Hiding Africa's Looted Funds: The Silence of Western Media
According to a 110 page report prepared by international risk consultancy firm Kroll
, Arap Moi and his family have banked 1 billion in 28 countries including Britain but the media in the west will not expose the banks involved.The Guardian,Friday 31 August 2007.
Apart from the banking sector, the property sector in Europe, America and Australia have also connived with the political and business elite in Africa to impoverish the people. Several African leaders have bought properties in Europe and America using monies stolen from their poor countries. It is on record that Mobutu of DRC (Zaire) bought several villas in France, Switzerland, Belgium and many European Countries. Yet again the companies selling the villas have been kept secret by the media. Why ?
It has recently come to light that Arap Moi of Kenya and his family bought several multimillion pound properties in London, New York, South Africa including 10,000-hectare ranch in Australia and bank accounts containing hundreds of millions of pounds. While majority of Kenyans live in slums and in rural areas, with little roofing on their heads and lacking water and other basic necessities of life, Moi's family live in a 4m home in Surrey and 2m flat in Knightsbridge yet the media will not expose the estate companies involved. The Guardian, Friday 31 August 200
It is common for western companies looking for lucrative contracts to pay bribes and kickbacks to induce officials into awarding them contracts. For example on 17th September 2002, a Canadian firm called Acres International was convicted by a High Court in Lesotho for paying $260,000 bribe to secure an $8 billion dam contract. Source: Probe International.http://www.eprf.ca/pi/index.cfm?DSP=content&ContentID=5484
In 2002, Halliburton, a company once controlled by Dick Cheney (former US Vice President) was accused of establishing $180m fund and used it to bribe Nigerian officials in order to secure a $10 billion Liquefied Gas Plant contract in Nigeria. Source: Royal Dutch Shell plc.
Achair Partners (a Swiss company) and Progresso (an Italian company) have been accused of bribing Somalia's Transition Government officials in order to secure contracts to deposit highly toxic industrial waste in the waters of Somalia. Such corrupt practices by western companies seeking contracts in Africa are one of the reasons why poverty and diseases are rife in the continent.
The catastrophic environmental damage being caused by Oil, mining and timber companies such as Shell, BP, Total, Elf, Texaco, Mittal, Anglo-America Corporation in Nigeria, Ghana, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, Angola, Congo, DR. Congo, South Africa, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Senegal do not make the news in the West. How often do we hear about the huge environmental price Africans are paying to satisfy the west's insatiable appetite for energy and technology? Apart from the huge profits being made by these conglomerates which we often hear in the news, do we hear also their complete disregard for environmental rules; the pollution of rivers, lakes, streams, wells, and the environment? On June 30, 2009 a report by Amnesty International entitled "OIL INDUSTRY HAS BROUGHT POVERTY AND POLLUTION TO NIGER DELTA" catalogues list of environmental destruction and damage that the Oil Cartel is causing in the region.
In October 2002, after a three year investigation a
UN Panel of Experts implicated Cabot Corporation (Boston), Eagle Wings Resources International, and George Forrest's OM Group (Ohio) for arming rebel groups and collaborating with them to traffic from DR. Congo gold, diamond, timber and most importantly coltan (columbo-tantalite)-a precious ore essential to Sony playstations, laptop computers, and cell phones. Coltan is often spirited out of DRC to U.S., Swiss, Belgian, and German clients by Uganda and Rwanda army officers, rebel groups and through a network of criminal syndicates. In all 85 companies were implicated by the report.
Except the wars and the stranded faces of hungry refugees, do these illegal activities by the corporations make the news in the Western media? Definitely not. Even when local journalists and writers document this for broadcast in the west, it is not published as it does not serve their interests. The media only publish stories after NGOs and civil society organisations have fought to expose corruption and shady deals involving western corporations, business and political leaders.
This is the hypocrisy and double standard of the western media. They want the world to know how poor Africans are but fail to tell the world that Africans are poor because Western banking institutions, property development companies, defence companies and defence contractors, oil and mining corporations are major stakeholders in promoting Africa's poverty and underdevelopment. Corruption and bribery in Africa and indeed the developing world could be reduced tremendously if the media for once put aside the pick and choose journalism and attached the same importance to show the degree of involvement by western capitalist institutions Europe, America and Japan and their role in keeping Africans poor.
Hiding Africa's Looted Funds: The Silence of Western Media
By: Lord Aikins Adusei
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