At the 14th annual Century International Quality ERA Convention in Geneva on 11 March 2012, Proudly South African company Intaka Tech received a Gold Business Initiative Directions (B.I.D) award. The company was selected to win the prestigious award by a jury comprising of leaders of previously awarded companies from around the world together with a panel of international experts in the field of business communication.
At the 14th annual Century International Quality ERA Convention in Geneva on 11 March 2012, Proudly South African company Intaka Tech received a Gold Business Initiative Directions (B.I.D) award. The company was selected to win the prestigious award by a jury comprising of leaders of previously awarded companies from around the world together with a panel of international experts in the field of business communication.
Intaka Tech, which manufactures mobile water purification plants and gas generation units, won the award for its leadership and business management excellence along with its expertise in technology, innovation and expansion.
Uruguayan businessman and entrepreneur Dr Gastón Savoi established Intaka Tech in South Africa in 2004. The company has contributed to the production of fresh water for millions of Africans that have been denied access to this resource due to inaccessible or contaminated sources. It has also created mobile gas generating units to tackle the lack of readily available medical air and oxygen in outlying rural hospitals and clinics. Today, over 200 Intaka Tech water purification plants and gas generating systems are in operation in various hospitals and rural communities in South America and Southern Africa.
The founder and chairman of the company shares, “We pride ourselves on our ability to deliver the highest quality products and services to our clients. All of our products are manufactured against a formal, documented management framework that complies with the internationally recognised ISO9001:2008 standard as well as all other relevant industry regulations and criteria. We recognise the importance of monitoring our quality management systems as it is through continual review that we can identify improvements to be made to our products and services.”
The company has been certified by the South African Bureau of Standards (SABS) since 2008 and by the International Organisation for Standardisation for Quality Management. In addition, all of Intaka Tech’s Gas Generation Systems (GGS) have been certified by TUV Rheinland – a global provider of technical, safety and certification services.
Intaka Tech CEO, Rodrigo Savoi and Knowledge Katti, MD of Intaka Technology Namibia, were among the hundreds of distinguished business representatives, members of the media and diplomatic corps who attended the Convention from all over the world. Savoi says, “Winning this award has set a positive tone for the year. We are incredibly proud to have won and are equally proud to offer these lifesaving products to those in need.”
Source: Intaka
Showing posts with label Switzerland. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Switzerland. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Saturday, March 3, 2012
Xstrata: The world’s fourth largest diversified mining group
Xstrata is the world’s fourth largest diversified mining group. We are ranked among the top five producers of copper, export thermal coal, export coking coal, ferrochrome, nickel and zinc globally, and also have a growing platinum group metals business, iron ore projects and recycling facilities. Our operations and projects, which span 20 countries and employ more than 70,000 people, are supported by a small corporate centre split between the head office in Zug, Switzerland and an office in London. We are is listed on the London and Swissstock exchanges, with a market capitalisation of $54 billion, as at 03 March 2012.
We differentiate ourselves from our competitors and peers by devolving responsibility and authority to our individual commodity businesses. This creates a strong sense of local ownership which we believe ultimately benefits our operations. Our managers are empowered and incentivised to tackle and solve local challenges and seize opportunities when they arise.
At least 1% of Xstrata Group’s profits before tax is set aside every year to fund initiatives that benefit the communities in which we operate. We support local culture and arts projects, programmes to boost community development, enterprise and job creation,health and education initiatives and environmental schemes. We set aside $109 million in 2011,representing 1.3% of pre-tax profits, for these local projects, and have donated $102 million, including $2 million of value in-kind contributions, so far.
Source: Xstrata
We differentiate ourselves from our competitors and peers by devolving responsibility and authority to our individual commodity businesses. This creates a strong sense of local ownership which we believe ultimately benefits our operations. Our managers are empowered and incentivised to tackle and solve local challenges and seize opportunities when they arise.
