Donations from West mask ‘US$60bn looting’ of Africa

Herald Zimbabwe ^ | 8-11-14 | Mark Anderson

[mgist]

Donations from West mask ‘US$60bn looting’ of Africa August 11, 2014 Opinion & Analysis Mark Anderson

WESTERN countries are using aid to Africa as a smokescreen to hide the “sustained looting” of the continent as it loses nearly US$60 billion a year through tax evasion, climate change mitigation, and the flight of profits earned by foreign multinational companies, a group of NGOs has claimed.Although sub-Saharan Africa receives US$134 billion each year in loans, foreign investment and development aid, research released last week by a group of UK and Africa-based NGOs suggests that US$192 billion leaves the region, leaving a US$58 billion shortfall.

The report says that while Western countries send about US$30 billion in development aid to Africa every year, more than six times that amount leaves the continent, “mainly to the same countries providing that aid”.

The perception that such aid is helping African countries “has facilitated a perverse reality in which the UK and other wealthy governments celebrate their generosity whilst simultaneously assisting their companies to drain Africa’s resources”, the report claims.

It points out that foreign multinational companies siphon US$46 billion out of sub-Saharan Africa each year, while US$35 billion is moved from Africa into tax havens around the world annually.

The study, which also notes that African governments spend US$21 billion a year on debt repayments, calls for the aid system to be overhauled and made more open.

It says aid sent in the form of loans serves only to contribute to the continent’s debt crisis, and recommends that donors should use transparent contracts to ensure development assistance grants can be properly scrutinised by the recipient country’s parliament.

“The common understanding is that the UK ‘helps’ Africa through aid, but in reality this serves as a smokescreen for the billions taken out,” said Martin Drewry, director of Health Poverty Action, one of the NGOs behind the report.

“Let’s use more accurate language. It’s sustained looting – the opposite of generous giving – and we should recognise that the City of London is at the heart of the global financial system that facilitates this.”

Research by Global Financial Integrity shows Africa’s illicit outflows were nearly 50 percent higher than the average for the global south from 2002-11. The UK-based NGO ActionAid issued a report last year that claimed half of large corporate investment in the global south transited through a tax haven.

Supporting regulatory reforms would empower African governments “to control the operations of investing foreign companies”, the report says, adding: “Countries must support efforts under way in the United Nations to draw up a binding international agreement on transnational corporations to protect human rights.”

But NGOs must also change, according to Drewry: “We need to move beyond our focus on aid levels and communicate the bigger truth – exposing the real relationship between rich and poor, and holding leaders to account.”

The report was authored by 13 UK and Africa-based NGOs, including: Health Poverty Action, Jubilee Debt Campaign, World Development Movement, African Forum and Network on Debt and Development, Friends of the Earth Africa, Tax Justice Network, War on Want, Medact, Friends of the Earth South Africa, JA!Justiça Ambiental/Friends of the Earth Mozambique.

Sarah-Jayne Clifton, director of Jubilee Debt Campaign, said: “Tackling inequality between Africa and the rest of the world means tackling the root causes of its debt dependency, its loss of government revenue by tax dodging, and the other ways the continent is being plundered.

“Here in the UK we can start with our role as a major global financial centre and network of tax havens, complicit in siphoning money out of Africa.”

A UK government spokesman said: “The UK put tax and transparency at the heart of our G8 presidency last year and we are actively working with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development to ensure companies are paying the tax they should and helping developing countries collect the tax they are owed.” – The Guardian.

[mgist]

I don't think they are looting. They are certainly funneling money into NGO's like Soros'. Money laundering, and looting tax payers is more like it. Once that money goes to Africa, who is going to track it? Who is going to audit it?

[thackney]

the flight of profits earned by foreign multinational companies

So international companies come in, invest capital, hire people, pay the local government taxes, then take their profits and this guy thinks that is "looting"?

Idiot.

[mgist]

8/6/2014-Star of Obama Africa Summit Tied to George Soros, Clintons, Rothschilds. Banking titan at center of U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit also hit with money laundering fine
http://freebeacon.com/politics/star-of-obama-africa-summit-tied-to-george-soros-clintons/

Soros Economic Development Fund
http://www.sedfny.org/
Soros EDF by geography. (Major Africa Focus)
http://sedfny.org/assets/images/geography-chart.pdf

Drug shipments off of Africa have “significantly increased since 2009”
http://www.khaleejtimes.com/kt-article-display-1.asp?xfile=data/international/2014/June/international_June26.xml&section=international

Soros Open Society in South, East, and West Africa
Open Society Initiative for Eastern Africa
ACS Plaza, Lenana Road
Nairobi, Kenya
http://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/about/offices-foundations

[mgist]

Mmm, harsh words for someone with questionable reading comprehension. The money is sent in the form of “aid”. You know those “feed the children”, campaigns with pot belly starving African babies with flies circling them?

They aren’t talking about corporations. Africa isn’t a beacon for corporations. This is a table for US AID to top ten nations.

Table 5.Top 10 Recipients of U.S. Foreign Aid in FY2012 and the FY2013 Request (in millions of current U.S. $)

FY2012
Estimated Country Allocation
Israel $3,075 Afghanistan $2,327 Pakistan $2,102 Iraq $1,683 Egypt $1,557 Jordan $676 Kenya $652 Nigeria $625 Ethiopia $580 Tanzania $531

FY2013 Request
Requested Country Allocation
Israel $3,100 Afghanistan $2,505 Pakistan $2,228 Iraq $2,045 Egypt $1,563 Jordan $671 Nigeria $599 Tanzania $571 South Africa $489 Kenya $460

http://fas.org/sgp/crs/row/R42621.pdf

So if $599,000,000 is sent to Tanzania, and then placed into unidentified Hedge Funds or Off Shore Accounts, it really isn’t “Aid” is it?

[GeronL]

what a joke

end foreign aid!

[BobL]

The money just goes to the potentates, and everyone knows it.