Posted on 02/28/2011 10:48:42 AM PST by LibWhacker
JOHANNESBURG – The son of Equatorial Guinea's dictator of 30 years commissioned plans to build a superyacht costing $380 million, nearly three times what the country spends on health and education each year, a corruption watchdog said Monday.
The statement from Global Witness said that German company Kusch Yachts has been asked to build the yacht, housing a cinema, restaurant, bar and swimming pool, though construction has not yet started.
Global Witness has been urging Washington to institute sanctions against Teodorin Obiang, whose extravagant lifestyle currently includes a $35 million-dollar mansion in Malibu, California, a $33 million jet and a fleet of luxury cars, while earning a salary of $6,799 a month as agriculture minister.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
He could call himself an emir, and no one would question it.
Wow. What some folks can do on a government salary!””
Hellofa UNION that guy has working for him!!!
Booomlakalaka!
Are you trying to launch an attacks on the million dollar bonus system. Boy you have some nerve. LOL
There was a time when it was believed by these nitwits that only the west was subject to such force.
They eat their own, and will be discouraged when the spit slides up their a$$ and out their mouth.
If Hollywood were to make this into a movie the Prince would be benevolent caring and bestowing only goodness on his subjects. Hell he might even come to America, take a job at McDonald’s, and find a nice common women to settle down with. I would suggest they get Eddie Murphy to play the prince this would be sure fire hit.
Apparently, his father is quite the saver. He is quite the spender.
Daddy was keeping his cash in Riggs Bank in DC until recently. I think their connection to him was part of their downfall.
Yep. He’s a world class spender, and that’s for certain!
Kah-ching!
I wonder what the annual upkeep is for a 380-million-dollar yacht?
Yep. He’s a world class spender, and that’s for certain!
Kah-ching!
I wonder what the annual upkeep is for a 380-million-dollar yacht?
Yep. He’s a world class spender, and that’s for certain!
Kah-ching!
I wonder what the annual upkeep is for a 380-million-dollar yacht?
Oops. Sorry for the triple post!
If you have to ask....
I would suspect all of it is stolen foreign aid money.
NO - some also came from rock concerts held by U2 and the like.
Yep. The FOGGY BOTTOM FOLLIES continue.
I have limited knowledge of this particular situation, but extensive historical knowledge regarding human interaction and likely outcome.
People think that conservative white guys were the ones most scared by the ones election... WRONG. It was the black African dictators who used to cut deals with the white nitwits somewhere else. They can not deal with with a similar brigand in possession of power. No racial constraint remaining to their lost advantage, they are screwed blue, and know it well.
No where to run now. Look at what is going down globally. These people may not be quite civilized, but they do know how to survive.
The only thing that as yet I have found to admire about the one is his level of restraint. Being a traditional liberal, I see no need to dump more gasoline on a pyre that will consume what it shall, regardless.
Equatorial Guinea's President and friends
Equatorial Guinea's President's Son's $35m Malibu mansion
For a man paid less than £3,000 a month, the 16 acres of mansion, designer golf course and sprawling gardens speckled with fountains in Malibu was quite a buy. The views of the ocean alone - never mind the 15,000 sq ft mansion with eight bathrooms, a pool and tennis courts - probably accounted for a good chunk of the $35m (£18m) asking price.
But then Teodoro Nguema Obiang's modest salary as a minister in his father's government in Equatorial Guinea is largely symbolic, just like the elections in which his father is returned to power with 97% of the vote and the distribution of oil revenues in a country with one of the highest per capita incomes on Earth but some of the poorest people.
For a man paid less than £3,000 a month, the 16 acres of mansion, designer golf course and sprawling gardens speckled with fountains in Malibu was quite a buy. The views of the ocean alone - never mind the 15,000 sq ft mansion with eight bathrooms, a pool and tennis courts - probably accounted for a good chunk of the $35m (£18m) asking price.
But then Teodoro Nguema Obiang's modest salary as a minister in his father's government in Equatorial Guinea is largely symbolic, just like the elections in which his father is returned to power with 97% of the vote and the distribution of oil revenues in a country with one of the highest per capita incomes on Earth but some of the poorest people.
Little Teodoro, as President Teodoro Obiang Nguema's son is known at home, appears to spend as little time as possible fulfilling his duties as the minister of agriculture and forestry in the west African state. Instead he flits between South Africa, France and the US, pursuing business ventures such as a failed rap label while acquiring property and a fleet of Ferraris, Lamborghinis and Bentleys - all made possible by the discovery of oil in Equatorial Guinea's waters a decade ago.
At the time, there was a promise that the country would become the "Kuwait of Africa", but it has increasingly come to look like Nigeria as a few kleptocrats get rich while the masses eke out a living.
Mr Obiang probably thought his acquisition of the Malibu house through a front company of which he is the owner would slip by largely unnoticed, particularly after there was so little comment about earlier purchases of two houses in Cape Town and a $2m penthouse flat in California. But the British anti-corruption group Global Witness spotted the sale and is publicising it as evidence that the Obiang family has followed in a long tradition of African rulers who plunder their country's wealth while their people live in poverty.
Seen from the Pacific Coast Highway, Mr Obiang's house doesn't look like much, at least not in the context of the exclusive millionaires' mansions looking out from the cliffs over the Pacific Ocean. "Oh, that's a lovely house," explained Malibu Carl yesterday, watching the surfers next to Malibu pier. "That's a hell of a piece of property right there. It's huge."
The house is hidden from prying eyes by a sheer bluff and guardhouse. But while $35m may buy a lot of house, it cannot guarantee you privacy. A stroll along Malibu pier reveals arched windows, plain, cream plaster walls and a tiled roof. Royal palm trees line the drive, and the bright red of bougainvillea stands out against the sandy hillside.
Described as a "playboy", Mr Obiang may be quite interested in meeting his neighbours. Whether they would return the interest seems unlikely. Mel Gibson lives on Serra Road, as does Britney Spears. Olivia Newton John is up there too, and so are Larry Hagman and Titanic director James Cameron. Across the road is the equally exclusive Malibu Colony, the gated community that housed most of Hollywood during the 1970s and 1980s.
"That's one of the premier estates in Malibu," says a local estate agent. He notes that Cher's house in Malibu recently went on the market at $29m. The property belonged to a Canadian developer named Bill Connor. Rumour has it that he sold two years ago for $28m to a Disney executive (some say it was someone from Fox) before its current owner paid $35m at the beginning of this year. "Most of these sales happen very quietly," says the estate agent. "The properties don't usually hit the market."
President Obiang, who has ruled since seizing power in 1979, has decreed that the management of his country's $3bn a year in oil revenues is a state secret. That is why it is difficult to say for sure exactly how he comes to have about $700m in US bank accounts. But the president's son gave an insight into his salary in an affidavit filed with the Cape high court in South Africa in August, as part of a lawsuit against him over a commercial debt.
"Cabinet ministers and public servants in Equatorial Guinea are by law allowed to own companies that, in consortium with a foreign company, can bid for government contracts ... A cabinet minister ends up with a sizeable part of the contract price in his bank account," he testified.
Global Witness wants the US government to invoke a proclamation by President Bush nearly three years ago that bars corrupt foreign officials from entering the US and allows their assets to be seized.
But Washington is unlikely to move against Mr Obiang when it was so welcoming of his father only last April. The US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, called President Obiang a "good friend" even though her own department's annual human rights report said officials in Equatorial Guinea use torture.
Little Teodoro Nguema Obiang and friend.
SOURCE africangreed.com
But you see, he came to America and married into a hamburger fortune
It's what every union goon aspires to...
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