At least 1% of Xstrata Group’s profits before tax is set aside every year to fund initiatives that benefit the communities in which we operate. We support local culture and arts projects, programmes to boost community development, enterprise and job creation,health and education initiatives and environmental schemes. We set aside $109 million in 2011,representing 1.3% of pre-tax profits, for these local projects, and have donated $102 million, including $2 million of value in-kind contributions, so far.
Source: Xstrata
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Credit Suisse offices raided by tax officials
German prosecutors have raided 13 branches of the Swiss bank Credit Suisse in connection with an inquiry into tax fraud. The prosecutor's office in Dusseldorf said on Wednesday that about 150 investigators took part in searches. The search is focusing on allegations that bank staff assisted clients to evade taxes.
Tax officials bought a CD in February that reportedly contained information on about 1,100 wealthy Germans. There were reports at the time that the authorities paid about 2.5m euros for the disc to an unnamed individual. The data contained information that led prosecutors to believe that some 1.2bn euros (£1bn) of undeclared income was stashed in the Swiss accounts by the 1,100 people.
Investigations were launched into the individuals, but now officials have turned their attention to bank staff for allegedly aiding and abetting customers to avoid taxes. In April, Credit Suisse's chief executive Renato Fassbind said it appeared increasingly likely that some of the bank's clients were listed on a disc containing stolen data. The company was not immediately available for comment on Wednesday's raids.
Governments in Europe and the US have been cracking down on tax evasion. It is not the first time that Germany is thought to have paid for data on bank customers. In France and the UK too, authorities have bought information on wealthy bank customers who may have hidden money in secret accounts.
Source: BBC News
Tax officials bought a CD in February that reportedly contained information on about 1,100 wealthy Germans. There were reports at the time that the authorities paid about 2.5m euros for the disc to an unnamed individual. The data contained information that led prosecutors to believe that some 1.2bn euros (£1bn) of undeclared income was stashed in the Swiss accounts by the 1,100 people.
Investigations were launched into the individuals, but now officials have turned their attention to bank staff for allegedly aiding and abetting customers to avoid taxes. In April, Credit Suisse's chief executive Renato Fassbind said it appeared increasingly likely that some of the bank's clients were listed on a disc containing stolen data. The company was not immediately available for comment on Wednesday's raids.
Governments in Europe and the US have been cracking down on tax evasion. It is not the first time that Germany is thought to have paid for data on bank customers. In France and the UK too, authorities have bought information on wealthy bank customers who may have hidden money in secret accounts.
Source: BBC News
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Send feedback Court agrees to release Mobutu assets
Assets belonging to the deceased dictator of Zaire, Mobutu Sese Seko, are to be released from Swiss banks and returned to his heirs.
In a ruling published on Tuesday, the Federal Criminal Court rejected a citizen's appeal by Basel University criminologist Mark Pieth to keep a freeze on funds worth SFr7.7 million ($6.68 million).
Pieth opposed returning the funds to Mobutu's heirs, who he alleged were suspected of criminal activities in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Switzerland blocked assets deposited by the late ruler and his family in 1997 following a request from the country's government.
In 2008 Swiss authorities agreed to keep the assets frozen so that a Congolese government lawyer could initiate proceedings in Switzerland to block the assets and for the competent legal authority to decide how to deal with the case.
However in April 2009 the Swiss Prosecutor's Office declared Mobutu's heirs should receive the money since the statute of limitations had run out in the case.
Source: ICAR
In a ruling published on Tuesday, the Federal Criminal Court rejected a citizen's appeal by Basel University criminologist Mark Pieth to keep a freeze on funds worth SFr7.7 million ($6.68 million).
Pieth opposed returning the funds to Mobutu's heirs, who he alleged were suspected of criminal activities in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Switzerland blocked assets deposited by the late ruler and his family in 1997 following a request from the country's government.
