Socialist Web Site
The focus of the Post’s report was on aerial surveillance programs used to gather intelligence on local militant groups. The vast majority of these operations are being run by private companies, which are responsible for supplying pilots, sensor operators, intelligence analysts, mechanics, and linguists.
According to the report, about a dozen airbases have been developed in Africa since 2007. These bases are generally small additions to existing airfields in various African countries and are used to run small aircraft, disguised as private planes, and equipped with discreet surveillance equipment. Permission for these operations is usually granted by the local government in exchange for the US sharing the intelligence it gathers.
The program targets a wide variety of different groups on the pretext of combating terrorism. These include the loose affiliation of Tuareg secessionists and Islamists in Northern Mali, the Lord’s Resistance Army in Central Africa, and al-Shabab in Southern Somalia. Although humanitarian concerns and the threat of global terrorism are being used to justify these operations, they in reality comprise part of a new Scramble for Africa, as the US and Europe compete over the area’s natural resources and seek to minimize Chinese influence.
In particular, the Post report cited two targets of growing interest on the part of the US military: Boko Haram in Nigeria, and the Lord’s Resistance Army’s operations in Sudan and South Sudan. In the case of Nigeria, which provides over 8 percent of the United States’ crude oil, the economic motivation for “anti-terrorism” is particularly clear.
Since the very beginning of AFRICOM’s operations, the US has been preparing plans for possible military intervention in Nigeria. In 2008, the US Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania conducted a series of “wargame scenarios” concerning possible interventions for AFRICOM, and estimated that it would take 20,000 troops to control the Niger Delta oilfields. At a February 18, 2008 AFRICOM conference, Vice Admiral Robert T. Moeller stated that the guiding principle of AFRICOM was to protect “the free flow of natural resources from Africa to the global market.”
Only a month later, the first commander of AFRICOM, General William Ward, declared that due to the US’s increasing reliance on African oil, the “number one theater-wide goal” would be combating terrorism. Although the US did not intervene militarily, the political significance of AFRICOM’s preparations could be seen when millions of Nigerian workers participated in a general strike against president Goodluck Jonathan’s end to fuel subsidies. Jonathan used a series of bombings claimed by Boko Haram to institute martial law and suppress the growing strike movement.
In the case of the Lord’s Resistance Army, the argument for “humanitarian intervention” is used to provide a similar cover for economic aims. According to The Post, AFRICOM is seeking a base in South Sudan that would both support the hunt for the LRA’s leader Kony and allow the US greater influence in the growing conflict between Sudan and South Sudan.
At the center of the Sudanese conflict are disagreements over oil revenues. Since South Sudan gained independence in 2011 it has been in continuous conflict with Sudan over control of oil fields in the border region and the fees to be paid to Sudan, whose pipelines are the only conduit available to export its oil. In April, while Sudan and South Sudan were engaged in regular border skirmishes, South Sudanese president, Salva Kiir, traveled to China in an attempt to gather support for construction of an alternate pipeline through Kenya.
China is a major investor in both Sudanese and South Sudanese oil infrastructure. Through an increased military presence, the US government hopes to offset Chinese economic influence. Last year in her tour of Africa, US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, said, “We don’t want to see a new colonialism in Africa,” in reference to Chinese influence on the continent.
Ultimately the aerial surveillance programs will be used to lay the groundwork for future military intervention. Last October, Obama deployed 100 military advisors to central Africa in order to work toward “the removal of Joseph Kony.” In Somalia, drones and special forces strikes are also being used to the same bloody effect as in Pakistan, Yemen, and Afghanistan. Although the surveillance program in West and Central Africa is currently unarmed, several officials quoted in the Post emphasized the potential to expand the program.
According to the report, AFRICOM already had plans for a drone program against the LRA, but it was canceled without explanation. Recently, however, the Senate Armed Forces Committee authorized $50 million to expand surveillance operations in Africa and emphasized the need for aircraft that can “loiter over areas of interest for extended periods of time,” i.e., drones. One anonymous US military official told the Post that if they wanted to fly drones “I’m certain we could get the access and overflight [permission] that is necessary to do that.”
Source: World Socialist Web Site
Thursday, April 26, 2012
Fraud is up on continent
This was revealed by the KPMG inaugural Africa Fraud Barometer. The study, released yesterday, is a first effort to measure fraud in Africa and expose the risk of fraud for companies in their day-to-day operations. According to the study, reported fraud cases increased from 355 in the first half of 2011 to 520 cases in the second half of the year. Over the same period the value of fraud decreased from US $7.17-billion to $3.702 billion.
KPMG developed the Africa Fraud Barometer to form a bigger picture of fraud on the continent. "We felt there was a need to create the Africa Fraud Barometer since the world has begun to look at Africa as a new investment destination," says Petrus Marais, pictured, KPMG's global leader in forensics who developed the barometer. "We are still dealing with a negative perception of Africa. As risk analysts we want to provide information that allows potential investors to assess and conceptualise risk on the African continent," he says.
The barometer distinguishes between the number of reported fraud cases, type of perpetrator, victims of fraud, types of fraud, countries and targeted industries. The data is for 2011. To obtain some indication of trends, KPMG compared findings from the first six months to those in the second half of 2011. Accounting for 29% of perpetrators, company employees committed the most fraud in the second half of 2011, according to the report.
Hardest hit is the government and the public, with 39% of all cases, 5% lower than in the first half of 2011. "Fraud occurs most where money enters and exits a company or institution. At the interface of financial transactions, perpetrators tend to be most successful in defrauding funds," Marais says.
General fraud was the highest reported fraud at 29% while misappropriation and theft came second. The countries with the highest number of reported fraud cases on the continent were South Africa and Nigeria, but in both countries fewer cases were reported in the second half of 2011.
Zimbabwe had the highest value of fraud perpetrated in the second half of 2011, amounting to over US$1.2-billion.
Source: Sowetan
KPMG developed the Africa Fraud Barometer to form a bigger picture of fraud on the continent. "We felt there was a need to create the Africa Fraud Barometer since the world has begun to look at Africa as a new investment destination," says Petrus Marais, pictured, KPMG's global leader in forensics who developed the barometer. "We are still dealing with a negative perception of Africa. As risk analysts we want to provide information that allows potential investors to assess and conceptualise risk on the African continent," he says.
The barometer distinguishes between the number of reported fraud cases, type of perpetrator, victims of fraud, types of fraud, countries and targeted industries. The data is for 2011. To obtain some indication of trends, KPMG compared findings from the first six months to those in the second half of 2011. Accounting for 29% of perpetrators, company employees committed the most fraud in the second half of 2011, according to the report.
Hardest hit is the government and the public, with 39% of all cases, 5% lower than in the first half of 2011. "Fraud occurs most where money enters and exits a company or institution. At the interface of financial transactions, perpetrators tend to be most successful in defrauding funds," Marais says.
General fraud was the highest reported fraud at 29% while misappropriation and theft came second. The countries with the highest number of reported fraud cases on the continent were South Africa and Nigeria, but in both countries fewer cases were reported in the second half of 2011.
Zimbabwe had the highest value of fraud perpetrated in the second half of 2011, amounting to over US$1.2-billion.
Source: Sowetan
Monday, March 7, 2011
Nigeria: 400 More Children Killed by Lead Poisoning
Lead poisoning linked with illegal gold mining has killed a further 400 children in northern Nigeria since November, the National Emergency Management Agency said Monday. The latest figures suggest that the death toll from the crisis in the northern state of Zamfara is rising after the United Nations said lead poisoning in the region had killed at least 400 children between March and October last year.
