The Gravy Train

After resisting calls to pay income tax for years, MPs in Kenya finally agreed yesterday night to pay the tax, but only after giving themselves a sweetener of 240,000 shillings (£1,960) taking their monthly pay to 1,091,000 shillings (£8,920)- a monthly pay rise of nearly 25%, making them some of the best-paid legislators in the world.Instead of seeing their take-home pay reduced, ordinary MPs will be £100 richer each month, even after tax, thanks to the salary boost.

In Kenya the minimum wage was last month raised to £50 a month for employees in cities and £25 for farm workers.

More Corruption

Further to the previous blog , Socialist Banner's attention was drawn to yet another article on Africa's corruption and Western complicity .

A US Senate report says that, in 2007, President Omar Bongo of Gabon brought $1m in shrink-wrapped $100 notes into the US in a suitcase; that Teodoro Obiang, son of Equatorial Guinea's president, moved "more than $100m in suspect funds through US bank accounts, including $30m to purchase a residence in Malibu"; and that, between 2000 and 2008, Jennifer Douglas, fourth wife of a former Nigerian vice-president, "helped her husband bring more than $40m in suspect funds into the US".

Several African leaders, their relatives and associates use Western banks, including British ones, to move hundreds of millions of dollars out of their countries and into accounts and companies they controlled. The banks through which these funds were channelled include Bank of America, Citibank Private Bank and HSBC.The report also says that a number of US professionals – lawyers, lobbyists, and estate agents – were used "to funnel millions of dollars in illicit money into the United States". It adds, in remarkably forthright language for an official report, that "politically powerful foreign officials, and those close to them, have found ways to use the US financial system to protect and enhance their ill-gotten gains".

Teodoro Obiang,is now the subject of a US criminal investigation. His salary, as minister of agriculture and forestry, is $60,000 a year. Yet, between 2004 and 2008, according to the senate report, he moved "more than $100m in suspect funds through US bank accounts, including $30m to purchase a residence in Malibu and $38.5m to purchase an aircraft". The home was the sixth most expensive home bought in the US that year, and Mr Obiang's spending did not stop there. Two US lawyers set up shell companies for Mr Obiang, and the report lists some transactions through an account for one of them, called Beautiful Vision, at Bank of America. In one four-week period in late 2004, cheques made out included: $82,900 to Naurelle Furniture; $137,312 to Ferrari of Beverly Hills; a further $332,243 to Ferrari; $80,287 to Gucci; $59,850 to "Soofer Gallery Rugs"; and a total of $338, 523 to Lamborghini Beverly Hills. Further cheques in the first half of 2005 were: $55,193 to Dolce & Gabbana, and $58,500 for the installation of a Bang & Olufsen home cinema system.
Back in West Africa despite Equatorial Guinea being sub-Saharan Africa's third biggest oil producer, life expectancy for men is only a fraction more than 50 years, and the infant mortality rate is 12 times worse than in the US.
Omar Bongo died in 2009 and his place was taken by his son, Ali. Both men, says the report, "amassed substantial wealth while in office, amid the extreme poverty of its citizens". US investigators discovered that Ali Bongo's wife, Inge Lynn Collins Bongo, formed a US trust in her maiden name, opened accounts in its name in California and used them to receive "multiple large offshore wire transfers... and used the funds to support a lavish lifestyle and move money along a network of bank and securities accounts benefiting her and her husband".

BAE corruption in Tanzania

BAE deal with Tanzania: Military air traffic control – for country with no airforce.

Cabinet ministers Claire Short and Robin Cook had tried to stop the sale of the hugely expensive radar to the poverty- stricken Tanzanians. But, Tony Blair as prime minister, overruled them and insisted that the deal had to go through.

Cook ruefully muttered that it seemed that Dick Evans, BAE's then chairman, seemed to have "the key to the garden door of No 10".

The World Bank and the International Civil Aviation Organisation judged that the 2001 £28 million purchase was unnecessary and overpriced. The Serious Fraud Office discovered that a third of the contract's price had been diverted into secret offshore bank accounts. The SFO believed that this money was used to pay bribes to Tanzanian politicians and officials.

The SFO discovered that the money had gone into a Swiss bank account controlled by Sailesh Vithlani, a middleman of Indian extraction with a British passport.

He left Tanzania after the country's anti-corruption unit accused of lying to investigators. He is listed as wanted by Interpol.One Tanzanian politician, Andrew Chenge, was forced to resign in 2008 after investigators discovered more than £500,000 in a Jersey bank account he controlled.

The arms giant yesterday agreed to pay out almost £300m in penalties, as it finally admitted guilt over its worldwide conduct.BAE will not face international blacklisting from future contracts, because it has only admitted false accounting, not bribery.The SFO said it was no longer in the public interest to pursue individuals now that it had settled the case with the company.

