This press release was issued by Christian Aid today and I share it here because I share the goals:
A new African Union report showing how financial crime drains at least $50 billion a year from the continent will turbo-charge the global campaign for tax justice, Christian Aid says today.
The new report, from a high level panel led by former South African President Thabo Mbeki, says Africa loses more through crimes such as tax dodging and corruption than it gains through development aid each year.
“This is an extraordinarily important report which could shift the global debate on tax, financial transparency and corruption,” said Joseph Stead, Senior Economic Justice Adviser at Christian Aid.
“This is the first time that African countries have spoken out so strongly and in unison about how these financial crimes are hurting their people. That is a big deal.
“From now on, it will be much harder for the OECD and other rich country groupings to argue, that tax dodging, corruption, money laundering and so on are not a top priority for African governments.
“The Mbeki report removes any excuse for not taking immediate and effective action against the multinationals draining billions from developing countries, the shell companies holding looted money and the financial secrecy which protects everyone with dirty money to hide.”
Christian Aid also welcomed the report's recommendations for actions to help stop companies and individuals robbing African countries.
“We agree that the solutions lie in reforms including public country-by-country reporting for multinationals, public registers of the real owners of companies and a new system of automatic sharing of financial information between governments,” added Mr Stead.
“This is why Christian Aid is part of a collation of UK organisations calling for a Tax Dodging Bill that would include public country-by-country reporting for UK companies.
“Rich countries are already pursuing some level of reform but very much with their own interests in mind. The particular needs of developing countries have often been an afterthought.
“The Mbeki report must act as a wake-up call, and speed the introduction of international tax and financial systems in which all countries have a say.”
Thanks for reading this post.
You can share this post on social media of your choice by clicking these icons:
You can subscribe to this blog's daily email here.
And if you would like to support this blog you can, here:
Richard
I’d like to hope this will lead to action, but, realistically, not confident.
When James Ibori was robbing his part of Nigeria blind he was aided & abetted by lawyers, bankers & financial advisers in Guernsey.
Ibori, quite rightly, is now doing time but has he been joined by any of the white boys? Nope, thought not.
“A street kid gets arrested, gonna do some time, he’ll come out 3 years from now just to commit more crime,
a businessman gets caught, with 24 kilos, he’s out on bail, he’s out of gaol, & that’s the way it goes”
Innit just ?
What makes things worse is that the ‘pinstripe mafia’ in various jurisdictions, having assisted in this type of crime will argue vehemently against any kind of transfer pricing regime that might require corporates to leave even a tiny portion of the wealth they’ve taken from Africa, in Africa, by saying “well, of course, we’d be happy to pay more tax if we thought it’d be wisely spent but we know there is endemic corruption”.
Yes, you know alright, you facilitate it & frequently, lets be honest, you instigate it!
Christian Aid supports a report by Thabo Mbeki, the man who said that HIV wasn’t the cause of AIDS? The world has gone mad.
Not at all
What some people understand but the right does not, is that people can make mistakes and be forgiven for them
And sometimes they can even change their minds
Or even say they were wrong
And that because we may disagree with a person on one thing we can agree with them on another
All of these are what it is to be human
Right wing commentators might like to take note
“And that because we may disagree with a person on one thing we can agree with them on another”
Yep, that Adolf bloke wasn’t too bad – he invaded Jersey after all!
You might have noticed I used the word ‘may’.
But you did not.
You just presented a crass comment.
It is a luxury afforded to the Right, Richard, their own ideologs and practitioners being thoroughly without taint.
Well I hope that it does shift the debate but our neo-lib friends are also good at throwing the populace off the scent into other areas of ‘interest’ so that crucial stuff like this is ignored. If anyone can, you can Richard!
I was watching Channel 4 news last night, and there was a report about how the recent Greek election result might affect Spain (I hope it does!).
The tone of the reporter was nothing short of disparaging of the anti-austerity Spanish opposition leadership. He/they were not being taken seriously at all.