Source: New York Times
Source: New York Times
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Côte d'Ivoire envoy warns of 'genocide' threat
The first recognised ambassador of Côte d'Ivoire's internationally-backed president Alassane Ouattara said on Tuesday that the United Nations had to act to prevent "genocide" in his country. The envoy, Youssoufou Bamba, made the plea after handing over his credentials as envoy to the United Nations to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.
Ban promised the "full cooperation" of the UN leadership for the government of Ouattara who is in a tense stand-off with Laurent Gbagbo, who refuses to recognise the victory of his rival in Côte d'Ivoire's November 28 presidential election. The ambassador said Ouattara had "real concern" about attacks on his supporters. According to UN rights officials at least 173 people were killed in attacks between December 16 and 21.
The victims were only killed "because they wanted to demonstrate, they want to speak out, they want to defend the will of the people", Bamba told reporters. "We are on the brink of genocide, something should be done." Bamba said people's homes in some areas had been marked according to their tribe. "What will be next? So the situation is very serious and I have put that message across in all the meetings I have had, including with the secretary general. The protection of civilians is at the heart of peacekeeping and we expect the United Nations to fulfill its duties," he said.
There is a UN force of more than 9 500 troops in Côte d'Ivoire and 800 are deployed around the Abidjan hotel where Ouattara has his base. Ban made no comment on the Côte d'Ivoire crisis when he formally accepted Bamba's credentials in front of photographers at the UN headquarters. But he assured the envoy "of the full cooperation of the secretariat in meeting the challenges ahead". Ban was briefed again on Tuesday by the UN mission in Côte d'Ivoire on efforts to persuade Gbagbo to peacefully stand down, his spokesperson Martin Nesirky said.
The UN chief also held telephone talks with Nigeria's President Goodluck Jonathan, current chairperson of the West African regional bloc Ecowas, which has threatened to intervene militarily if Gbagbo does not quit. Bamba, who was previously ambassador for the Gbagbo government at the UN in Vienna, is the first ambassador named by the Ouattara administration to have started work. He hinted that he was not yet being paid, saying that as a career diplomat "I have savings."
Meanwhile, Gbagbo's most notorious street lieutenant has vowed that the country's youth will rise up from Saturday and seize Ouattara's headquarters. "From January 1, I, Charles Ble Goude and the youth of Ivory Coast are going to liberate the Golf Hotel with our bare hands," the leader of Gbagbo's radical Young Patriots told a cheering crowd in Abidjan on Wednesday. "It's the moment to liberate Ivory Coast," he declared.
Political showman and faction leader Ble Goude is now Gbagbo's minister for youth and employment, but he is best known for stoking bloody anti-French riots in 2004, a role which saw him placed under United Nations sanctions. "We are ready to die for this Ivory Coast," he declared, while insisting that his supporters were unarmed and hoped to triumph through strength of numbers and will against Ouattara's men. "We are mocked by rebels," he complained.
Tension is mounting in and around the Golf Hotel -- a waterfront resort on the outskirts of the port city which Ouattara and his supporters had turned into an election headquarters. The shadow government in the hotel is guarded by a small contingent of former northern rebel fighters dubbed the New Forces, and the grounds are shielded by armed UN peacekeepers backed by armoured cars.
Access to the area is blocked by Gbagbo's regulars, the Security and Defence Forces (FDS), working alongside what UN observers say are mysterious masked militia fighters armed with rocket-propelled grenades. UN supply convoys are regularly blocked as they try to cross Abidjan -- one patrol was attacked on Tuesday a mob of pro-Gbagbo youths and a Bangladeshi soldier was hurt -- and the hotel is supplied by UN helicopter.
Source: Mail & Guardian
Ban promised the "full cooperation" of the UN leadership for the government of Ouattara who is in a tense stand-off with Laurent Gbagbo, who refuses to recognise the victory of his rival in Côte d'Ivoire's November 28 presidential election. The ambassador said Ouattara had "real concern" about attacks on his supporters. According to UN rights officials at least 173 people were killed in attacks between December 16 and 21.
The victims were only killed "because they wanted to demonstrate, they want to speak out, they want to defend the will of the people", Bamba told reporters. "We are on the brink of genocide, something should be done." Bamba said people's homes in some areas had been marked according to their tribe. "What will be next? So the situation is very serious and I have put that message across in all the meetings I have had, including with the secretary general. The protection of civilians is at the heart of peacekeeping and we expect the United Nations to fulfill its duties," he said.
There is a UN force of more than 9 500 troops in Côte d'Ivoire and 800 are deployed around the Abidjan hotel where Ouattara has his base. Ban made no comment on the Côte d'Ivoire crisis when he formally accepted Bamba's credentials in front of photographers at the UN headquarters. But he assured the envoy "of the full cooperation of the secretariat in meeting the challenges ahead". Ban was briefed again on Tuesday by the UN mission in Côte d'Ivoire on efforts to persuade Gbagbo to peacefully stand down, his spokesperson Martin Nesirky said.
The UN chief also held telephone talks with Nigeria's President Goodluck Jonathan, current chairperson of the West African regional bloc Ecowas, which has threatened to intervene militarily if Gbagbo does not quit. Bamba, who was previously ambassador for the Gbagbo government at the UN in Vienna, is the first ambassador named by the Ouattara administration to have started work. He hinted that he was not yet being paid, saying that as a career diplomat "I have savings."
Meanwhile, Gbagbo's most notorious street lieutenant has vowed that the country's youth will rise up from Saturday and seize Ouattara's headquarters. "From January 1, I, Charles Ble Goude and the youth of Ivory Coast are going to liberate the Golf Hotel with our bare hands," the leader of Gbagbo's radical Young Patriots told a cheering crowd in Abidjan on Wednesday. "It's the moment to liberate Ivory Coast," he declared.
Political showman and faction leader Ble Goude is now Gbagbo's minister for youth and employment, but he is best known for stoking bloody anti-French riots in 2004, a role which saw him placed under United Nations sanctions. "We are ready to die for this Ivory Coast," he declared, while insisting that his supporters were unarmed and hoped to triumph through strength of numbers and will against Ouattara's men. "We are mocked by rebels," he complained.
Tension is mounting in and around the Golf Hotel -- a waterfront resort on the outskirts of the port city which Ouattara and his supporters had turned into an election headquarters. The shadow government in the hotel is guarded by a small contingent of former northern rebel fighters dubbed the New Forces, and the grounds are shielded by armed UN peacekeepers backed by armoured cars.
Access to the area is blocked by Gbagbo's regulars, the Security and Defence Forces (FDS), working alongside what UN observers say are mysterious masked militia fighters armed with rocket-propelled grenades. UN supply convoys are regularly blocked as they try to cross Abidjan -- one patrol was attacked on Tuesday a mob of pro-Gbagbo youths and a Bangladeshi soldier was hurt -- and the hotel is supplied by UN helicopter.
Source: Mail & Guardian
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Ivory Coast: Embattled Leader’s Offer
The Ivory Coast leader Laurent Gbagbo said Tuesday night that he would accept a “commission of investigation” from overseas to examine the results of the presidential election last month, which the United Nations and foreign powers say he lost to Alassane Ouattara. Speaking on state television, Mr. Gbagbo said he did not “want any more bloodshed.” Meanwhile, the United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, expressed concern over the safety of the peacekeeping mission in Ivory Coast; Nigeria evacuated its diplomats; the United States announced a travel ban on Mr. Gbagbo and his associates; and Mr. Ouattara’s government called for a campaign of “disobedience.”