Dick Olver, the chairman, admitted that BAE "made commission payments to a marketing adviser and failed to accurately record such payments in its accounting records ... The company failed to scrutinise these records adequately to ensure that they were reasonably accurate and permitted them to remain uncorrected."

Uh-huh , just a book-keeping oversight , wasn't it , and of course those are not worthy of criminal proceedings.

Clare Short Development minister at the time , said "Everyone talks about good governance in Africa as though it is an African problem, and often the roots of the 'badness' is companies in Europe."

Breaking the Curse

Mineral-rich African states have been deprived of huge sums of royalties and taxes by mining firms, a report says. The report, by prominent development charities, blames a lack of legislative oversight and excessively generous tax concessions agreed with the firms.
It says some mining companies have also avoided paying tax through secret contracts with African governments. The study covers South Africa, Sierra Leone, Ghana, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Malawi, Tanzania and Zambia. Commissioned by development charities including Christian Aid and ActionAid, the Breaking the Curse report calls for reform of the institutional framework that negotiates mining concessions and monitors the royalties paid.

• Ghana, a top African gold producer, is losing $68m (£46.7m) annually because it is receiving low royalties.
• Tanzania, the continent's third largest producer of gold, could be losing $30m (£20.6m) a year in potential revenues.
• Low royalty rates could be costing South Africa, the continent's biggest gold producer, up to $359m (£246m) a year

Mining companies operating in Africa are granted too many tax subsidies and concessions.
There is high incidence of tax avoidance by mining companies conditioned by such measures as secret mining contracts, corporate mergers and acquisitions, and various ‘creative’ accounting mechanisms. These tax subsidies, together with tax avoidance and alleged tax evasion practices by mining companies, have robbed African treasuries of millions of dollars of tax revenue from the mining industry. The citizens of mineral-rich countries continue to live in poverty, and are in some cases subject to violent conflict fuelled by the wealth generated from mineral resources as is the case today in the eastern DRC.

African mining tax regimes are a mix of secret and discretionary tax deals, as well as tax laws enacted through parliament. Most mining tax laws dating from the 1990s have lowered taxes considerably to attract new foreign direct investment into the sector. This shift to lower taxes has been promoted by the World Bank in all its client countries in Africa, as a means to revitalize the mining sector. Many of these laws allow ministers to negotiate tax deals with individual mining companies at their discretion, often leading to lower royalties, corporate taxes, fuel
levies, windfall or other taxes than those stipulated in the law. At their worst, contracts
may completely exempt companies from any taxes or royalties, as was the case in a number of the mining contracts signed between private companies and state-owned enterprises in the DRC
between 1997 and 2003.
Full Report here

“It is surprising how potentially wealthy nations depend, almost at alcoholic proportions, on aid from countries in the West and most recently Asia,” Brian Kagaro, Action Aid Pan African policy Manager said. “If Africa is truly a mineral-rich continent, why are its people languishing in poverty?”

he who pays the piper calls the tune

The new ANC government in South Africa agreed to spend a controversial £1.6bn buying fleets of Hawk and Gripen warplanes. Critics said the country, beset by unemployment and HIV/Aids, could not afford it. The Hawks, rejected by the military, cost twice as much as Italian equivalents. But the then South African defence minister Joe Modise and a key official, Chippy Shaik, insisted on the purchase.

Leaked evidence from South African police and the British Serious Fraud Office quotes a BAE agent recommending "financially incentivising" politicians.

A lengthy affidavit from the SFO in London accuses BAE of "covert" behaviour and of withholding information. SFO principal investigator Gary Murphy says in the affidavit, sworn on October 9: "I believe that BAE have sought to conceal from the SFO the involvement of [Joe Modise aide] Fana Hlongwane." BAE is also alleged to have drawn up an untruthful "line" about Hlongwane for its press office in 2003. A seized document says that if asked if BAE had ever had any relationship with Hlongwane, it was to say: "No, never - we knew him only as a member of the minister's entourage." It is alleged that in fact, the company was paying him millions of pounds, through a variety of secret routes.

In all , More than £100m was secretly paid by the arms company BAE to sell warplanes to South Africa according to the Guardian

Political whores

In Kenya there is a proposal to pay hefty salaries to the wives of the prime minister and vice-president. A leaked document says the head of civil service Francis Muthaura has directed that they each be paid $6,000 (£3,000) every month.

A government memo leaked to the local media directs that Ida Odinga and Pauline Musyoka, wives of the prime minister and vice-president respectively, will be rewarded for their roles as hostesses.
The pay is also supposed to recognise their role for upholding national family values.

Socialist Banner believes it is more the rich and powerful feathering their own nests at the expense of the poor and vulnerable . We can only agree with Transparency International's Gladwell Otieno who said the move is a confirmation that Kenyan politicians are just a greedy caste, looking after themselves at the expense of poor Kenyans recovering from the effects of post-election violence.

Belly Politics in Gabon

"God brought him to us and only God can call him away. For us there is only Bongo. He is irreplaceable."