In 2008 Swiss authorities agreed to keep the assets frozen so that a Congolese government lawyer could initiate proceedings in Switzerland to block the assets and for the competent legal authority to decide how to deal with the case.
However in April 2009 the Swiss Prosecutor's Office declared Mobutu's heirs should receive the money since the statute of limitations had run out in the case.
Source: ICAR
Friday, March 26, 2004
Suharto, Marcos and Mobutu head corruption table with $50bn scams
Mohammed Suharto, Ferdinand Marcos and Mobutu Sese Seko ripped off up to $50bn (£28bn) from the impoverished people of Indonesia, the Philippines and Zaire, a sum equivalent to the entire annual aid budget of the west, anti-bribery campaigners said yesterday.
Releasing a list of the top 10 most corrupt politicians of the past two decades, headed by the former Indonesian dictator, Transparency International warned that the scale of political corruption was undermining hopes for prosperity in the developing world and damaging the global economy.
No country is immune from corruption, the report says, citing the lax controls over political financing in Greece, the close connection between companies and the Bush administration and the unchallenged power of Italy's prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, over his country's media.
But the most egregious examples of wholesale looting have occurred in the developing world, TI said, depriving the desperately poor of vital state resources.
"The abuse of political power for private gain deprives the most needy of vital public services, creating a level of despair that breeds conflict and violence," said Peter Eigen, TI's chairman.
Most of the names on the list were protected by western governments who turned a blind eye to their criminal activities in exchange for support during the cold war.
Suharto, regarded as a bulwark against communism in Asia, stole as much as $35bn from his impoverished country during his three decades in power, before being deposed in 1998 in a popular uprising that was triggered by the Asian economic crisis.
He was charged with looting up to $500m from the state through various charities controlled by his family, but the judges ruled that he was too ill to stand trial.
Marcos, whose wife's 3,000-piece shoe collection became a byword for the corrupt excesses of his regime, was backed by successive US administrations.
Efforts to track down the estimated $10bn he embezzled during his 20 years in power were frustrated by years of strict banking secrecy laws in Switzerland. In August last year, 14 years after his death, the Swiss courts finally authorised the release of $657m to the Philippines' authorities.
Mobutu cleverly used the threat of an invasion from the then Marxist government of Angola to quieten concerns in the west about his increasingly blatant looting from one of the most resource-rich countries in Africa. Washington leaned on the International Monetary Fund to continue lending, despite the doubts of IMF officials.
By the time he was overthrown in 1997, Mobutu had stolen almost half of the $12bn in aid money that Zaire - now the Democratic Republic of Congo - received from the IMF during his 32-year reign, leaving his country saddled with a crippling debt.
Western multinationals must take responsibility for allowing corruption to flourish, TI says. "The corporate sector has a vital role to play in ending the abuse of power," the report says.
Bribery of local officials by western business is still widespread, despite global initiatives to stamp it out, such as the UN convention against corruption. The culture of secrecy surrounding access to resources in the developing world allows corrupt governments to hide revenues from their populations.
Companies from Australia, Sweden, Switzerland, Austria and Canada topped TI's list of bribe-payers last year [companies from those countries are least likely to bribe, not most likely to bribe], despite the introduction of anti-corruption laws to comply with an Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development convention banning bribery of foreign officials.
"We are very much aware that a lot of the responsibility for corruption in the developing world has been with northern companies and northern institutions," said Mr Eigen.
Britain was singled out for dragging its feet on the implementation of the OECD convention. It only outlawed the bribing of officials abroad two years ago, and no one has been prosecuted so far.
Oil, a curse more often than a blessing for poor countries, is a significant factor in corruption. "The flow of oil money is so vast it can distort decision-making in poor producer countries and the rich world alike," the report says.
