https://www.rt.com/viral/346174-russian-animation-characters-soyuzmultfilm/

AfricaFocus Bulletin
Jun 2, 2016 (160602)
(Reposted from sources cited below)

Editor’s Note

“Finance Uncovered, working with an anonymous Liberian journalist,
has exposed a little-known offshore business registry that has
created tens of thousands of anonymous companies and registered them
to a non-existent address in Monrovia, Liberia’s capital city.
Although these companies are technically a creation of Liberian law,
management of the registry is based in the United States and appears
to have the support of the US government. … Our investigation has
discovered over half a billion pounds of high-value London property
registered to Liberian offshore companies.”

For a version of this Bulletin in html format, more suitable for
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click on “format for print or mobile.”

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In the wake of the Panama Papers leak of an extraordinary array of
data from one prominent law firm, the revelations continue of the
tangled web formed by international networks involved in concealing
their assets through financial secrecy. This AfricaFocus Bulletin
contains a report on one such case, by investigative journalists
working as part of the Finance Uncovered network, including the
AmaBhungane Centre for Investigative Journalism in South Africa.

This revelation came in the wake of an evolving scandal based on a
report from Global Witness, revealing how two British businessmen
used scams and bribery to deceive investors, used a London-based
registry (the Alternative Investment Market),  along with bribery of
Liberian government officials, to pitch fake investments. Earlier
this week, Liberian judicial authorities indicted Sable Mining
Company and Sable’s Liberian lawyer Varney Sherman, Speaker of
Liberia’s House of Representatives. See Global Witness press
releases at https://www.globalwitness.org/en/campaigns/liberia/

Sorting out the details in cases such as these is complex, while
some press reports cite an wider set of claims of corruption
involving Liberian officials and large multinational corporations
involved in the country. The move by the Liberian government to
indict the alleged culprits in the Sable mining case is positive.
But there can be more doubt that there is much more to uncover, both
in Liberia and in the international networks of those outside the
country who are using the country for their own illicit enrichment.

For additional recent news on these development from the Liberian
and international press, visit http://allafrica.com

For previous AfricaFocus Bulletins on illicit financial flows and
related issues, visit http://www.africafocus.org/intro-iff.php

For previous AfricaFocus Bulletins on Liberia, visit
http://www.africafocus.org/country/liberia.php

++++++++++++++++++++++end editor’s note+++++++++++++++++

Liberia: America’s outpost of financial secrecy

Finance Uncovered, 26 May 2016

By George Turner and a Liberian journalist

http://www.financeuncovered.org, http://amabhungane.co.za/ – direct
URL: http://tinyurl.com/hbw7vq7

[This investigation was supported by the Thomson Reuters Foundation,
who funded a trip by Finance Uncovered’s Investigations Director to
Liberia. It forms part of their Wealth of Nations Programme. In
Liberia our director worked with a local journalist to try to
understand the workings of Liberia’s little spoken about corporate
registry, a factory for anonymous companies. The name of the
Liberian journalist has been withheld to prevent reprisals against
his publication.]

After the Panama Papers, attention focused on the UK’s role at the
heart of a tax haven empire. But the UK isn’t the only country which
has created a web of offshore secrecy. In our latest investigation
published today in South Africa’s Daily Maverick in cooperation with
AmaBhungane, we probe Liberia – America’s offshore outpost in
Africa.

Finance Uncovered, working with an anonymous Liberian journalist,
has exposed a little-known offshore business registry that has
created tens of thousands of anonymous companies and registered them
to a non-existent address in Monrovia, Liberia’s capital city.

Although these companies are technically a creation of Liberian law,
management of the registry is based in the United States and appears
to have the support of the US government.

The companies, which can be purchased online, offer near-total
anonymity to their clients, allowing them to hide assets without
fear of being caught by law enforcement or revenue authorities.

Our investigation has discovered over half a billion pounds of high-
value London property registered to Liberian offshore companies. And
there have been allegations that revenues from the registry were
used to fund arms purchases during Liberia’s violent civil war.

Liberia’s secret companies

Non-resident corporations are a particular form of corporate entity
offered by the Liberian government to foreigners. They cannot do
business in Liberia, and anyone in the world can set up such a
corporation online within 24 hours through a corporate service
provider.

Registered with the ministry of foreign affairs, they have no
liability to pay taxes in Liberia, and no obligation to declare who
owns them or file annual accounts.

They can also issue “bearer shares”, a legal instrument banned in
most countries because of the ease with which they can be used for
tax evasion and money laundering.

Bearer shares are unregistered certificates of ownership which can
be physically transferred, changing ownership of a company without
any record being kept. They are companies in cash form.

This means that no one, including tax and law enforcement
authorities and the directors of the company itself, can find out
who the owners are.