Gabon , population 1.5 million people (life expectancy, 53) , the fifth biggest oil exporter in sub-Saharan Africa , is ruled by Omar Bongo , now the longest-ruling head of state, not counting the monarchs of Britain and Thailand . He has ruled for 40 years . Born Albert Bernard Bongo, the youngest of 12 children on Dec. 30, 1935, Bongo served as a lieutenant in the French Air Force, then climbed quickly through the civil service and assumed the presidency on Dec. 2, 1967, after Gabon's first post-independence leader died. Six years later he converted to Islam and took the name Omar.

Bongo has displayed plenty of dictatorial tendencies. His government has jailed journalists who dared criticize him personally, and has cowed most of the rest into self-censorship. But Gabon's prisons are not filled with political prisoners and rivals don't disappear or turn up mysteriously dead in the night.
Instead, he "attacks" his opponents by bringing them into his fold, offering them top posts, giving them a piece of the pie . Bongo's principal opponent in the 2005 election was Pierre Momboundou. After losing the vote by a landslide, Momboundou asked for and got $7 million a year later for development in his constituency (he's now a member of parliament).

But oil dependency means the country has more oil pipeline (886 miles) than paved roads (582 miles). Only 1 percent of its land is cultivated and Gabon produces virtually no food. Instead, basics such as tomatoes are imported from France, the former colonial master, and neighboring Cameroon, pushing prices so high that Libreville, the capital, is the world's eighth most expensive city, according to Employment Conditions Abroad International. Gabon once boasted world's highest champagne consumption per capita . 90 percent of the country's income goes to the richest 20 percent the population, while the bottom 30 percent lives on less than $1 a day.

Bongo, by contrast, has amassed a fortune that makes him one of the world's richest men, according to Freedom House, a private Washington-based democracy watchdog organization. Nobody really knows how much he is worth, but there have been clues. French media have reported his family owns abundant real estate in France — at one time more Paris properties than any other foreign leader. In 2003, an official of French oil giant Elf Aquitaine testified he had opened several Swiss bank accounts for Bongo into which commissions were paid on multimillion-dollar oil deals. . Bongo's daughter-in-law, married to his son the defense minister, appeared on the American reality show "Really Rich Real Estate" in 2006, shopping for a $25 million Beverly Hills mansion.

Gabon today is "neither dictatorship nor democracy, neither paradise nor hell," said Louis-Gaston Mayila, who heads a pro-Bongo political party "We are something in between."

Moussirou Mouyama, a linguistics professor at Libreville's Omar Bongo University , however , says "It's belly politics . If you don't go along, you don't eat."

Who are the criminals ?

From the BBC

A fully-equipped hospital that lay unused for two years has burned to the ground in northern Nigeria. The General Hospital in Maiduguri was built in 2006 but the state government refused to open it until the president came to cut the ribbon.
The governor had refused to open the hospital, which was ready for patients in June 2006, until former President Olusegun Obasanjo came to the state. His visit was postponed several times, the last being just two months before the election in 2007. His successor Umaru Yar'adua was due to visit later next month.

Borno was recently hit by a measles outbreak that killed hundreds of children across three states. Existing hospitals in Borno are poorly equipped and overcrowded.

Angry residents of Bulunkutu, where the hospital was situated, gathered around the burned hospital and shouted abuse at the alleged arsonists, local papers reported.
The governor addressed the arsonists through the media.
"There is not one hospital in the country owned by a state government that has the type of world class equipment we had in there. It is their people that would have benefitted," he told reporters at the scene.

Socialist Banner acknowledges the counter-productive result of burning down a hospital but , surely , this Nigerian state governor must stand condemned for placing party politics before peoples welfare - leaving a modern fully equipped sophistacated hospital empty for two years while people around it died from lack of medical attention . He and his suppoerters are no better than the actual arsonists .

ZAMBIA: CONSITITUTIONAL FRAUD

From a comrade in Zambia :-

Karl Marx was certain that the economic and political reforms taking place in his time were paving they way to a working class inspired political revolution (socialism). But what Marx did not foresee was that the ruling class was going to intensify its accumulation of political and economic privileges that has remained to the present day.

It is in this sense that we in the WSM do not support political and economic reforms. We do not believe that there is a government that can put in place a working class inspired political constitution that shall undermine the political and economic privileges of the ruling elite. This we may infer that political constitutions are mere political statements—political and economic privileges remain where they have always remained: with the capitalist class. We in the WSM firmly believe that the MMD government under President Levy Mwanawasa cannot adopt the recommendations of the Mung’omba Constitutional Review Commission because to do otherwise will entail the unilateral limitation of its political and economic privileges.

The National Constitutional Conference (NCC) is a political fraud created by President Levy Mwanawasa to sideline the formation of a constitutional assembly that was recommended by the Mung’omba Constitutional Review. That is why the Catholic church and some opposition parties have boycotted the NCC. More or less the vast amounts of money given to delegates contradicts the main reasons President Levy Mwanawasa had given against the setting up of a constitutional assembly.