Source: New York Times
Source: New York Times
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
'If I don't have money, I shouldn't look for justice'
Nigeria's federal police officers use illegal arrests and torture to demand bribes from the innocent, sometimes killing people over as little as 13 cents, according to a report released on Tuesday by an international human rights group.
The report by Human Rights Watch (HRW) highlights how the oil-rich nation's police force shakes down crime victims for money to buy stationery and bus fares, while an expensive flat-screen plasma television adorns one office. Activists and international groups long have criticised Nigeria's police for committing so-called extrajudicial killings and fostering an officer corps that preys on the impoverished.
However, the new report offers victims' testimony detailing the profit that officers and commanders gain through their cruelty. "They said the police don't work without money," the rights group quotes one engineer as saying. "They said if I don't have money, I shouldn't go for justice."
Police spokesperson Emmanuel Ojukwu said Tuesday's report contains "largely embellished innuendoes" and had reached a preconceived conclusion. In an article posted to the force's website on Saturday, Ojukwu had criticised corrupt officers. "It does not need much sermonising for an officer to know that extortion is bad," the spokesperson wrote. "You need not visit a university to be lectured that torture is wicked and evil and that man's inhumanity to man is an offence before God ... But we kill the police by engaging in such acts."
Those interviewed by the rights group spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution. They described how officers seize merchandise from roadside hawkers, holding it until receiving a bribe. Others complained about being "arrested" without cause while at restaurants and bars. Officers take those detained to police stations, where the innocent must pay about $40 to be released, the rights group said. One trader from Onitsha quoted in the report said undercover police officers that commandeered a commercial bus once "arrested" him in a group of people just trying to go home. Those who paid left; those who didn't, like the trader, received beatings. "The others didn't have money on them and didn't have anyone to call," the trader said. "They were crying."
Prostitutes who didn't pay the bribes told the rights group that officers raped them. In the report, family members described how officers beat their loved ones or outright killed them over sums as little as 13 cents at police checkpoints. Bribery also remains endemic within the ranks of the police, first created in 1861 by British colonialists and known even then as "The 40 Thieves". In the modern force, recruits bribe their way into uniform and must meet bribe quotas set by superiors to reach and hold on to lucrative posts, the report claims. Otherwise, officers get banished to desk duty and are forced to survive on a meagre salary. Yet despite hundreds of millions of dollars in oil money flowing into the force, officers in dirty uniforms routinely patrol roadblocks brandishing poorly maintained Kalashnikovs or even flare guns.
The report suggests that money from the corrupt police practices ultimately line the pockets of the force's top administrators, while Nigerian citizens pay with their lives. That could allegedly be seen last Sunday, when a truck ploughed into cars stopped along a Lagos expressway, starting fires that left at least 20 dead. Local newspapers quoted witnesses saying a police roadblock caused the traffic jam, as officers attempted to extort money from passing motorists.
Source: Mail & Guardian
The report by Human Rights Watch (HRW) highlights how the oil-rich nation's police force shakes down crime victims for money to buy stationery and bus fares, while an expensive flat-screen plasma television adorns one office. Activists and international groups long have criticised Nigeria's police for committing so-called extrajudicial killings and fostering an officer corps that preys on the impoverished.
However, the new report offers victims' testimony detailing the profit that officers and commanders gain through their cruelty. "They said the police don't work without money," the rights group quotes one engineer as saying. "They said if I don't have money, I shouldn't go for justice."
Police spokesperson Emmanuel Ojukwu said Tuesday's report contains "largely embellished innuendoes" and had reached a preconceived conclusion. In an article posted to the force's website on Saturday, Ojukwu had criticised corrupt officers. "It does not need much sermonising for an officer to know that extortion is bad," the spokesperson wrote. "You need not visit a university to be lectured that torture is wicked and evil and that man's inhumanity to man is an offence before God ... But we kill the police by engaging in such acts."
Those interviewed by the rights group spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution. They described how officers seize merchandise from roadside hawkers, holding it until receiving a bribe. Others complained about being "arrested" without cause while at restaurants and bars. Officers take those detained to police stations, where the innocent must pay about $40 to be released, the rights group said. One trader from Onitsha quoted in the report said undercover police officers that commandeered a commercial bus once "arrested" him in a group of people just trying to go home. Those who paid left; those who didn't, like the trader, received beatings. "The others didn't have money on them and didn't have anyone to call," the trader said. "They were crying."
Prostitutes who didn't pay the bribes told the rights group that officers raped them. In the report, family members described how officers beat their loved ones or outright killed them over sums as little as 13 cents at police checkpoints. Bribery also remains endemic within the ranks of the police, first created in 1861 by British colonialists and known even then as "The 40 Thieves". In the modern force, recruits bribe their way into uniform and must meet bribe quotas set by superiors to reach and hold on to lucrative posts, the report claims. Otherwise, officers get banished to desk duty and are forced to survive on a meagre salary. Yet despite hundreds of millions of dollars in oil money flowing into the force, officers in dirty uniforms routinely patrol roadblocks brandishing poorly maintained Kalashnikovs or even flare guns.
The report suggests that money from the corrupt police practices ultimately line the pockets of the force's top administrators, while Nigerian citizens pay with their lives. That could allegedly be seen last Sunday, when a truck ploughed into cars stopped along a Lagos expressway, starting fires that left at least 20 dead. Local newspapers quoted witnesses saying a police roadblock caused the traffic jam, as officers attempted to extort money from passing motorists.
Source: Mail & Guardian
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Criminal Force: Torture, Abuse, and Extrajudicial Killings by the Nigeria Police Force
Police in Nigeria commit extrajudicial killings, torture, rape, and extortion with relative impunity. Nigeria Police Force personnel routinely carry out summary executions of persons accused or suspected of crime; rely on torture as a principal means of investigation; commit rape of both sexes, with a particular focus on sex workers; and engage in extortion at nearly every opportunity.
The Nigerian government has acknowledged these problems and promised to address them in the past, but to date, abuses have continued with no real accountability. Nigeria's leadership must pay serious attention to police reform if it hopes to succeed in restoring public safety.
This report's findings are based on independent field monitoring and investigation at over 400 police stations and posts in 14 states and territories in Nigeria from February 2007 to January 2009. Research was augmented by a review of relevant legislation, case law, and official reports, as well as secondary materials, including newspaper articles and NGO reports.
Source: Open Society Justice Initiative / Network on Police Reform in Nigeria
The Nigerian government has acknowledged these problems and promised to address them in the past, but to date, abuses have continued with no real accountability. Nigeria's leadership must pay serious attention to police reform if it hopes to succeed in restoring public safety.
This report's findings are based on independent field monitoring and investigation at over 400 police stations and posts in 14 states and territories in Nigeria from February 2007 to January 2009. Research was augmented by a review of relevant legislation, case law, and official reports, as well as secondary materials, including newspaper articles and NGO reports.