It is unclear exactly how many offshore companies Liberia has
established. The Liberian government does not publish official
figures, and Liberian officials repeatedly stonewalled requests for
information, citing “commercial confidentiality”.

The registry is apparently a sensitive issue for the foreign
ministry. The ministry’s then-deputy minister for legal affairs,
Boakai Kanneh, became visibly enraged when we raised the issue
during a brief meeting and ordered us out of his office.

Binyah Kesselly, former commissioner of the Liberia Maritime
Authority (LMA), which has oversight of the corporate registry, said
in answer to e-mailed questions that the number of companies
registered is kept confidential because of competition in the
maritime industry.

The Liberian International Shipping and Corporate Registry (LISCR),
a private company that manages the registry on the government’s
behalf, also cited commercial confidentiality in response to
questions.

Outside LISCR, the LMA, the ministry of foreign a airs and the
president’s office, few Liberians seem aware that the offshore
companies registry exists.

The minister in charge of the Liberian domestic business registry
until his death earlier this year, deputy minister of commerce and
trade services Cyril Allen, told us in December 2015 he was unaware
that Liberia had any other system of registering companies.

Some of the tax advisers who use the registry also seemed strangely
unwilling to discuss it. Price Waterhouse Coopers is the only member
of the “big four” accountancy rms with an office in Liberia, and is
listed as a “certified service provider” on the LISCR’s website.

To qualify for this programme PwC must actively promote the use of
Liberian companies. When we contacted them, the company said it
would only respond to a letter delivered to its Monrovia office.

A letter was delivered, but no reply was forthcoming.

Liberia’s former auditor-general, John Morlu, slammed what he called
secrecy surrounding the registry and the Maritime Programme of which
it forms part.

He told us in an email: “The Presidency has managed to conceal the
corporate registry in the infamous maritime registry with 99% of the
Cabinet, 99% of the legislature, and 99% of the Liberian people
having no clue what a corporate registry is.

“Many Liberians know that the Maritime Programme is lucrative, and
since it has always been the prerogative of the presidency no one
dares bother to poke into it.” However, Finance Uncovered located an
OECD report from 2013 on Liberia’s tax and transparency laws which
states that 55 000 companies are registered in that country. Most
are understood to be non-resident corporations.

In 2009 the trial of former Liberian president and convicted war
criminal Charles Taylor heard that the offshore corporate registry
had registered 40 000 companies.

Asked for comment, the Liberian government claimed that the maritime
programme and the registry are not secret and that President Ellen
Johnson Sirleaf usually reports on the activities of the registry in
her annual State of the Union address.

No mention of the registry could be found in the previous twoffstate
of the Union addresses. We asked when Sirleaf last updated the
Liberian legislature on the programme, her spokesperson, Jerolinmek
Matthew Piah did not respond.

In search of 80 Broad Street

To receive mail, all Liberian non-resident corporations must have an
address in Liberia and a registered agent.

Under Liberian law the LISCR Trust Company, a private entity with
the address of 80 Broad Street, is the exclusive agent for all
Liberian non-resident corporations. This means that all such
corporations have the same mailing address – 80 Broad Street,
Monrovia.

Broad Street is the commercial heart of downtown Monrovia. But 80
Broad Street does not exist, and when we visited the area none of
the businesses in the street had heard of it.

At the ministry of post and telecommunications, no one would say who
was assigned to that address.

Finally, a DHL agent we interviewed found that mail for 80 Broad
Street is diverted to LISCR, on 5th Street in Sinkor, a few
kilometres away.

At the LISCR offices, we-were told that the managing director,
Joseph Keller, was on long-term sick leave in the US and no one had
replaced him.

Asked whether anyone at LISCR’s Monrovia office could explain what
happened there, we were told “no”.

LISCR’s Monrovia office appears to be little more than a mail room,
receiving correspondence for the thousands of companies registered
there, which is scanned into computers and e-mailed to LISCR’s US
headquarters.

The US connection

Liberia’s offshore registry would not have been possible without US
patronage . A LISCR spokesperson said the foundation of the registry
“resulted from an initiative of the United States government at the
end of World War 2 to set up, in effect, an offshore ship register
for the United States.”

Liberia was chosen because of the “strong historical connections
between the US and Liberia”.

The Liberian shipping registry was founded in 1948 by former US
secretary of state Edward Stettinius, who persuaded the Liberian
government to contract out its shipping register to a private US
company.

Today LISCR, the register’s current manager, is based in Vienna,
Virginia, at the heart of the US military-industrial complex close
to Washington DC. It has offices across the world.

The fees collected by LISCR are transferred to the Liberian
government through a special account at the US Federal Reserve.

Liberian law continues to require that LISCR is owned and managed by
US nationals. Its owner is Yoram Cohen, whose investment rm YCF
Group owns agriculture, shipping and telecommunication companies
operating in 18 countries, according to its website.