On the take
Head of state Mohammed Suharto
Place, time Indonesia, 1967-98
Amount $15bn-$35bn
Head of state Ferdinand Marcos
Place, time Philippines, 1972-86
Amount $5bn-$10bn
Head of state Mobutu Sese Seko
Place, time Zaire, 1965-97
Amount $5bn
Head of state Sani Abacha
Place, time Nigeria, 1993-98
Amount $2bn-$5bn
Head of state Slobodan Milosevic
Place, time Serbia, 1972-86
Amount $1bn
Head of state Jean-Claude Duvalier
Place, time Haiti, 1971-86
Amount $300m-$800m
Head of state Alberto Fujimori
Place, time Peru, 1990-2000
Amount $600m
Head of state Pavlo Lazarenko
Place, time Ukraine 1996-97
Amount $114m-$200m
Head of state Arnoldo Alemán
Place, time Nicaragua, 1997-2002
Amount $100m
Head of state Joseph Estrada
Place, time Philippines, 1998-2001
Amount $78m-$80m
Source: The Guardian
Releasing a list of the top 10 most corrupt politicians of the past two decades, headed by the former Indonesian dictator, Transparency International warned that the scale of political corruption was undermining hopes for prosperity in the developing world and damaging the global economy.
No country is immune from corruption, the report says, citing the lax controls over political financing in Greece, the close connection between companies and the Bush administration and the unchallenged power of Italy's prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, over his country's media.
But the most egregious examples of wholesale looting have occurred in the developing world, TI said, depriving the desperately poor of vital state resources.
"The abuse of political power for private gain deprives the most needy of vital public services, creating a level of despair that breeds conflict and violence," said Peter Eigen, TI's chairman.
Most of the names on the list were protected by western governments who turned a blind eye to their criminal activities in exchange for support during the cold war.
Suharto, regarded as a bulwark against communism in Asia, stole as much as $35bn from his impoverished country during his three decades in power, before being deposed in 1998 in a popular uprising that was triggered by the Asian economic crisis.
He was charged with looting up to $500m from the state through various charities controlled by his family, but the judges ruled that he was too ill to stand trial.
Marcos, whose wife's 3,000-piece shoe collection became a byword for the corrupt excesses of his regime, was backed by successive US administrations.
Efforts to track down the estimated $10bn he embezzled during his 20 years in power were frustrated by years of strict banking secrecy laws in Switzerland. In August last year, 14 years after his death, the Swiss courts finally authorised the release of $657m to the Philippines' authorities.
Mobutu cleverly used the threat of an invasion from the then Marxist government of Angola to quieten concerns in the west about his increasingly blatant looting from one of the most resource-rich countries in Africa. Washington leaned on the International Monetary Fund to continue lending, despite the doubts of IMF officials.
By the time he was overthrown in 1997, Mobutu had stolen almost half of the $12bn in aid money that Zaire - now the Democratic Republic of Congo - received from the IMF during his 32-year reign, leaving his country saddled with a crippling debt.
Western multinationals must take responsibility for allowing corruption to flourish, TI says. "The corporate sector has a vital role to play in ending the abuse of power," the report says.
Bribery of local officials by western business is still widespread, despite global initiatives to stamp it out, such as the UN convention against corruption. The culture of secrecy surrounding access to resources in the developing world allows corrupt governments to hide revenues from their populations.
Companies from Australia, Sweden, Switzerland, Austria and Canada topped TI's list of bribe-payers last year [companies from those countries are least likely to bribe, not most likely to bribe], despite the introduction of anti-corruption laws to comply with an Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development convention banning bribery of foreign officials.
"We are very much aware that a lot of the responsibility for corruption in the developing world has been with northern companies and northern institutions," said Mr Eigen.
Britain was singled out for dragging its feet on the implementation of the OECD convention. It only outlawed the bribing of officials abroad two years ago, and no one has been prosecuted so far.
Oil, a curse more often than a blessing for poor countries, is a significant factor in corruption. "The flow of oil money is so vast it can distort decision-making in poor producer countries and the rich world alike," the report says.