Source: Open Society Justice Initiative / Network on Police Reform in Nigeria
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Acting Leader of Nigeria Dissolves His Cabinet
The acting president of Nigeria, Goodluck Jonathan, dissolved his cabinet on Wednesday in the strongest assertion yet of his authority over a country where his rule has been challenged. The ministers were all inherited from Umaru Yar’Adua, the gravely ill president whose place Mr. Jonathan took in February. Analysts and presidential advisers suggested that they had become an impediment to Mr. Jonathan’s attempts to put his stamp on the office. Information about Mr. Yar’Adua’s condition has been sparse. Three weeks ago, he returned home after a long hospital stay in Saudi Arabia.
Mr. Jonathan has had to deal with sectarian and ethnic violence in one region, a flare-up in the rebellion over oil in another and strife in the cabinet. “There are pro- and anti-Jonathan ministers in the cabinet, and pro- and anti-Yar’Adua ministers, and they were polarized as to whether the acting president should act or not act,” said Hassan Tukur, a retired diplomat who is close to Mr. Jonathan. In a foretaste of Wednesday’s dismissals, Mr. Jonathan dismissed Mr. Yar’Adua’s national security adviser last week after mass killings near the city of Jos. “It’s the prerogative of the president to change the cabinet whenever he feels the need to inject new blood, reinvigorate the cabinet and give it a new focus, and that’s what we’ve done here,” said Ima Niboro, Mr. Jonathan’s spokesman.
Others said that Mr. Jonathan’s agenda was not helped by the infighting. “There was a lack of cohesiveness in the cabinet, and the cabinet had become polarized, in a way that was harming effective governance on the core issues,” said a person close to the president who asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to speak to the press.
Source: New York Times
Mr. Jonathan has had to deal with sectarian and ethnic violence in one region, a flare-up in the rebellion over oil in another and strife in the cabinet. “There are pro- and anti-Jonathan ministers in the cabinet, and pro- and anti-Yar’Adua ministers, and they were polarized as to whether the acting president should act or not act,” said Hassan Tukur, a retired diplomat who is close to Mr. Jonathan. In a foretaste of Wednesday’s dismissals, Mr. Jonathan dismissed Mr. Yar’Adua’s national security adviser last week after mass killings near the city of Jos. “It’s the prerogative of the president to change the cabinet whenever he feels the need to inject new blood, reinvigorate the cabinet and give it a new focus, and that’s what we’ve done here,” said Ima Niboro, Mr. Jonathan’s spokesman.
Others said that Mr. Jonathan’s agenda was not helped by the infighting. “There was a lack of cohesiveness in the cabinet, and the cabinet had become polarized, in a way that was harming effective governance on the core issues,” said a person close to the president who asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to speak to the press.
Source: New York Times
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
8 000 flee Nigeria violence
About 8 000 Nigerians have fled their homes around the troubled city of Jos following new sectarian attacks there over the weekend, the International Committee of the Red Cross said Wednesday. "The Nigerian Red Cross Society is distributing food and water to about 5 000 displaced people (IDPs) who have taken refuge in various police stations in the area and to about 300 detainees," the ICRC said in a statement. "An additional 3 000 people have fled from Jos to camps in the neighbouring state of Bauchi," it added.
The commissioner in the state of Plateau said on Wednesday that 109 people were killed in the attacks on Sunday morning in three Christian villages just outside Jos carried out by members of the mainly Muslim Fulani ethnic group.
The ICRC said Nigerian Red Cross volunteers evacuated 28 injured persons to Jos University Teaching Hospital and gave first aid to 137 wounded detainees at the city's police headquarters. Several hundreds of people were killed in Christian-Muslim clashes around Jos in January. Another 3 800 people displaced by clashes in January are still being sheltered in Bauchi, the ICRC said. Thousands have died in ethnic strife in recent years in Jos, which lies on the dividing line between Nigeria's mainly Muslim north and Christian-dominated south. Residents have said the killings on Sunday were part of a spiralling feud between the Fulani, who are nomadic herders, and the rival Berom clan, who are farmers, which was sparked by the theft of cattle.
Source: News 24
The commissioner in the state of Plateau said on Wednesday that 109 people were killed in the attacks on Sunday morning in three Christian villages just outside Jos carried out by members of the mainly Muslim Fulani ethnic group.
The ICRC said Nigerian Red Cross volunteers evacuated 28 injured persons to Jos University Teaching Hospital and gave first aid to 137 wounded detainees at the city's police headquarters. Several hundreds of people were killed in Christian-Muslim clashes around Jos in January. Another 3 800 people displaced by clashes in January are still being sheltered in Bauchi, the ICRC said. Thousands have died in ethnic strife in recent years in Jos, which lies on the dividing line between Nigeria's mainly Muslim north and Christian-dominated south. Residents have said the killings on Sunday were part of a spiralling feud between the Fulani, who are nomadic herders, and the rival Berom clan, who are farmers, which was sparked by the theft of cattle.
Source: News 24
Monday, March 8, 2010
Toll From Religious and Ethnic Violence in Nigeria Rises to 500
Officials and human rights groups in Nigeria sharply increased the count of the dead after a weekend of vicious ethnic violence, saying Monday that as many as 500 people — many of them women and children — may have been killed near the city of Jos, long a center of tensions between Christians and Muslims.The dead were Christians and members of an ethnic group that had been feuding with the Hausa-Fulani, Muslim herders whom witnesses and police officials identified as the attackers. Officials said the attack was in reprisal for violence in January, when dozens of Muslims were slaughtered in and around Jos, including more than 150 in one village.
Early Sunday, the attackers set upon the villagers with machetes, killing women and children in their homes and ensnaring the men who tried to flee in fishnets and animal traps, then massacring them, according to a Nigerian rights group whose investigators went to the area. Some homes were set on fire.
The latest attacks were “a sort of vengeance from the Hausa-Fulani,” said the Rev. Emmanuel Joel, of the Christian Association of Nigeria in Jos. After the January attacks, “the military watched over the city, and neglected the villages,” he said. The attackers “began to massacre as early as 4 a.m.,” Mr. Joel said. “They began to slaughter the people like animals.” The police said Monday that they had made 95 arrests, including a number of Hausa-Fulani. The clothes of many of the suspects were bloodstained, said Mohammed Larema, a police spokesman in Plateau State.
The mood in Jos was tense Monday. Troops were deployed in the streets, shops closed early and residents remained indoors. A few miles south of the city nearly 400 of the victims were buried in a mass grave in Dogon Na Hauwa, the village where the worst violence occurred. Some of the bodies had been mutilated. There, women cried unconsolably amid crowds of mourners, and the smell of burned and decomposing flesh hung in the air. Officials combed a large area around the village, continuing to find bodies during the day.
Shehu Sani, president of Civil Rights Congress, said in a phone interview on Monday that members of his group counted 492 bodies, mainly in Dogon Na Hauwa. He said that security forces had not been much in evidence in the “vulnerable areas” south of Jos. Mr. Sani said that the attackers were motivated at least in part by a large theft of cattle by members of the same Christian ethnic group as the victims. “We were at the scene of the violence,” Mr. Sani said, suggesting that the local government figure of 500 was not an exaggeration. “We have counted as many bodies as that,” he said. “There are not enough functional mortuaries to take them. It’s possibly even more than that because many were buried without documentation.”
Mr. Sani said the latest violence strongly resembled the killings in January. At that time, one predominantly Muslim village, Kuru Karama, was virtually wiped out, and bodies were thrown into pits and latrines.