Cohen was also the president of Cellcom, a Liberian cell phone
company, before it was sold to Orange earlier this year.

LISCR itself is registered in the tax haven and secrecy jurisdiction
of Delaware in the US -prompting criticism in 2003 from the United
Nations, which said it would have preferred the company to publicly
declare its shareholders.

LISCR said the UN has never accused it of wrongdoing and that it has
always co-operated with Security Council investigations into
Liberia.

Throughout the history of the registry, LISCR and its predecessor
have been staffed by retired US generals and former employees of the
US coast guard.

In return for hosting this outpost of financial secrecy, the
Liberian government gets to keep 67% of the net revenues collected
by LISCR on its behalf. Funds raised by the company accounted for
75% of the government’s annual revenues during Charles Taylor’s
rule, according to Taylor’s head of maritime a airs, Benoni Urey.
During the first Liberian Civil War, revenues from the registry
accounted for 90% of government revenue.

The receipts are far less significant now, but there are still
concerns about where they end up. Under the Taylor administration
the Bureau of Maritime Affairs (BMA), a Liberian government agency
that oversees the work of LISCR, took 10% of the revenue from the
maritime programme for its running costs. This was off the
government’s balance sheet, and the UN alleged that Urey used the
agency to make off-budget arms purchases during the civil war in
violation of UN sanctions.

In a recent interview, Urey claimed that the money granted to the
BMA was used for legitimate running costs. He said his agency was
audited four times and on each occasion he was cleared of
wrongdoing.

According to news reports, an agreement signed earlier this year
between LISCR and the Liberian government grants the Liberian
Maritime Authority, which has taken over from the BMA, 25% of
revenues to meet its running costs. There appears to be little
scrutiny of where the money goes, although there is no evidence that
it is used for inappropriate expenditure.

In 2009, LISCR’s contract with the government came up for renewal,
and the negotiations led to a political storm known as “Knuckles-
gate”.

Willis Knuckles was President Sirleaf’s former chief of staff. In
2009, he was chairperson of Cellcom, LISCR’s sister company, when
emails emerged purporting to show that Knuckles tried to bribe
members of the government, including Sirleaf herself, during the
negotiations to extend LISCR’s contract.

An independent commission was set up to investigate the allegations
led by Dr Elwood Dunn, a respected academic. The Dunn Commission,
whose report can still be found on the Liberian president’s website,
states that their findings were in part based on interviews with
Yoram Cohen and other sta ff at LISCR and Cellcom. The commission’s
report cleared Sirleaf of corruption but criticised Knuckles for
offering a $200 top-up card to the president’s brother-in-Law.

The commission found evidence of some “unclear payments” by LISCR
that should be probed further, including a $600 000 “pre-payment”
referred to in an email on a hard drive in Sirleaf’s mansion.

In its response to Finance Uncovered, LISCR issued a stinging attack
on the Dunn Commission, claiming that the commission never contacted
the company in the course of its inquiries. LISCR added that the
alleged payments from it referenced on the hard drive in the
president’s mansion never took place and that the company was
subsequently cleared of any wrongdoing in a letter from the Liberian
justice ministry.

Liberia blacklisted

The offshore registry has prompted a growing number of countries to
place Liberia on tax haven blacklists, with potentially far-
reaching consequences.

In June 2015 the European Union released a consolidated list of tax
havens drawn from its member states – and Liberia was included by
Bulgaria, Greece, Croatia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Portugal,
Slovenia and Spain.

Now, the EU is threatening to create a new list compiled by the
European Commission, and may impose sanctions on states that do not
meet international tax and transparency

Brazil lists Liberia as a “privileged tax regime”. Argentina has
produced a white list of countries that are not tax havens, and
Liberia is one of the few that is not included.

Several US states, including Montana and Oregon, have drawn up tax
haven lists, and companies in these states doing business in listed
countries have greater tax obligations. Again, Liberia features.

Asked to comment, Sirleaf’s office and LISCR emphasised that the
registry complies with international norms and standards on tax and
transparency.

Said the president’s office: “Liberia does not conform to the
definition of tax haven and in fact is not considered such by
leading OECD countries such as France and the USA.” It added, “Over
the past years, the government of Liberia has … taken measures to
improve upon the transparency and management of the programme to
meet all of the OECD requirements. Liberia is in fact an OECD
‘white-listed’ jurisdiction.”

On its website and in its statement to Finance Uncovered, LISCR
echoed the claim that Liberia is an OECD “white-listed
jurisdiction”.

However, the OECD ceased to publish a white list in 2009.
Responsibility for international coordination of policy in this area
has passed to the OECD Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of
Information for Tax Purposes. A spokesperson confirmed that the
forum does not publish white lists.

The forum, which has 131 members, including Liberia, conducts phased
reviews of whether governments meet agreed standards on tax and
transparency.