The NCC is a slap on the face of poor and disgruntled Zambians—it only shows the empty blind alleys where capitalism can lead the workers. Zambia is historically handicapped by ethnic and tribal allegiances, and it is a matter of political conjecture to infer that the workers and peasants in Zambia are in support of a constitutional assembly. This is so because the political statements being uttered by diverse political parties in Zambia does not in reality reflect the actual voting patterns that emerged during the 2006 general elections. People voted for the political parties to which they have close ethnic and tribal affinities.

Constitution reviews liberate no-one. The market system creates nothing beyond profit and misery—the ideological claims that capitalism is an efficient system just don’t stand up to any genuine examination.

This is proved in Africa where the prevalence of abundant minerals and oil reserves are failing to lead to economic development.

KEPHAS MULENGA , Zambia

Politics of Poverty

A commentary on the recent events in Kenya by a comrade in Zambia

It is tragic that poor Africans end up killing themselves each other whenever a political leader they support loses an election.

This was the case in Kenya where hundreds died after President Mwai Kibaki was declared the winner of the presidential election. The defeated opposition politician Raila Odinga cried foul and his tribal supporters went on the rampage, burning 300 innocent children who had taken refuge in a church. It is the case that in Kenya and Zambia, politics are strongly influenced by ethnic and tribal loyalties. In Kenya the Kikuyu and Luo ended up killing each other because of unexplained ethnic and tribal paroxysms. Odinga believes that the elections were rigged. It is the case that the so-called Western observers help to fuel political instability in Africa through their seemingly innocuous pronouncements—they are always unsatisfied with the electoral procedures that take place in Africa.

What took place in Kenya is more like what took place in Zambia during the 2006 general election. President Levy Mwangwasa won the elections on a slim margin and most members of the opposition PF felt that the elections were rigged. In any event, the defeated Orange Democratic Movement does not have a credible political vision for the poor workers and peasants of Kenya—that is to say, the economic status quo would not have changed even if Odinga had become the President.

Tribalism speaks hard against political transparency in Africa—it defeats the concept of political multi-partyism that exists on paper.

It is mostly political hooligans and thugs who benefit from ethnic and tribal conflicts.

Disparities in income and wealth distribution exist across the broad ethnic and tribal divide.

To infer that the ruling political elites in Africa cannot accept a political defeat (constitutional transparency) is beyond our theoretical jurisdiction. The WSM does not support any political movement that aims to reform capitalism. We believe that racial, religious economic, political and ecological disasters that confront Mankind cannot be resolved from within the political and economic arrangement that prevails under capitalism. We are hereby appealing to the workers in Kenya and elsewhere to become class conscious and rally behind the banner of WORLD SOCIALISM.

KEPHAS MULENGA (Zambia)

"Ball and Chains"

The BBC carries a report of a documentary called "Ball and Chains" on African football players in Europe and their particular exploitation .

Every year hundreds of young African players come to Europe in the hope of striking it rich, following in the footsteps of stars such as Chelsea's Didier Drogba or Barcelona's Samuel Eto'o. But for the handful who make it, far more fail. And yet they keep coming. The few successful examples are skewing the perceptions of young Africans, and in many cases encouraging them to abandon their education.

Raffaele Poli, a Swiss academic, has studied the career paths of African footballers in Europe.
He looked at 600 players who played in the top European leagues in 2002.
Four years later, only 13% had progressed upwards. A third had simply disappeared from professional football.

Many clubs have made a business out of importing cheap African talent and then selling it on to wealthier European clubs. In the global football business, though, the talent is at the mercy of unscrupulous agents and clubs. Dirk de Vos of the Belgian football players' union showed us a contract between a club and an African player.
Or rather, two contracts.
One, properly printed, gave the player the correct minimum wage and benefits, and was lodged with the football federation. The other, hand-written, showed the true salary - less than a quarter of the official figure.
"They have no choice but to sign the second contract," says de Vos.

Other players we met had simply been abandoned on the streets by their agents when they failed a trial, or had their contract terminated.

Scams and false paperwork are common. In Ghent a young Nigerian player was recruited at the age of 15. Too young to play officially, his agent had taken his passport to the Nigerian embassy in Brussels, where he had paid to have it "amended" to make him appear older.
A Cameroonian player for Bayern Munich turned out to be travelling on a passport that actually belonged to a French woman.
"You can bribe anyone," says Jean-Claude Mbvoumin a former Cameroonian international player, who now runs a support group for abandoned footballers in Paris.

"It's important to dream," says Jean-Claude Mbvoumin, "but the dreams about football now are not realistic."