On the take
Head of state Mohammed Suharto
Place, time Indonesia, 1967-98
Amount $15bn-$35bn
Head of state Ferdinand Marcos
Place, time Philippines, 1972-86
Amount $5bn-$10bn
Head of state Mobutu Sese Seko
Place, time Zaire, 1965-97
Amount $5bn
Head of state Sani Abacha
Place, time Nigeria, 1993-98
Amount $2bn-$5bn
Head of state Slobodan Milosevic
Place, time Serbia, 1972-86
Amount $1bn
Head of state Jean-Claude Duvalier
Place, time Haiti, 1971-86
Amount $300m-$800m
Head of state Alberto Fujimori
Place, time Peru, 1990-2000
Amount $600m
Head of state Pavlo Lazarenko
Place, time Ukraine 1996-97
Amount $114m-$200m
Head of state Arnoldo Alemán
Place, time Nicaragua, 1997-2002
Amount $100m
Head of state Joseph Estrada
Place, time Philippines, 1998-2001
Amount $78m-$80m
Source: The Guardian
Monday, October 8, 2001
A NATION CHALLENGED: THE BANKER; Italian Arab Is Perplexed By Swiss Raid
As he left his office here the night before the Swiss and Italian police raided it, Youssef M. Nada, 71, shook his head, saying: ''To come to the end of my life, a good life, and be accused of helping terrorists -- it is too much.''
Mr. Nada and his partner Ghaleb Himmat, who spent five hours talking with a reporter this week in their office and in Mr. Nada's tiled hillside mansion across the lake in Campione d'Italia, Italy, do not fit the image of the shadowy unregulated money shifters portrayed by some American officials.
From a building with copper-colored windows, they run an empire that had a Bahamas bank and shares of business throughout Europe, the Middle East and Africa, with cement plants, drydocks, textile and brick factories and a division that trades steel, wheat, oil and other commodities. The lone sign for the sixth-floor office is a red placard with one word, ''NADA.'' All others ''were taken down because of the reporters,'' said a banker from another floor.
The trading screens and offices look typical.
Before the raid, Mr. Nada denied that he had aided Al Qaeda or any other terrorist group. ''It is not true, and I'm sure the U.S. government must know it is not true,'' he said when asked about the allegation.
Mr. Nada said he believed that he was a victim of guilt by association because he is a member of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and has had members of Osama bin Laden's immensely wealthy family as clients. ''I have been a member of the Muslim Brotherhood for 50 years,'' he said. ''That is no secret. But it is not a violent organization.''
The group, founded in Egypt in 1928, was banned in 1948 for opposing [Farouk I of Egypt]. It wants Egypt to become an Islamic state. Today it has members in Parliament, and the United States State Department does not list it as terrorist organization.
Mr. Nada, who left Egypt in 1959 and is an Italian citizen, pointed out that a deputy to Mr. bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, wrote a book that attacked the group as infidels because they renounced jihad.
His investment house, Al Taqwa, meaning piety or fear of God, offers 3,000 clients investments in accordance with shariah, or Islamic law. That tenet forbids charging interest or owning anything to do with alcohol, weapons, gambling or adultery.
His chief investment vehicle, Al Taqwa Bank of the Bahamas, which he says he voluntarily liquidated in February, worked like a mutual fund, or mudarabah in Arabic. It made no loans and could not own bonds or, for example, shares in casinos, brewers or weapons manufacturers. But it owned commodities contracts and businesses, many in food and construction materials.
At its height, Mr. Nada said, the bank controlled $220 million in assets, and during its 14-year life investors -- ''mostly Muslims, but also some Christian and Jewish friends'' -- had annual returns of 7 to 14 percent. It closed, he said, because large losses in Indonesia and Malaysia plus news reports that alleged shady dealings started a run by investors. The United States said, however, the Bahamas revoked its charter in April.
An investigation by the Swiss Banking Commission, which included an audit by PriceWaterhouseCoopers, found no evidence of money laundering or allowing other entities to use al-Taqwa as a front, according to the audit.