Last reviewed in 2012, Liberia has yet to pass phase one. And this
is because of lack of access to ownership and accounting information
from Liberian non-resident corporations.

In response, the government said: “There is no bad stigma attached
to this designation, as many other countries have been in the same
position. The reason for this is very simple. Liberia has not been
able to compete with the larger countries, such as in Europe, as it
does not have the infrastructure and manpower in place to assist
with the implementation of the rigorous standards required by the
OECD.”

Only eight states – Liberia, Vanuatu, Trinidad and Tobago, Nauru,
Lebanon, Micronesia, Guatemala and Kazakhstan – have failed to make
it past phase one of the OECD Global Forum. Even tiny well-known tax
havens such as the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands,
Mauritius and Panama have moved to phase two.

This month Liberia passed new legislation on corporations, after the
country was given a deadline by the OECD, which is conducting its
latest review.

This reiterates companies’ obligation to keep internal accounting
and ownership records but does not oblige them to file those records
with the corporate registry.

LISCR emphasised that the provisions are similar to those of many
other countries.

For the first time the law gives the Liberian authorities power to
request documents from the companies themselves.

A failure to comply results in a minimum fine of $1 000, while the
ne for not keeping records is capped at $5 000. Liberian companies
also continue to be allowed to issue bearer shares, which can make
attempts to discover the ownership of companies extremely difficult.

‘Unimaginable damage’

After the European Union published its tax haven blacklist,
officials at LISCR’s US headquarters started to email campaign
groups in Europe to ask for help in lobbying to get Liberia removed
from the list.

In one e-mail seen by Finance Uncovered, a senior LISCR official
writes: “The harm this blacklisting will do to reputation and
commercial enterprise is unimaginable.”

It is a fear echoed by banking representatives in Liberia. In the
Liberian Observer, local banks said it was difficult for them to
establish correspondent banking relations because of Liberia’s
reputation as a money-laundering centre.

Asked about the effect on a country such as Liberia of being added
to a blacklist, Melissa Dejong, a tax policy analyst for the OECD,
said they are aware of financial institutions moving out of
countries that do not comply with the Global Forum recommendations,
and that blacklisting deters investment.

“In some cases, jurisdictions may impose rules with respect to
jurisdictions that do not meet the Global Forum standards,” Dejong
said.

“For example, a jurisdiction may impose tax consequences on their
own taxpayers who engage in transactions with a person in a
jurisdiction that does not meet the Global Forum standards, such as
higher withholding taxes, increased likelihood of audit, denial of
tax benefits, increased information reporting requirements. These
create a disincentive to investment.”

A national resource

Kesselly, the former chief executive of the Liberian Maritime
Authority, said the characterisation of Liberia as a tax haven is a
“misconception”. Kesselly said Liberia is not listed as a “high-
risk” jurisdiction by the Financial Action Task Force, and that
diplomatic correspondence with the EU suggests the country will be
taken off the European list of tax havens later this year.

Calling the registry “a national resource”, he said that every non
resident Liberian corporation must have an agent and an address in
Liberia where official documents and mail can be served, regardless
of whether anything else happens there.

In addition, non-resident corporations pay fees to the Liberian
government on incorporation and every year thereafter, as well as
when they file documents.

“The government views these programmes as national resources and is
committed to protecting these resources by modernising them to both
meet the needs of clients, and maintain compliant ratings from our
international peers,” Kesselly said. “This synergy ultimately
benefits the people of Liberia.”

However, Morlu, Liberia’s former auditor-general, said the small
income the registry generates for the government – between $9-
million and $15-million in most years – does not justify the
tremendous risk.

“There are better ways to make money and since Liberia does not have
the means, the desire and the political will to create a stronger
regulatory and enforcement regime, we are better off not adding to
the world’s problem of terrorist financing, drug financing and
illicit fkow of funds from other poor countries,” Morlu said in an
email.

He would like to see the registry reserved only for legitimate
shipping companies. With the OECD report due on its progress in
meeting transparency standards, and the EU threatening sanctions
against countries on its blacklist, this summer will be a key moment
for Liberia.

Scrutiny by international institutions is bound to grow in the wake
of the Panama Papers. If Liberia is once again found to be lacking,
the consequences for this fragile economy, still recovering from
Ebola, could be devastating.

*****************************************************

AfricaFocus Bulletin is an independent electronic publication
providing reposted commentary and analysis on African issues, with a
particular focus on U.S. and international policies. AfricaFocus
Bulletin is edited by William Minter.