The Guardian also reports soccers exploitaion of African football talent . In the slums of Jamestown, outside the Ghanaian capital, Accra , a weather-beaten billboard poster shows Michael Essien holding out a ball dotted with black stars, his country's national symbol, the Ghana and Chelsea midfielder beckons fans to 'Be Proud' . There are an estimated 500 illegal football academies operating in Accra alone. Thousands more are spread across Ghana. Many are run by the roadside; most have no proper training facilities . According to the Confederation of African Football, the sport's governing body in the continent, all such institutions must be registered with the local government or football association. The reality in Ghana and neighbouring Ivory Coast is that the greater the success of West African players in Europe, the more unaccredited academies spring up. Most demand fees from the children's parents and extended families, who often take them out of normal schooling to allow them to concentrate on football full-time. Since having a professional footballer in the family would be the financial equivalent of a lottery win, many reckon the risk to their child's education worth taking.

Coaches, as well as European and Arab middlemen, haggle over the best players, signing some as young as seven on tightly binding pre-contracts - effectively buying them from their families - with the hope of making thousands of dollars selling the boys on to clubs in Europe. In other cases, they extort the cost of passage from their families. Many take the deeds on houses and even family jewellery in return for their services. This process of exploitation is raising alarm among West Africa-based NGOs including Save the Children and Caritas.

Tony Baffoe, the former Ghana captain, now an ambassador for this year's African Nations Cup, admits that 'the trafficking of children to play football is a reality we must all face'

In West Africa serious money is being invested by European giants such as the Dutch clubs Ajax and Feyenoord, who both operate academies in Ghana. Just one top-class player every five years would cover the running costs of these accredited academies . French clubs such as Paris Saint-Germain and Monaco also maintain scouting networks in the region. Manchester United have bought a controlling interest in Fortune FC, a South African second-division side.

The exploitation of young footballers has even been called a new 'slave trade' and is leaving a tragic legacy of homeless young footballing hopefuls across Europe.

'This football-related trafficking and the widespread creation of so-called schools of excellence is an area of huge growing concern for Save The Children,' says Heather Kerr, the charity's Ivory Coast country manager.

Sepp Blatter, president of Fifa, football's world governing body, accused Europe's richest clubs of 'despicable' behaviour and engaging in 'social and economic rape' as they scour the developing world for talent.

Marie-George Buffet, a former French Sports Minister, recently claimed that many French-run academies, both in France and in Africa, were corrupt and run by unlicensed agents who needed controlling.

Professor Pierre Lanfranchi, an expert in the development of football worldwide and a consultant to Fifa. He says corruption in Africa, with poorly run national governing bodies, makes it easy for European clubs to cherry-pick the best young players and that there are no foundations to the professional game in Africa

Culture Foot Solidaire is a charity set up to help African teenagers trafficked or sent to Europe for football trials, then abandoned. Jean-Claude Mbvoumin, the president of the charity said:-
"One-month visas are easy to get with bribes in Africa, but after they fail their trials they stay on. They have nothing to go back to. These kids are as young as 14, they end up on the streets, worse off and in more danger than they could ever be at home." There is now a huge business to be made from football, says Mbvoumin, and it feeds on people's dreams of a better life for their family. "...vulnerable people are lured into a kind of debt slavery in the expectation of a better life. These brokers are getting $3,000 per child and offering to smuggle them out on the promise that they will sign for a big club. So many boys have gone missing in this way... "

Comments on Kenya

As usual , it is the workers that are being used as pawns in the political battle of the elites .

The wave of post-election violence in Kenya is hurting mainly the poor rather than the politicians who caused it but who are safe inside their gated compounds, an Italian slum priest said. Father Daniel Moschetti has worked for 15 years in Nairobi's Korogocho shanty-town.

"This is a war of the poor. The slum residents are suffering," he said. "We have no food, no water. We have no communication with the outside world, whilst politicians are creating the conditions for civil war."

"Kenyans have shown a much greater maturity than politicians, but it is the politicians living in their secure compounds who are inciting ethnic hatred," Moschetti said. "The future of this country is in the hands of people who have no wisdom. They are blinded by pride and cannot see their people dying."

The death toll from ethnic riots triggered by President Mwai Kibaki's disputed re-election approached 250 .

The Times explains that every election since multiparty politics was reintroduced in 1991 has involved rigging. So far the margin of victory has always been so great that Western diplomats - keen to maintain “stability” - could claim that the cheating would not have made a difference to the result. “Voting broadly reflected the will of the people” was their duplicitous phrase that allowed the ruling elite to play their quinquennial charade. Now the margin of victory is too thin. The cheating did make a difference and Raila Odinga, the leader of the main opposition party that has won the largest number of seats in parliament and six out of eight provinces, is not going to accept defeat.

Kenyan politics are more than a lucrative game of musical chairs for the elite. They are the most vicious and tribalised on the continent. Politicians often address their own people in coded language. “It is our turn to eat!” is a phrase they often use. It means that it is the turn of our ethnic group to rule — and loot as much as we can.