''What more do you want?'' Mr. Nada asked.
Mark Widmer, a spokesman for the Swiss attorney general, said that there were ''signs and rumors about al-Taqwa for years,'' but that Swiss investigators had never found the ''substantial suspicion'' that courts require for a search warrant. He declined to say what new evidence led to the raid today.
Mr. Nada does not appear to lead a shadowy life. He donates to charity, invited a television crew to his house to meet Muslim women who were wearing head scarves and was for years the Middle East expert at the Pio Manzù Research Center, an organization in Rimini, Italy, affiliated with the United Nations.
SOurce: New York Times
Mr. Nada and his partner Ghaleb Himmat, who spent five hours talking with a reporter this week in their office and in Mr. Nada's tiled hillside mansion across the lake in Campione d'Italia, Italy, do not fit the image of the shadowy unregulated money shifters portrayed by some American officials.
From a building with copper-colored windows, they run an empire that had a Bahamas bank and shares of business throughout Europe, the Middle East and Africa, with cement plants, drydocks, textile and brick factories and a division that trades steel, wheat, oil and other commodities. The lone sign for the sixth-floor office is a red placard with one word, ''NADA.'' All others ''were taken down because of the reporters,'' said a banker from another floor.
The trading screens and offices look typical.
Before the raid, Mr. Nada denied that he had aided Al Qaeda or any other terrorist group. ''It is not true, and I'm sure the U.S. government must know it is not true,'' he said when asked about the allegation.
Mr. Nada said he believed that he was a victim of guilt by association because he is a member of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and has had members of Osama bin Laden's immensely wealthy family as clients. ''I have been a member of the Muslim Brotherhood for 50 years,'' he said. ''That is no secret. But it is not a violent organization.''
The group, founded in Egypt in 1928, was banned in 1948 for opposing [Farouk I of Egypt]. It wants Egypt to become an Islamic state. Today it has members in Parliament, and the United States State Department does not list it as terrorist organization.
Mr. Nada, who left Egypt in 1959 and is an Italian citizen, pointed out that a deputy to Mr. bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, wrote a book that attacked the group as infidels because they renounced jihad.
His investment house, Al Taqwa, meaning piety or fear of God, offers 3,000 clients investments in accordance with shariah, or Islamic law. That tenet forbids charging interest or owning anything to do with alcohol, weapons, gambling or adultery.
His chief investment vehicle, Al Taqwa Bank of the Bahamas, which he says he voluntarily liquidated in February, worked like a mutual fund, or mudarabah in Arabic. It made no loans and could not own bonds or, for example, shares in casinos, brewers or weapons manufacturers. But it owned commodities contracts and businesses, many in food and construction materials.
At its height, Mr. Nada said, the bank controlled $220 million in assets, and during its 14-year life investors -- ''mostly Muslims, but also some Christian and Jewish friends'' -- had annual returns of 7 to 14 percent. It closed, he said, because large losses in Indonesia and Malaysia plus news reports that alleged shady dealings started a run by investors. The United States said, however, the Bahamas revoked its charter in April.
An investigation by the Swiss Banking Commission, which included an audit by PriceWaterhouseCoopers, found no evidence of money laundering or allowing other entities to use al-Taqwa as a front, according to the audit.
''What more do you want?'' Mr. Nada asked.
Mark Widmer, a spokesman for the Swiss attorney general, said that there were ''signs and rumors about al-Taqwa for years,'' but that Swiss investigators had never found the ''substantial suspicion'' that courts require for a search warrant. He declined to say what new evidence led to the raid today.
Mr. Nada does not appear to lead a shadowy life. He donates to charity, invited a television crew to his house to meet Muslim women who were wearing head scarves and was for years the Middle East expert at the Pio Manzù Research Center, an organization in Rimini, Italy, affiliated with the United Nations.
SOurce: New York Times
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