AfricaFocus Bulletin can be reached at africafocus@igc.org. Please
write to this address to subscribe or unsubscribe to the bulletin,
or to suggest material for inclusion. For more information about
reposted material, please contact directly the original source
mentioned. For a full archive and other resources, see
http://www.africafocus.org

AfricaFocus Bulletin
May 26, 2016 (160526)
(Reposted from sources cited below)

Editor’s Note

At the World Humanitarian Summit (https://www.worldhumanitariansummit.org/) in Istanbul on May 23-24,
the informal consensus was that the system of humanitarian response
to today’s crises is “broken.” The calls to “leave no one behind”
highlighted the particular vulnerability of the displaced. But it is
clear that such non-binding resolutions will only be implemented by
extensive mobilization on many fronts, including both those most
affected and their allies.

For a version of this Bulletin in html format, more suitable for
printing, go to http://www.africafocus.org/docs16/migr1605.php, and
click on “format for print or mobile.”

To share this on Facebook, click on
https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=
http://www.africafocus.org/docs16/migr1605.php

Each issue of AfricaFocus requires selection from a wide array of
sources. Normally this is for reposting of excerpts from a small
number of sources, with a few additional links to additional
resources. Sometimes, as for this Bulletin, that choice is just
overwhelming, and I have opted for a roundup of links or very short
excerpts, to include a much wider set of sources that have been
called to my intention.

I hope this will serve as a resource for readers who can pick and
choose what to followup. I particularly urge readers to view the
multimedia resources highlighted at the beginning, and to pass them
on to others who may be interested, by email and through social
media links.

This AfricaFocus Bulletin contains a roundup of links on migration
issues, particularly related to protection of rights of refugees,
other international migrants, and internally displaced people.
Although it is far from comprehensive, the range of sources included
show increasing recognition, in Africa and globally, that migration
and forced migration creating extreme vulnerability is a complex
phenomenon, closely linked to other economic, social, and political
and to fundamental human rights of all people.

In addition to the wide range of sources below, previous AfricaFocus
Bulletins on migration are available at
http://www.africafocus.org/migrexp.php

++++++++++++++++++++++end editor’s note+++++++++++++++++

Multimedia Perspectives on Migration

Rosebell Kagumire at World Economic Forum for Africa, Kigali, May
13, 2016
http://wef.ch/1rG1lhL

20 minute video. Good questions from audience & good thoughtful
nuanced answers about African ?#?migration? from this leading
Ugandan journalist, who formerly worked at International
Organization for Migration in Geneva. Migration is not just to
Europe but also within Africa and with Middle East and Asia as well.
Fortunately most of the time with questions and actions. Goes far
beyond the stereotypes.

“New York Immigrant Advocates Launch Black Immigrant Engagement
Initiative,” May 11, 2016

15 minutes interview on BRIC TV, the first 24/7 television channel
created by, for, and about Brooklyn. Hadiyah Harrison, Project
Manager at the New York Immigration Coalition, and Carl Lipscombe,
Policy & Legal Manager at Black Alliance for Just Immigration
(BAJI).

[For additional recent articles from BAJI, visit
http://blackalliance.org/category/blog/

Op-ed by Opal Tometi of BAJI in Time magazine
Black Lives Matter Co-Founder: The Immigration Challenge No One Is Talking About

Grassroots call to decriminalize the U.S. immigration system, #Fix96
on-line petition -  http://tinyurl.com/h2lfbyx]

Laeila Adjovi, “The Town of Women,” BBC, 2 December 2015
http://tinyurl.com/zwmc539 – photo essay on the town of Beguedo in
Burkina Faso and migration to Italy. For more on the photographer,
see http://laeila-adjovi.com/

Anne Paq, “Migrant domestic workers take to the streets in Beirut.
Demonstrators called for basic rights, including a minimum wage and
at least one day off per week.”, photo essay, Al Jazeera, 7 May 2016
http://tinyurl.com/j2vk7b3

New Blog and Facebook Page

AfricaMoves: A Pan African Migration Platform

http://www.africamoves.org/
On Facebook at http://tinyurl.com/h22qj3u

Organizations contributing to the establishment of Africa Moves
include: Priority Africa Network; Black Immigration Network;
PanAfrican Network in Defense of Migrants’ Rights; Consortium for
Refugees & Migrants in South Africa; Africa Speaks 4 Africa. Edited
by Nunu Kidane.

Kenya’s Refugees in Kenya & Beyond

Samar Al-Bulushi, “Kenya’s Refugee ‘Problem'”
Africa Is a Country, May 25, 2016

Kenya’s Refugee “Problem”

“Integrally tied to this pending humanitarian crisis is the global
architecture of counter-terrorism. The Kenyan government is but one
actor among many who produce, and profit from, the specter of
terrorist threat, which allows for the discursive slippage from
civilian, to potential Al-Shabaab sympathizer, to potential
terrorist.”