“This tribalism was started by Jomo Kenyatta, perfected by Moi and super-perfected by Kibaki,” said Elvis, a young accountant living in Kibera. He refused to give his surname as it would reveal his tribe , one of 42 different ethnic tribes

Intense internal and international pressure forced Mr Kibaki to appoint John Githongo, a former journalist and corruption campaigner, as anti-corruption czar. Mr Githongo commissioned Kroll, a private security firm, to trace, freeze and return the money lodged in accounts all over the world. but once these details became available to senior figures in Kibaki's Government, the second and third stages of the process, freezing and recovery, were abandoned. Mr Githongo fled for his life and, even in a British haven, was given an armed bodyguard. The Kenyan elite have a history of killing people who ask questions about corruption.

The Financial Times comments as western leaders scramble to prevent Kenya’s descent into chaos they should find time to consider their own failure to respond to a crisis that has been long in the making. For the first time in Africa’s post-independence history, an insider was ready to reveal how corruption worked – with evidence that included secretly taped conversations with cabinet ministers. Britain and other aid donors were given an opportunity to tackle corruption, using as leverage aid that exceeds $16billion since independence in 1963. Britain chose not to act on Mr Githongo’s evidence. Instead, it has been business as usual. They did not believe it was ultimately in their interests to have a showdown with the barons of corruption. They did not want to upset what they saw as a regional “island of stability” from which the UN and other international relief agencies, including hundreds of foreign non-governmental organisations, operate – a thriving business that accounts for a fifth of Kenya’s annual foreign exchange earnings.

If aid has worked in Kenya, how do development agencies explain the growing pauperisation of its people? In 1990 about 48 per cent of the population was living below the poverty line. Today, more than four decades after independence, nearly 55 per cent of Kenyans are subsisting on a couple of dollars a day. And for all the 6 per cent annual gross domestic product growth achieved in the past two years under Mr Kibaki, the gap between the haves and the have-nots is widening. To see the crisis only in terms of tribal allegiances and ethnic clashes is to miss a vital element in the Kenyan picture. The population has doubled in 25 years to 31million Unemployment is growing, and the number without land is growing.

For these people there is nothing to lose by taking to the streets, driven by frustration and fury that transcend their tribe.

Kenya is paying a terrible price for the tolerance of its corrupt government by its western partners.

If history is anything to go by the only ones who get to “eat” are the rich and well-connected. The poor, whether Kikuyu, Kalenjin or Luo, remain poor.

Flights of Fancy

The Ugandan president, Yoweri Museveni, is to buy a new Gulfstream presidential jet for £24 million after convincing MPs that his £16 million plane bought seven years ago is out of date.

The plans have caused outrage in Uganda, where one in three people live on less than a dollar a day .

Newspapers are reminding readers of Museveni's famous speech when he came to power in 1986, in which he mocked the expensive tastes of African leaders. "The honourable excellency who is going to the United Nations in executive jets, but has a population at home of 90% walking barefoot, is nothing but a pathetic spectacle," he said at the time. A matter of do what i say , not what i do .

His government has spent already lavishly this year, forking out £79 million on hosting the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting and a reported £27 million for a presidential palace refurbishment. In an editorial, the Weekly Observer questioned the president's priorities, noting that "parts of the country are ravaged by floods, Ebola, cholera, malaria, and even plague!"

Mega developments - Little benefit for poor

A 2007 study by the UN Development Programme's International Poverty Centre examined poverty, inequality and growth since Mozambique instituted economic reforms in 1992, at the end of the civil war. It found that Mozambique's indices of rapid economic growth were illusory at best. Although the economy grew by 7.9 percent last year, most of the growth in income and consumption occurred among the population's richest quintile, with less than 10 percent of growth affecting the country's poorest.

Growth in industrial production has been the main driving force behind Mozambique's rapidly growing exports the study's authors observed.Based on a few mega-projects, this growth has, however, created few jobs, while its contribution to public revenue has been marginal when compared to its value of production .
The Mozal aluminium plant is a symbol of Mozambique's red-hot economy, touted as a symbol of the investor-friendly environment that led the Wall Street Journal to declare the country "an African success story". Mozal's exports have increased Mozambique's Gross Domestic Product . by between 3.2 and 5 percent. Its output represents almost half the country's growth in manufacturing. Initial investment in the project amounted to approximately 40 percent of GDP, but only created around 1,500 jobs, of which nearly a third are held by foreigners.The smelters use more electricity than the rest of Mozambique combined, enjoys an extensive list of incentives ranging from discounted electricity to a prolonged tax holiday. Mozal pays a one percent tax on sales . It also has the right to repatriate profits. The result is an isolated economic enclave that uses large quantities of scarce resources without returning revenue or jobs to the economy.