I believe that one of the issues facing the counter-narrative to neo-lib nirvana (and I include the increasing use of the bona fide financial sector to launder criminal profits above) is that too many TV journalists (for want of a better term) seem to have forgotten that they are there to ask questions that enable the listener to form opinions about issues.
Too often – and even Channel 4 does this now far too much – the interviewer or ‘journalist’ feels that they need to lead opinion and come across as far too cynical and even treat those with new ideas (stuff that hasn’t even been given a chance to work yet) a chance. So debate and exploration of the issues is choked off.
Very seldom are the issues explored in this blog raised in the mainstream media either.
Therefore the system of information (the mainstream media) is now part of this increasing problem of a cycle of pubic ignorance because they treat all politicians the same – so that MPs who are known to have backed policies that are known to have hurt people (Blair – Iraq; IDS – Welfare Reform) and Greens (who have never hurt anyone as far as I know) are all conveniently roped together.
It’s a self-reinforcing negativity that may mean that any new ideas never get a chance and I find it deeply worrying because it helps people to turn off and not open their minds to new ways of thinking which may help us unlock the current economic and political orthodoxy that mars our society.
TV journalists perhaps need to say less!
With exceptions there is a stgering bias to the stratus quo amongst most journalists and editors
The Observer is trying to break that today – Heather Stewart seems to be taking the lead
Indeed, Richard-what a joy to read a mainstream newspaper economics journalist write:
“But we could take a more profound lesson away too, which so far most economists have failed to learn from the Great Recession and its long-drawn-out aftermath: the individualistic, neoliberal perspective on the world that bleaches out humanity in favour of equations needs to be junked too.”
It is too early to say if a turning point is in sight but hearing Varoufakis talk is like breathing fresh air after being confined in a stifling cell for 35 years!
Mark, your summation is bang on. The spectrum of opinion in the media has, like everywhere else, been hijacked by the Neo-liberal Right. There are, of course, exceptions yet (I thought Jonny Snow’s interview with Yanis Varoufakis was very fair by comparison with the Emily Maitless example you commented on. And I shared your disappointment. I have always held Ms Maitless in some regard).
It is little wonder though. The creeping takeover of the media by those versed in Oxbridge schools of thought is only one aspect.
The message of the gun openly held to the collective head of the BBC by Grant Shapps was plain enough. ‘If the BBC is to continue to survive it will not be in its current state’. The combined effect has been to move the concensus from broadly pro status quo to openly Right Wing.
Moreover, the position of Channel 4 as arch-interrogator of the establishment is undermined by its reliance on advertising by the corporates.
But that is the reality we live with.
That is not to say, however, that that in itself precludes the establishment of a new political paradigm. Examples exist in the nascent popular movements across Europe who have circumvented their own deeply conservative media through creative use of online media and local forums. And it is worth remembering that the Arab Spring came about largely as a result of P2P technology.
What the media are trying so desperately to hide is that two new realities are emerging.
The first comes from Greece and its dialogue with Berlin, which can roughly be distilled down to this ;
Alexis Tsipras “Greece can no longer suffer under Austerity. Greek people are living in misery, and dying from Austerity ”
Angela Merkel “Well I’m very sorry for that but the profits of German banks MUST be protected!”
The second truth that the media seek to disguise is that the success of SYRIZA and Podemos! is based on a broad coalition of opinion that is pursuing a Humanist agenda in rejection of the Fideism of market economics.
The statistics posted by Richard yesterday
(What people in Britain really earn) highlights how dangerous it would be to the political Right (and the Westminster elites in general) were a movement to emerge that transcended the old labels of Left and Right and focused instead on a consensus that addressed the common issues of voters up to £35,000 p.a.
That may seem like a dream, but it is an achievable dream if we understand that it will be achieved despite the Media, not because of it.
Martin
Yes – as Richard would say, there is always hope.
But I look around me and see the legions of Daily Mail/Sun readers and people talking about last night’s soap operas or playing with their apps and I have to wonder from time to time just where the energy and spirit for real change and social justice will come from to be honest!
Change always involves a relatively small number of people so long as they strike a chord with a majority