Chico Harlan, “For many Somali refugees, this industry offers hope
— then takes it away,” Washington Post, May 25, 2016
http://tinyurl.com/jdnq4a4

Feature article: “Though meatpacking plants have long relied on
labor by immigrants, particularly Hispanics, major companies have
moved to hire Somalis, who have the dual advantage for employers of
being legal and relatively cheap. In one slice of a changing low-
wage America, these are the new ideal workers.”
Lucy Hovil, “Why is the cost of hosting refugees falling on the
world’s poorest states?,” The Guardian, May 13, 2016
http://tinyurl.com/zs9wdeh

“The government of Kenya says it plans to close Dadaab, the world’s
largest refugee camp, which hosts approximately 330,000 people, as
well as shutting the Department of Refugee Affairs (DRA). The
announcement, on Friday 6 May, was no doubt a pre-election stunt of
Trump-like proportions that plays to an electorate’s fear of
generating instability and outsiders taking jobs, playing to the
same xenophobic narrative that has become commonplace in election
campaigns across the world. [but] As long as rich nations pay lip
service to meeting the needs of the world’s displaced, they cannot
blame Kenya for closing refugee camps like Dadaab”

Jina Moore, “Kenya Is Trying To Close The World’s Biggest Refugee
Camp And This Is Why,” Buzzfeed, May 13, 2016
http://tinyurl.com/huyof93

“Kenya says the camps are a security threat, but the move comes at a
time when refugees are big business. … When Europe began panicking
over its growing refugee population, Kenya took notice. A very
noticeable feature of that crisis is that Europe is willing to spend
cash — lots of cash — to end its refugee problems. … This is not
the first time Kenya has said it will close the camps. Last time it
issued this threat, it got $45 million more in U.S. aid.”

Amnesty International, “New ‘Refugees Welcome Index’ shows Kenyan
government out of touch with public on refugees,” 19 May 2016
http://tinyurl.com/jrdmc7v

“The new Refugees Welcome Index, based on a global survey of more
than 27,000 people carried out by the strategy consultancy
GlobeScan, found that 65% of Kenyans would personally welcome
refugees and that 62% thought their government had not yet done
everything in its power to help refugees. ‘This report, coming at a
time of heightened anti-refugee rhetoric from the Kenyan government,
shows that Kenyans are not as unaccepting as their government would
make the world believe,’ said Muthoni Wanyeki, Amnesty
International’s Regional Director for East Africa, the Horn and the
Great Lakes. ‘It shows that a majority of Kenyans would welcome
refugees into their country and that the government’s decision to
shut down Dadaab refugee camp is not backed by popular opinion.'”

Stephanie Schwartz, “Why Kenya’s threat to close its refugee camps
is even worse than you think,” Washington Post, May 11, 2016
http://tinyurl.com/z8vy8q7

“Many observers are already questioning whether Kenya will really
follow through on the closure, whether the camps really are a haven
for terrorists, and whether this action violates international law.

An equally important question is: Do these refugees have homes to
which they could return? Probably not. And the reasons aren’t just
that Somalia and South Sudan won’t magically become peaceful.

Why else can’t they return? Let me explain by telling you what I’ve
found among Burundian refugees in Tanzania.”

New International Reports

Amnesty International, “Refugees Welcome Index shows government
refugee policies out of touch with public opinion, 19 May 2016
http://tinyurl.com/hbp5nhy

“The vast majority of people (80%) would welcome refugees with open
arms, with many even prepared to take them into their own homes,
according to a global survey commissioned by Amnesty International.

The new Refugees Welcome Index, based on a global survey of more
than 27,000 people carried out by the internationally renowned
strategy consultancy GlobeScan, ranks 27 countries across all
continents based on people’s willingness to let refugees live in
their countries, towns, neighbourhoods and homes.

The survey shows people say they are willing to go to astonishing
lengths to make refugees welcome. It also shows how anti-refugee
political rhetoric is out of kilter with public opinion.”

Bronwen Manby, “Who Belongs? Statelessness and Nationality in West
Africa,” Migration Policy Institute, April 7, 2016
http://www.migrationpolicy.org – direct URL:
http://tinyurl.com/htzplps

[Full article contains extensive background and analysis. Brief
excerpt below by permission of Migration Policy Institute.]

“At least 10 million people around the world are stateless,
according to estimates from the United Nations High Commissioner for
Refugees (UNHCR), but the real number may be much higher.
Statelessness severely limits a person’s human rights, including
access to basic services such as health care and education. Often
deemed to be illegally present in their country of birth and
residence–even if their parents were also born there–stateless
individuals may be unable to work in the formal economy, open a bank
account, or buy land. A person without identity documents, usually
dependent on nationality, is unable to cross international borders
through regular channels. …

Although those lacking documents are generally among the poorest and
most marginalized, an undocumented person who is a member of the
dominant ethnic or religious group and comes from a settled
community and stable family is far less likely to be refused when
applying for a nationality document. Those most at risk of
statelessness are members of social groups facing discrimination,
migrants (especially irregular migrants) and their descendants,
refugees, and children born out of wedlock, separated from their
parents, or vulnerable in other ways. They are left stateless not
only by discrimination in practice and weak administrative systems,
but also by laws that provide very limited rights based on birth in
the territory and that restrict transmission of nationality from
parent to child on the basis of gender or other grounds.