Source: New York Times
Friday, February 19, 2010
Lifestyles Of The Rich And Infamous
In sunny Malibu a real estate agent named Neal Baddin helps the playboy son of one of the world's most corrupt leaders buy a $30 million mansion. Teodoro Nguema Obiang lives off money taken from the coffers of Equatorial Guinea, a tiny but oil-rich country where most people endure repression and grinding poverty. But Baddin doesn't ask who Obiang is, or where he might have gotten $30 million. He just collects his generous commission. And he's not alone. In Oklahoma a company called IATS facilitates Obiang's purchase of a $38.5 million Gulfstream jet - after a rival company had already turned down his obviously tainted money.
Does all of this sound like it should be legal in America? Well, it is. In a meticulously documented report, U.S. congressional investigators recently showed how legal loopholes and lax regulations let foreign kleptocrats treat America like a carefree shopping paradise while their people starve back home. Neither Baddin nor IATS had any legal obligation to know who Obiang was or where his money came from. That's a problem.
This is not just about obscene displays of luxury. The same corruption that pays for Obiang's extravagant lifestyle fuels abuse and poverty in countries around the world. In places like Equatorial Guinea and Nigeria - both countries featured in the Senate report and where Human Rights Watch has thoroughly documented gross mismanagement and corruption - people are trapped in poverty while basic health and education systems are gutted and political violence and repression are fueled by official greed.
It's not supposed to be this way. The Patriot Act introduced controls designed to prevent U.S. institutions from facilitating money laundering and other abuses of the financial system. And the Bush administration's ambitious anti-kleptocracy initiative was supposed to make the U.S. a more hostile place for corrupt politicians and their stolen money.
The Senate report shows just how inadequate these efforts have been. Atiku Abubakar, Nigeria's vice president at the time, transferred $40 million in "suspect funds" into the U.S. with the help of his fourth wife. Meanwhile, American University in Washington, D.C., accepted $14 million for consulting services from offshore corporations linked to Abubakar without asking who the companies were or knowing where the vice president got the money. Pierre Falcone, a notorious arms dealer who is currently in prison in France, had free access to more than 30 U.S. bank accounts for nearly two decades. Omar Bongo, the late president of Gabon, brought $1 million in shrink-wrapped bills into the U.S. without bothering to declare it to customs and then gave the money to his daughter, an unemployed student. For a while she kept the money in a safe deposit box in a U.S. bank.
But it's the easy relationships between corrupt officials and their U.S. business partners that really should attract scrutiny. Banks, lawyers, real estate agents and others have made hefty profits off their partnerships with some of the world's biggest looters and most repressive politicians. Here, some of the stories that emerge from the Senate report border on the lurid: Take the case of Michael Jay Berger, a Beverly Hills lawyer who helped Obiang outmaneuver inadequate anti-money-laundering laws. Berger seemed to enjoy the perks of being a kleptocrat's henchman.
In private e-mails obtained by Senate investigators, he gushes about being invited to an exclusive party where Obiang impressed guests by producing a live white tiger ("SO COOL!" Berger wrote). In another e-mail Berger thanks Obiang for taking him to a party at the Playboy Mansion where he got the "VIP treatment" and "met many beautiful women." Not a bad life. But back in Equatorial Guinea one in every five children dies before the age of 5, mostly from easily preventable causes.
This month Berger was standing in front of a Senate subcommittee, pleading the fifth. Like the Senate report itself, that moment was a good start in the right direction. But now it is up to the Obama administration to decide if it wants to deal with the problems unearthed by the report. The government should take up all of the report's recommendations. Congress should pass new legislation to close the loopholes, starting with the Energy Security Through Transparency Act. That legislation would require companies to disclose payments to foreign governments and unravel some of the secrecy that allows corruption to take root. Government agencies should also make better and more ambitious use of the regulatory authority they already have. Let Obiang take his money and his tiger somewhere else.
Even Neal Baddin, Obiang's former realtor, seems to agree. He told the Senate that when it comes to fighting money-laundering, he and other realtors need "guidance on what to look for, what to do and how to do it." The U.S. government should provide that guidance.
Source: Humn Rights Watch
Does all of this sound like it should be legal in America? Well, it is. In a meticulously documented report, U.S. congressional investigators recently showed how legal loopholes and lax regulations let foreign kleptocrats treat America like a carefree shopping paradise while their people starve back home. Neither Baddin nor IATS had any legal obligation to know who Obiang was or where his money came from. That's a problem.
This is not just about obscene displays of luxury. The same corruption that pays for Obiang's extravagant lifestyle fuels abuse and poverty in countries around the world. In places like Equatorial Guinea and Nigeria - both countries featured in the Senate report and where Human Rights Watch has thoroughly documented gross mismanagement and corruption - people are trapped in poverty while basic health and education systems are gutted and political violence and repression are fueled by official greed.
It's not supposed to be this way. The Patriot Act introduced controls designed to prevent U.S. institutions from facilitating money laundering and other abuses of the financial system. And the Bush administration's ambitious anti-kleptocracy initiative was supposed to make the U.S. a more hostile place for corrupt politicians and their stolen money.
The Senate report shows just how inadequate these efforts have been. Atiku Abubakar, Nigeria's vice president at the time, transferred $40 million in "suspect funds" into the U.S. with the help of his fourth wife. Meanwhile, American University in Washington, D.C., accepted $14 million for consulting services from offshore corporations linked to Abubakar without asking who the companies were or knowing where the vice president got the money. Pierre Falcone, a notorious arms dealer who is currently in prison in France, had free access to more than 30 U.S. bank accounts for nearly two decades. Omar Bongo, the late president of Gabon, brought $1 million in shrink-wrapped bills into the U.S. without bothering to declare it to customs and then gave the money to his daughter, an unemployed student. For a while she kept the money in a safe deposit box in a U.S. bank.
But it's the easy relationships between corrupt officials and their U.S. business partners that really should attract scrutiny. Banks, lawyers, real estate agents and others have made hefty profits off their partnerships with some of the world's biggest looters and most repressive politicians. Here, some of the stories that emerge from the Senate report border on the lurid: Take the case of Michael Jay Berger, a Beverly Hills lawyer who helped Obiang outmaneuver inadequate anti-money-laundering laws. Berger seemed to enjoy the perks of being a kleptocrat's henchman.
In private e-mails obtained by Senate investigators, he gushes about being invited to an exclusive party where Obiang impressed guests by producing a live white tiger ("SO COOL!" Berger wrote). In another e-mail Berger thanks Obiang for taking him to a party at the Playboy Mansion where he got the "VIP treatment" and "met many beautiful women." Not a bad life. But back in Equatorial Guinea one in every five children dies before the age of 5, mostly from easily preventable causes.
This month Berger was standing in front of a Senate subcommittee, pleading the fifth. Like the Senate report itself, that moment was a good start in the right direction. But now it is up to the Obama administration to decide if it wants to deal with the problems unearthed by the report. The government should take up all of the report's recommendations. Congress should pass new legislation to close the loopholes, starting with the Energy Security Through Transparency Act. That legislation would require companies to disclose payments to foreign governments and unravel some of the secrecy that allows corruption to take root. Government agencies should also make better and more ambitious use of the regulatory authority they already have. Let Obiang take his money and his tiger somewhere else.
Even Neal Baddin, Obiang's former realtor, seems to agree. He told the Senate that when it comes to fighting money-laundering, he and other realtors need "guidance on what to look for, what to do and how to do it." The U.S. government should provide that guidance.