The report pointed out that the southern provinces receiving the greatest percentages of foreign direct investment also saw the largest increases in poverty rates in recent years. Development strategies implemented since the end of the civil war neglected agriculture and fishing, the primary source of livelihood of more than 80 percent of Mozambicans.

Dependence on large projects, coupled with Mozambique's already heavy dependence on foreign aid, means top officials are more concerned with accountability to donors and financial institutions than the people they were elected to serve. The authors concluded that the result was not "pro poor".

"Following in the footsteps of the centralised colonial administration and the subsequent Marxist-Leninist party/state apparatus, the government continues to operate, through mega-projects put together by the top political leadership and respective donors and/or private investors, with very little public consultation or transparency," the study noted.

The Economist reports that the World Bank praised Mozambique for being among the region's top business reformers. Enthusiastic donors poured $1.3 billion into the country in 2005—about a fifth of its GDP . Carlos Castel-Branco, a local economist, says the economy is not really developing. Growth is driven by foreign aid and big capital-intensive foreign investments, which, he argues, create few jobs and contribute little to the public purse.

So far, the country's growing wealth has largely benefited a tiny elite .
“The tentacles of the ruling party are in almost every sector of the economy,” says a local journalist.

Renamo says its supporters in rural areas are being harassed and sometimes beaten up. The pressure on civil servants to join the ruling party is growing. Much of the extra money given to local authorities for economic development is said to end up in the pockets of Frelimo people. Until his death the former president Mr Chissano's son , Nympine , was being investigated in connection with the murder in 2000 of a journalist who had been investigating corruption.

Big Business calling the shots , and the local politicians filling their coffers , while the poor lose out . Same old news

Taxing Food

"Bread used to be called the white or rich person's maize, and maize was the Swazi's or poor person's bread, but now both are beyond reach almost, and it is making more people dependant on food aid," said a food aid distribution officer at the village of Mliba

Crippling drought is responsible for a decline of up to 80 percent in maize harvests in some parts of the Swaziland . Over 400,000 people out of a population of 970,000 now need some form of food aid to survive.

The price of a loaf of bread will jump by 10 US cents, and by the end of the year a loaf may cost US$1 in a country where over 60 percent of people live on less than US$1 a day .

But the radically escalating price of bread is not related to Swazi weather; no wheat is grown in the country. Rather, it is because of the government's desire for tax revenue. Through its price-fixing arm, the National Agricultural Marketing Board , an 8.5 percent levy is fixed on all wheat imported into the country.

"Swaziland, the nation with the worst food crisis per capita in the southern African region, has the most expensive flour in the region. This is because of government tax," said the manager of an industrial bakery. Bakeries say they can no longer absorb the high cost of flour without passing on the increases to consumers. If forced to shut down, they warned that 2,000 jobs could be lost in a country where formal-sector unemployment is above 40 percent. Some bakeries are coping by cheating, and stories about undersized loaves of bread feature extensively in the local media.


Why is the Swazi government charging wheat importers this levy when there are no farmers producing wheat in Swaziland who need to be protected from unfair competition?

A shopkeeper and restaurant owner in the central commercial town of Manzini says "This is all about tax revenue for government. Why are they taxing food during a food crisis? It makes no sense - it's just greed."

Finance minister Majozi Sithole told parliament last week that government receives only 20 percent of the customs duties due to it because of the under-declaring of goods and other cheating at border posts. Since 2004, he has reported annually that the amount of money lost to government through various forms of corruption is equal to the nation's annual debt.

Bribery - A Tax on the Poor

More than one in 10 people has paid a bribe in the past 12 months, a survey by global anti-corruption body Transparency International has found. The report added that the world's poor were the hardest hit by bribery. The popular perception may be that bribes are paid by wealthy people to gain influence and oil the wheels of power, but they are mostly paid by poor people to ensure they get basic public services.

"Extortion hits low-income households with a regressive tax that saps scarce household resources," the report said .

In Africa, 42% of people paid a bribe to obtain a service .

WHO PAYS THE MOST BRIBES
Cameroon - 79%
Cambodia - 72%
Albania - 71%
Kosovo - 67%
FYR Macedonia - 44%
Pakistan - 44%
Nigeria - 40%
Senegal - 38%
Romania - 33%
Philippines - 32%
[ Percentage of people who paid a bribe in the past 12 months ]

Corruption

Widespread corruption and mismanagement are revealed in a confidential presidential audit in Sierra Leone obtained by the BBC. It catalogues grave inadequacies in key areas such as health care, tax collection and the security services.

One arm of government is alleged to have lent more than $1 million (£480,000) to an unspecified recipient in the few months before the recent handover of power.
At one ministry, a project worth almost $500,000 was apparently financed by an international donor - but the money never reached the intended recipients.
The Sierra Leonean Ministry of Agriculture is described as having "almost zero productivity" at the lower levels of employment.