…

At the regional level, West Africa has moved furthest to address
statelessness, as a result of advocacy from UNHCR and the existing
policies and institutional frameworks of the Economic Community of
West African States (ECOWAS). In February 2015, the 15 ECOWAS Member
States adopted the Abidjan Declaration on the Eradication of
Statelessness, agreeing “to prevent and reduce statelessness by
reforming constitutional, legislative and institutional regimes
related to nationality in order to include appropriate safeguards
against statelessness, in particular to ensure that every child
acquires a nationality at birth and that all foundlings are
considered nationals of the State in which they are found.” Of
course, the declaration is just that–a declaration–and does not
necessarily mean the promised action will take place. Nonetheless,
it is a remarkable recognition at the regional level that the
question of nationality in Africa needs to be addressed.

Based on a study commissioned by UNHCR and the International
Organization for Migration (IOM) and presented at the February 2015
Abidjan conference, this article explores the factors contributing
to statelessness in West Africa, including the region’s colonial and
migration history and nationality laws, as well as the social groups
particularly at risk. The article then examines the ECOWAS
framework, steps taken to implement the Abidjan Declaration, and the
way forward to eradicating statelessness in West Africa.”

Marie-Laurence Flahaux and Bruno Schoumaker, “Democratic Republic of
the Congo: A Migration History Marked by Crises and Restrictions,”
Migration Policy Institute, April 20, 2016
http://tinyurl.com/j58yztj

Article provides historical overview as well as analysis of current
situation.

“DR Congo has long had both economic and humanitarian migration
exchanges. African countries host the vast majority of Congolese
migrants and refugees, whose numbers have increased significantly
over the last four decades, particularly since the wars of the late
1990s and early 2000s. The lack of recent censuses in several
destination countries (such as Angola) makes it difficult to
precisely evaluate the distribution of Congolese migrants and
changing patterns. Data from the United Nations Population Division
nevertheless show significant changes over the last 25 years. In
1990, an estimated 300,000 Congolese migrants and refugees resided
in one of the nine neighboring countries (Angola, Burundi, Central
African Republic, Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Sudan [now South
Sudan], Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia), representing three-quarters
of all migrants from DR Congo worldwide (see Table 1). Their number
had more than doubled by 2000 (to approximately 700,000), and by
mid-2015, had risen to more than 1 million in the neighboring
countries (1.2 million for Africa as a whole; see Table 1).

…

While Belgium was the main Western destination of Congolese migrants
prior to the 1980s, destinations have increasingly diversified.
France has become the preferred end point since the late 1990s
(Figure 2), possibly as a result of greater ease getting visas and
of obtaining asylum, and better labor market opportunities. Recent
estimates indicate that France and Belgium together host more than
100,000 Congolese migrants, and that more than 50,000 others live
elsewhere in Europe (including Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, and
the United Kingdom; see Figure 2).

Outside Europe, the United States and Canada have also become
increasingly popular destinations since the 1990s (see Figure 2),
each now hosting nearly 30,000 Congolese immigrants. This growing
interest is also found among would-be migrants in surveys conducted
in Kinshasa. Congolese migration to the United States has taken off
since 2005, making the United States the second most popular
Congolese destination outside Africa.”

Additional recent international reports and sources

[Thanks to Evalyn Tennant, of Global Migration Policy Associates
(GMPA), for identifying these links and sharing them with me. As
with other global issues, the outcomes for Africa are closely
related to policies set at a global level. As the number of
refugees, migrants, and internally displaced people grows world-
wide, affecting countries in all regions, the global response is
more and more obviously falling short. The policy debates, both in
intergovernmental and non-governmental forums, are becoming more and
more intense.]

UN Summit Addressing Large Movements of Refugees and Migrants
Upcoming September 19, 2016
http://refugeesmigrants.un.org/high-level-meeting
http://www.un.org/apps/news/infocusRel.asp?infocusID=90

Official UN pages. Second link above has multimedia resources as
well as news.

Secretary General’s Report for the Summit: “In Safety and Dignity:
Addressing large movements of refugees and migrants”
http://refugeesmigrants.un.org/reports-and-documents

Report includes assessment of current issues facing refugees and
migrants and the countries hosting them, as well as calls for global
compacts, one on “Responsibility-Sharing for Refugees” and the other
for “Safe, Regular and Orderly Migration.”

Migrants in Countries in Crisis (MICIC), International Organization
for Migration (IOM)
http://micicinitiative.iom.int

Global Coalition Migration page on MICIC
http://gcmigration.org/micic/

Civil society coalition page related to MICIC, includes reports on
civil society consultations in West and Central Africa, North Africa
and Middle East, and Central and Southern Africa.