Source: Humn Rights Watch
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Nigerian Parliament Names Acting President
Nigeria’s National Assembly voted Tuesday to make Vice President Goodluck Jonathan the acting president, filling a power vacuum that has unsettled Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation, since President Umaru Yar’Adua left the country for medical treatment in November.
The vote appeared to end weeks of political uncertainty in what had essentially been a leaderless country. Since Mr. Yar’Adua’s departure, there has been civil unrest in the north, threats of renewed violence in the south and diplomatic tensions with the United States, which required extra scrutiny of Nigerian travelers after one of their compatriots was arrested and charged with trying to detonate explosives on a plane to Detroit.
But while Nigerian political leaders said Tuesday’s vote was critical to restoring stability, questions were immediately raised about its constitutionality, about whether Mr. Yar’Adua’s partisans would accept it and about whether it would lead to more disorder. For weeks, a majority of Mr. Yar’Adua’s cabinet has insisted that there was no need to replace him, though there has been little word from the president about his condition. With Mr. Yar’Adua in a hospital in Saudi Arabia, the tenuous truce in the restive, oil-producing south of the country has fallen apart, while religious and ethnic clashes have broken out in the north in which hundreds have been killed. Meanwhile, citizens marched in the streets of the capital, Abuja, and in Lagos over Mr. Yar’Adua’s absence. Discontent focused on what many called his government’s failure to follow the Constitution, which prescribes a transfer of power when the president is gone. Demonstrators and government critics said that by insisting that the president not give up power, his northern allies had been promoting their own regional interests over national ones.
Pressure was mounting — the military had to tamp down talk of a possible coup — and the country’s 36 governors called last week for a transfer of power to the vice president, Mr. Jonathan. Finally, on Tuesday, both chambers of Nigeria’s National Assembly voted for the transfer, with the House saying “peace, order and good government” in the country justified it. The Senate president said Mr. Yar’Adua’s halting declaration, in a Jan. 12 BBC interview, that he would return when doctors allowed, was justification enough in the absence of the formal letter called for by Nigeria’s Constitution. Still, analysts immediately raised questions about whether Tuesday’s votes followed the Constitution, and they worried that the National Assembly’s seeming failure to do so would only create more problems. “What the Senate has done is compound the problem,” said Jibrin Ibrahim, director of the Center for Democracy and Development, a good-government research organization in Abuja. “They’re saying they heard the president’s voice on the radio. I’ve never seen such political farce.”
Balarabe Musa, chairman of the Conference of Nigerian Political Parties, had a similar take. “The National Assembly has illegally given power to the vice president to act as president, on the basis of what they call the doctrine of necessity,” Mr. Musa said. “If it continues, the end of the road in this case is bureaucratic anarchy.”
Mr. Jonathan, 52, is a former governor of an oil-producing state, Bayelsa. His calm demeanor and southern background are regarded as assets in tackling what both he and Mr. Yar’Adua have described as a primary objective: solving the conflict over oil in the south. As the de facto president in recent weeks, he sent extra troops to the north to help quell the violence there but has otherwise maintained a low profile, leaving others to raise the loudest voices for his appointment. “I don’t think there was a choice if the country was going to move forward,” said Walter Carrington, a former American ambassador to Nigeria. “They were simply in a state of drift,” Mr. Carrington said, adding that it was unclear whether or not Tuesday’s votes would settle the country’s political difficulties. The question, he said, is how the forces opposed to handing over power will react, and whether this will cause unrest.
Some argued for a more radical solution to the crisis. “The National Assembly should go ahead and impeach the president for gross misconduct,” said Mr. Musa, citing as justification Mr. Yar’Adua’s failure to inform lawmakers of the length of his absence.
Mr. Ibrahim said: “The president has been told over 70 days that he should transmit the letter, but he has refused to do that. We only have a crisis that is deepening. And that is why we are all very worried.”
Source: New York Times
The vote appeared to end weeks of political uncertainty in what had essentially been a leaderless country. Since Mr. Yar’Adua’s departure, there has been civil unrest in the north, threats of renewed violence in the south and diplomatic tensions with the United States, which required extra scrutiny of Nigerian travelers after one of their compatriots was arrested and charged with trying to detonate explosives on a plane to Detroit.
But while Nigerian political leaders said Tuesday’s vote was critical to restoring stability, questions were immediately raised about its constitutionality, about whether Mr. Yar’Adua’s partisans would accept it and about whether it would lead to more disorder. For weeks, a majority of Mr. Yar’Adua’s cabinet has insisted that there was no need to replace him, though there has been little word from the president about his condition. With Mr. Yar’Adua in a hospital in Saudi Arabia, the tenuous truce in the restive, oil-producing south of the country has fallen apart, while religious and ethnic clashes have broken out in the north in which hundreds have been killed. Meanwhile, citizens marched in the streets of the capital, Abuja, and in Lagos over Mr. Yar’Adua’s absence. Discontent focused on what many called his government’s failure to follow the Constitution, which prescribes a transfer of power when the president is gone. Demonstrators and government critics said that by insisting that the president not give up power, his northern allies had been promoting their own regional interests over national ones.
Pressure was mounting — the military had to tamp down talk of a possible coup — and the country’s 36 governors called last week for a transfer of power to the vice president, Mr. Jonathan. Finally, on Tuesday, both chambers of Nigeria’s National Assembly voted for the transfer, with the House saying “peace, order and good government” in the country justified it. The Senate president said Mr. Yar’Adua’s halting declaration, in a Jan. 12 BBC interview, that he would return when doctors allowed, was justification enough in the absence of the formal letter called for by Nigeria’s Constitution. Still, analysts immediately raised questions about whether Tuesday’s votes followed the Constitution, and they worried that the National Assembly’s seeming failure to do so would only create more problems. “What the Senate has done is compound the problem,” said Jibrin Ibrahim, director of the Center for Democracy and Development, a good-government research organization in Abuja. “They’re saying they heard the president’s voice on the radio. I’ve never seen such political farce.”
Balarabe Musa, chairman of the Conference of Nigerian Political Parties, had a similar take. “The National Assembly has illegally given power to the vice president to act as president, on the basis of what they call the doctrine of necessity,” Mr. Musa said. “If it continues, the end of the road in this case is bureaucratic anarchy.”
Mr. Jonathan, 52, is a former governor of an oil-producing state, Bayelsa. His calm demeanor and southern background are regarded as assets in tackling what both he and Mr. Yar’Adua have described as a primary objective: solving the conflict over oil in the south. As the de facto president in recent weeks, he sent extra troops to the north to help quell the violence there but has otherwise maintained a low profile, leaving others to raise the loudest voices for his appointment. “I don’t think there was a choice if the country was going to move forward,” said Walter Carrington, a former American ambassador to Nigeria. “They were simply in a state of drift,” Mr. Carrington said, adding that it was unclear whether or not Tuesday’s votes would settle the country’s political difficulties. The question, he said, is how the forces opposed to handing over power will react, and whether this will cause unrest.
Some argued for a more radical solution to the crisis. “The National Assembly should go ahead and impeach the president for gross misconduct,” said Mr. Musa, citing as justification Mr. Yar’Adua’s failure to inform lawmakers of the length of his absence.
Mr. Ibrahim said: “The president has been told over 70 days that he should transmit the letter, but he has refused to do that. We only have a crisis that is deepening. And that is why we are all very worried.”