Kenyan Corruption

Socialist Banner notes the self-aggrandisement of the politicians in Kenya to award themselves a financial bonus . They have voted to award themselves a $22,000 bonus each at the end of their five-year term . Kenya's 222 MPs already earn more than $10,000 a month in salaries and expenses, much of which is tax-free, in a country where most people live on less than $1 a day. To rub salt into the wound these MPs had the gall to have originally wanted a bonus of $98,000 each but the finance minister declined to cooperate .

We are , of course , not surprised since thay are after all primary representatives of the master class and naturally each MP aspires to join the ranks of their capitalist masters .

While looking out for their own mercenary futures , the MPs also watched their backs and barred the investigation of corruption cases which occurred before 2004.

The move to pardon corruption cases which happened before 2004 effectively stops any investigations or attempts to recover funds looted in the multi-million dollar Goldenberg and Anglo-Leasing scandals.

Recently a report was found to have been suppressed that alleged that £1 billion was corruptly syphoned off by family and friends of the previous Moi government . The 110-page report by international risk consultants Kroll details assets still allegedly owned by the Moi family and their entourage in 28 countries, including hotels and residences in South Africa and the United States, a 10,000-hectare ranch in Australia, three hotels in London, a £4 million house in Surrey, and a £2 million penthouse flat in Knightsbridge. It claims the Moi family laundered $400 million through a complex web of accounts in Kenya, Geneva and Frankfurt. It also alleged that they and a handful of associates own a bank in Belgium that was used to launder money from Kenya and uncovered a web of secret bank accounts, shell companies and dummy trusts registered in tax havens, including the Cayman Islands. Moi’s sons, Philip and Gideon, were reported to be worth £384m and £550m respectively.

Unless the Kenyan people join together with the peoples of all nations and take control of their own destinies , we fear that one discreditable elite will only be replaced by another as equally disreputable bunch of self-serving parliamentary parasites.

Capitalist Leeches

Capitalism has only one remit - maximise and accumulate profits . Investment abroad is done not out of goodwill to benefit local people but to achieve a return for shareholder .

It comes as no surprise to socialists that BBC Radio 4's File on 4 has learned that almost £100 billion a year is taken out of Africa through accounting practices , both legal and illegal , - several times what the continent receives in aid.

Because of the way Kenyan tax laws have evolved, foreign companies can quite lawfully contribute very little in the way of taxes to the country's economy . Some international companies have been found to have acted illegally .

Kenya's official export statistics say almost 50 million kilos of tea left there in 2005 bound for Britain. But the British import statistics showed 75 million kilos - one and a half times as much - arriving here from Kenya. Companies shipping tea to the UK were under-reporting exports in order to avoid paying tax.

There is also widespread under-reporting of profits by flower companies, many of which are owned by Europeans. If you do not declare the full value of income that you have earned as a business, it means you are underpaying taxes - a practice known as "transfer pricing" - the means by which firms value their goods for tax purposes when they move them across international borders. In effect, this allows companies to undervalue their products when they leave Kenya and to place their profits elsewhere . File on 4 found there were also perfectly legal accounting practices which allowed British firms to register their profits outside Kenya.
Britain's acting High Commissioner to Kenya, Ray Kyles, said it was not the job of foreign governments to encourage their corporate investors to pay tax.

Christian Aid said this capital flight amounted to "the looting of the continent".

Zimbabwe - Mugabe - corruption and cement

Scarce building materials, earmarked to rehouse victims of Zimbabwe's Operation Murambatsvina, have been diverted to other projects, including work on a mansion for President Robert Mugabe . Operation Murambatsvina, supposedly aimed at clearing slums and flushing out criminals, left more than 700,000 people homeless or without a livelihood.

A visit by an IRIN correspondent to Hopley Farm, a government camp 25km southeast of Harare, for internally displaced people who lost their homes found all construction activities had ground to a halt. Local government officials responsible for the construction of housing for 1,000 families told IRIN the programme had been stopped after cement and money for workers' salaries had run out.

The officials showed IRIN a letter written to Ignatius Chombo, the minister of local government, which read, "Please take note of the 11,150 bags [of cement], said to have gone to President Robert Mugabe's residence in Borrowdale..the cement was said to have been returned, when in actual fact it was not. The cement was used in Borrowdale towards the construction of the president's house." Mugabe is renovating the Borrowdale Brooke home of the world's former number one ranked golfer, Nick Price; some sections of the property, such as the security wall and workers' accommodation, are still being built.
Cement destined for housing at Hopley Farm was also being used in other projects, such as the construction of the Manyuchi Dam in Masvingo Province, in the southeast, repairs to Harare's maximum-security Chikurubi prison, and also for renovations to some district hospitals.

None of the houses built so far include lavatories or potable water, and prospective tenants have been told that the costs of installing these facilities would have to be borne by them. In Bulawayo, Zimbabwe's second city, municipal authorities have evicted the beneficiaries of Operation Garikai housing, on the basis that the dwellings could only be deemed habiltable if the government provided water and sanitation.