Source: New York Times
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Christian-Muslim Mayhem in Nigeria Kills Dozens
Armed with guns, machetes, torches, and bows and arrows, Christian and Muslim antagonists in central Nigeria’s religiously volatile city of Jos have been fighting for three days in sporadic clashes that have left dozens dead, witnesses and local news accounts said Tuesday. It was difficult to ascertain the precise toll in Jos, the scene of frequent religious violence over the past decade. Estimates ranged from 30 to 300 deaths, as the city was still consumed by mayhem Tuesday evening, with security forces descending on Jos in an attempt to contain it.
Gunshots could be heard throughout the city, and smoke from burning buildings was visible everywhere, witnesses said. “This morning there was smoke, and a lot of shooting by the military personnel,” said Shimaki Gad Peter, director of the League for Human Rights, which is based in Jos, in a telephone interview. The violence began Sunday when Muslim youths attacked a church, according to Mr. Peter, “and they were resisted by church members.” Subsequently, “innocent persons were macheted,” Mr. Peter said. “I saw youths holding bows and arrows, and machetes,” he said. While “the majority” of people killed Sunday appeared to be Christians, he said, there was now a “balance of terror” among the religious groups.
The Rev. Emmanuel Joel of the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria said, “Personally, I have seen over 100 bodies.” He said he had seen the bodies in Red Cross trucks going to the morgue. Mr. Joel said Jos was “still boiling.” He was critical of the security forces’ efforts to contain the violence, saying, “While they are trying to contain it in one area, it is breaking out in another area.”
Government spokesmen could not be reached for comment. News reports said a curfew had been imposed on the city. “Nobody comes in, nobody goes out,” Mr. Joel said. “We are all scared of coming out, standing outside.” Several thousand people have been killed in religious rioting in Jos since 2001. The city is situated near the frontier between Nigeria’s mainly Muslim north and the mostly Christian south. “All we see is smoke coming out of burnt structures,” Mr. Joel said. “And gunshots, seriously.”
Source: New York Times
Gunshots could be heard throughout the city, and smoke from burning buildings was visible everywhere, witnesses said. “This morning there was smoke, and a lot of shooting by the military personnel,” said Shimaki Gad Peter, director of the League for Human Rights, which is based in Jos, in a telephone interview. The violence began Sunday when Muslim youths attacked a church, according to Mr. Peter, “and they were resisted by church members.” Subsequently, “innocent persons were macheted,” Mr. Peter said. “I saw youths holding bows and arrows, and machetes,” he said. While “the majority” of people killed Sunday appeared to be Christians, he said, there was now a “balance of terror” among the religious groups.
The Rev. Emmanuel Joel of the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria said, “Personally, I have seen over 100 bodies.” He said he had seen the bodies in Red Cross trucks going to the morgue. Mr. Joel said Jos was “still boiling.” He was critical of the security forces’ efforts to contain the violence, saying, “While they are trying to contain it in one area, it is breaking out in another area.”
Government spokesmen could not be reached for comment. News reports said a curfew had been imposed on the city. “Nobody comes in, nobody goes out,” Mr. Joel said. “We are all scared of coming out, standing outside.” Several thousand people have been killed in religious rioting in Jos since 2001. The city is situated near the frontier between Nigeria’s mainly Muslim north and the mostly Christian south. “All we see is smoke coming out of burnt structures,” Mr. Joel said. “And gunshots, seriously.”
Source: New York Times
Monday, January 4, 2010
Yemen instability poses a 'global threat'
Instability in Yemen is a global as well as regional threat, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said. She said the Yemeni government had to take measures to restore stability or risk losing Western support. The US embassy, closed after threats from a regional al-Qaeda offshoot, would reopen when "conditions permit". The UK and France have also shut their embassies.
Security at world airports has been tightened after the alleged jet bomb attack in Detroit last month. The suspect - a Nigerian - had allegedly been trained in Yemen. He has been charged in the US with trying to blow up the aircraft just before it was due to land at Detroit airport on 25 December. A number of countries have tightened security or suspended some operations at their embassies. US President Barack Obama has ordered a review into the Christmas Day incident. Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) last week said it was behind the alleged plot to bomb the plane.
From Monday all travellers flying to America are being subjected to new security measures, introduced by the US government. Airport staff will now carry out extra screening of people from 14 countries, including those the US considers to be state-sponsors of terrorism - Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria. Yemen and Nigeria - through which the alleged bomber travelled - also face the new restrictions. Passengers flying from other countries will be checked at random. The Yemeni authorities have tightened security measures at Sanaa's airport, as well as around several other embassies.
The suspect had apparently been trained by al-Qaeda in Yemen, and his father had notified US officials of his extremist views. A preliminary investigation found that the state department complied with procedures about potential threats, but officials now had to decide whether those procedures themselves were appropriate, Mrs Clinton said. Threats in Yemen to US interests pre-dated the current holiday season, she said, reiterating advice to US citizens there to be vigilant.Speaking in Washington, Mrs Clinton said: "We see global implications from the war in Yemen and the ongoing efforts by al-Qaeda in Yemen to use it as a base for terrorist attacks far beyond the region."
The Yemeni government has a tribal rebellion and a secessionist movement to deal with, and has regarded al-Qaeda as a lesser priority, a BBC correspondent in Yemen says. "It's time for the international community to make it clear to Yemen that there are expectations and conditions on our continuing support for the government so that they can take actions which will have a better chance to provide that peace and stability to the people of Yemen and the region," Mrs Clinton said.
The US embassy was the target of an attack in September 2008 in which an American was killed. The attack was blamed on AQAP. Correspondents say the security situation in Yemen is complicated by an abundance of firearms, an insurgency in the north and a secessionist movement in the south. But the prospects of re-asserting central government authority over the lawless areas where al-Qaeda is based look, in the opinion of some analysts, remote - even with beefed-up American support.
Source: BBC
Security at world airports has been tightened after the alleged jet bomb attack in Detroit last month. The suspect - a Nigerian - had allegedly been trained in Yemen. He has been charged in the US with trying to blow up the aircraft just before it was due to land at Detroit airport on 25 December. A number of countries have tightened security or suspended some operations at their embassies. US President Barack Obama has ordered a review into the Christmas Day incident. Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) last week said it was behind the alleged plot to bomb the plane.
From Monday all travellers flying to America are being subjected to new security measures, introduced by the US government. Airport staff will now carry out extra screening of people from 14 countries, including those the US considers to be state-sponsors of terrorism - Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria. Yemen and Nigeria - through which the alleged bomber travelled - also face the new restrictions. Passengers flying from other countries will be checked at random. The Yemeni authorities have tightened security measures at Sanaa's airport, as well as around several other embassies.
The suspect had apparently been trained by al-Qaeda in Yemen, and his father had notified US officials of his extremist views. A preliminary investigation found that the state department complied with procedures about potential threats, but officials now had to decide whether those procedures themselves were appropriate, Mrs Clinton said. Threats in Yemen to US interests pre-dated the current holiday season, she said, reiterating advice to US citizens there to be vigilant.Speaking in Washington, Mrs Clinton said: "We see global implications from the war in Yemen and the ongoing efforts by al-Qaeda in Yemen to use it as a base for terrorist attacks far beyond the region."
The Yemeni government has a tribal rebellion and a secessionist movement to deal with, and has regarded al-Qaeda as a lesser priority, a BBC correspondent in Yemen says. "It's time for the international community to make it clear to Yemen that there are expectations and conditions on our continuing support for the government so that they can take actions which will have a better chance to provide that peace and stability to the people of Yemen and the region," Mrs Clinton said.
The US embassy was the target of an attack in September 2008 in which an American was killed. The attack was blamed on AQAP. Correspondents say the security situation in Yemen is complicated by an abundance of firearms, an insurgency in the north and a secessionist movement in the south. But the prospects of re-asserting central government authority over the lawless areas where al-Qaeda is based look, in the opinion of some analysts, remote - even with beefed-up American support.
Source: BBC
Friday, December 25, 2009
U.S. Says Plane Passenger Tried to Detonate Device
A Nigerian man with possible terrorist ties sneaked an explosive onto a trans-Atlantic Northwest Airlines flight on Friday and tried to ignite it as the plane prepared to land in Detroit, federal officials said. The device, described by officials as a mixture of powder and liquid, failed to fully detonate. Passengers on the plane described a series of pops that sounded like firecrackers.Federal officials said the man wanted to bring the plane down. ''We believe it was an attempted act of terrorism,'' said a White House official who declined to be identified discussing the investigation of the incident, which is likely to lead to heightened security during the busy holiday season. ''This was the real deal,'' said Representative Peter T. King of New York, the ranking Republican on the House Homeland Security Committee, who was briefed on the incident and said something had gone wrong with the explosive device, which he described as somewhat sophisticated. ''This could have been devastating,'' Mr. King said.
It was unclear how the man, identified by federal officials as Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23, managed to get the explosive on the plane, an Airbus A330 wide-body jet carrying 278 passengers that departed from Amsterdam with passengers who had originated in Nigeria. A senior administration official said that the government did not yet know whether the man had had the capacity to take down the plane. A senior Department of Homeland Security official said that the materials Mr. Abdulmutallab had on him were ''more incendiary than explosive,'' and that he had tried to ignite them to cause a fire as the airliner was approaching Detroit.Mr. Abdulmutallab told law enforcement authorities, the official said, that he had had explosive powder taped to his leg and that he had mixed it with chemicals held in a syringe. A federal counterterrorism official who asked not to be identified said Mr. Abdulmutallab was apparently in a government law enforcement-intelligence database, but it is not clear what extremist group or individuals he might be linked to. ''It's too early to say what his association is,'' the counterterrorism official said. ''At this point, it seems like he was acting alone, but we don't know for sure.'' Although Mr. Abdulmutallab is said to have told officials that he was directed by Al Qaeda, the counterterrorism official expressed caution about that claim, saying ''it may have been aspirational.''
The incident unfolded just before noon. ''There was a pop that sounded like a firecracker,'' said Syed Jafry, a passenger who said he had been sitting three rows ahead of the suspect. A few seconds later, he said, there was smoke and ''some glow'' from the suspect's seat and on the left side of the plane. ''There was a panic,'' said Mr. Jafry, 57, of Holland, Ohio. ''Next thing you know everybody was on him.'' He said the passengers and the crew subdued the man. The suspect was brought by the crew to the front of the plane -- Northwest Airlines Flight 253, bearing Delta's name -- and the plane made its descent into Detroit Metropolitan Airport, landing at 11:53 a.m. (The two airlines merged last year.) Once on the ground, it was immediately guided to the end of a runway, where it was surrounded by police cars and emergency vehicles and searched by a bomb-disabling robot.
Sandra Berchtold, a spokeswoman with the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Detroit office, said F.B.I. agents were at the scene Friday night and were investigating the matter. One federal official who requested anonymity said Mr. Abdulmutallab had suffered severe burns but was expected to survive. A Michigan state official confirmed that he was being treated at the University of Michigan hospital in Ann Arbor.
Friday's incident brought to mind Richard C. Reid, the so-called ''shoe bomber,'' who attempted to blow up an American Airlines flight between Paris and Miami in December 2001 by igniting his explosives-laden shoes. Since then, airline passengers have had to remove their shoes before passing through security checkpoints in American airports.
Source: New York Times
More information and images of the explosive device can be found here.
Monday, May 25, 2009
Rebels destroy Nigeria pipelines
Nigeria’s main rebel group said it destroyed several major oil pipelines in southern Nigeria early on Monday in response to a military offensive.
The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) said it had put "out of operation" a major Chevron oil storage facility by destroying the pipelines and flow stations that feed it. "Fighters from MEND destroyed major trunk lines," the group said in a statement emailed to media. A spokesman for US oil giant Chevron said the company was "assessing the situation."
MEND has staged several attacks on international oil facilities in southern Nigeria as part of its campaign to get what it calls a fairer distribution of the region’s oil wealth to local people.
Source: The Times
The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) said it had put "out of operation" a major Chevron oil storage facility by destroying the pipelines and flow stations that feed it. "Fighters from MEND destroyed major trunk lines," the group said in a statement emailed to media. A spokesman for US oil giant Chevron said the company was "assessing the situation."
MEND has staged several attacks on international oil facilities in southern Nigeria as part of its campaign to get what it calls a fairer distribution of the region’s oil wealth to local people.
Source: The Times
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Oil Industry Braces for Trial on Rights Abuses
Fourteen years after the execution of the Nigerian author and activist Ken Saro-Wiwa by Nigeria’s former military regime, Royal Dutch Shell will appear before a federal court in New York to answer charges of crimes against humanity in connection with his death.
The trial, scheduled to begin on Wednesday, will examine allegations that Shell sought the aid of the former Nigerian regime in silencing Mr. Saro-Wiwa, a vociferous critic, in addition to paying soldiers who carried out human rights abuses in the oil-rich but impoverished Niger Delta where it operated.
The case could have global repercussions for the oil industry, said Arvind Ganesan, the head of the business and human rights practice at Human Rights Watch.
“The lesson here is that these cases aren’t going away,” Mr. Ganesan said. “If a jury found Shell guilty, this would change the behavior of the industry pretty quickly.”
The lawsuit was filed by the Center for Constitutional Rights, a New York law firm specializing in human rights, on behalf of Mr. Saro-Wiwa’s son and other plaintiffs who fled Nigeria’s military regime and did not trust they could sue Shell in Nigerian courts even after civilian rule returned in 1999.
“We are not saying that Shell just did business in a bad place,” said Jennie Greene, a lawyer with the Center for Constitutional Rights. “Shell was an actor here. Shell wasn’t just standing by.”
Source: New York Times
The trial, scheduled to begin on Wednesday, will examine allegations that Shell sought the aid of the former Nigerian regime in silencing Mr. Saro-Wiwa, a vociferous critic, in addition to paying soldiers who carried out human rights abuses in the oil-rich but impoverished Niger Delta where it operated.
The case could have global repercussions for the oil industry, said Arvind Ganesan, the head of the business and human rights practice at Human Rights Watch.
“The lesson here is that these cases aren’t going away,” Mr. Ganesan said. “If a jury found Shell guilty, this would change the behavior of the industry pretty quickly.”
The lawsuit was filed by the Center for Constitutional Rights, a New York law firm specializing in human rights, on behalf of Mr. Saro-Wiwa’s son and other plaintiffs who fled Nigeria’s military regime and did not trust they could sue Shell in Nigerian courts even after civilian rule returned in 1999.
“We are not saying that Shell just did business in a bad place,” said Jennie Greene, a lawyer with the Center for Constitutional Rights. “Shell was an actor here. Shell wasn’t just standing by.”
Source: New York Times
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