MICIC West and Central Africa regional consultation
http://tinyurl.com/zq6ejgw

MICIC North Africa and Middle East consultation
http://tinyurl.com/je4wzqz

MICIC East and Southern Africa consultation
http://tinyurl.com/hzlpltx

Regional Mixed Migration Secretariat for the Horn of Africa and
Yemen
http://www.regionalmms.org/index0b30.html?id=2.

Forced Migration Review
http://www.fmreview.org

This journal has a wealth of resources, including Africa-specific
resources. For example, the latest issue (
http://www.fmreview.org/solutions/contents.html) has articles
relating to Liberia, Sierra Leone, Ghana, Uganda, Somalia-Yemen
relations, Burundi, and Tanzania.

Joint Labour Migration Program for Africa
http://tinyurl.com/zsdjyxk

The African Union Commission (AUC), the ILO, the IOM and the UNECA
are implementing the Joint Labour Migration Program (JLMP) for
Africa formally adopted in January 2015 by African Heads of State
and Government as a comprehensive programme on
labour migration governance for the region.

Global Detention Project
http://www.globaldetentionproject.org

Includes special reports on detention of migrants and asylum seekers
in Europe, the Mediterranean, and the Gulf states, as well as in the
Americas. See http://tinyurl.com/z8rpb64 for reports.

Caritas Europa, “Migrants and Refugees Have Rights: Impact of EU
Policies on Accessing Protection,” February 2016
http://tinyurl.com/z6clnxj

Comprehensive 74-page report with background, policy analysis,
personal stories, photographs, and recommendations.

Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) GRID 2016: Global
Report on Internal Displacement, May 2016
http://www.internal-displacement.org/globalreport2016/

This is a fundamental report for understanding displacement,
whatever the cause. Brief excerpt from the foreword by Jan Egeland,
Secretary General of the Norwegian Refugee Council:

“Much focus has been placed on the hundreds  of thousands of
refugees, asylum seekers and migrants who have put their lives at
risk to reach European shores. Their bravery and despair has drawn
much attention to the phenomenon of displacement. In reality though,
they represent only the tip of an iceberg.

There are now twice as many internally displaced people (IDPs) as
refugees worldwide. In some ways, the distinction between internal
and cross-border flight is unhelpful in a globalised world.

…

When displacement becomes inevitable, humanitarians attend to more
immediate needs, but they must work with the development sector if
sustainable solutions are to be achieved. There is a clear trend of
displacement becoming more protracted and more of a development
challenge.

To take some of these considerations into account, we are presenting
our estimates of internal displacement in 2015 in a radically new
way, with figures on people displaced by conflict, by violence and
by disasters in a single report.

The Global Report on Internal Displacement (GRID) aims to provide a
more holistic picture of the phenomenon, regardless of cause. … It
also discusses types of displacement that receive too little
attention, such as that associated with generalised criminal
violence, gradually-evolving crises such as drought, and development
projects.”

Additional articles of interest

African Film Festival (in Tarifa, Spain and Tangiers, Morocco)begins
today, May 26, and runs through June 4.
http://www.fcat.es/en/home-en-2/

Building links across the Mediterranean, this film festival is in
its 13th year.

Thomas Friedman, “Out of Africa,” New York Times, Apr 13,20,27, 2016
http://tinyurl.com/zzycjvq, http://tinyurl.com/hzjy6ck, and
http://tinyurl.com/gq8zx3m

Better than the usual from this New York Times columnist, reporting
from Niger and Senegal on African migration to Europe.

Overseas Development Institute (ODI) Briefing on “Fortress Europe,”
20 October 2015
https://www.odi.org/comment/9995-migration-policy-fortress-europe

Ugandan domestic workers in Saudi Arabia
http://allafrica.com/stories/201601280823.html

Detention centers in Libya
http://tinyurl.com/zl62eoe

Sudan crackdown on Eritrean migrants
http://tinyurl.com/hgsgtm3

*****************************************************

AfricaFocus Bulletin is an independent electronic publication
providing reposted commentary and analysis on African issues, with a
particular focus on U.S. and international policies. AfricaFocus
Bulletin is edited by William Minter.

AfricaFocus Bulletin can be reached at africafocus@igc.org. Please
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or to suggest material for inclusion. For more information about
reposted material, please contact directly the original source
mentioned. For a full archive and other resources, see
http://www.africafocus.org

The Events in the Donbass

The Editorial Board of the “Proletarian Gazette” appeals to the progressive public all over the world, especially to the proletariat and the Marxist-Leninist forces, to provide support to the oppressed masses of Donbass, who have organized themselves into an armed people’s militia on the territory of the proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic and Lugansk People’s Republic, in the fight against direct military aggression of the Ukrainian army and the Ukrainian nationalist gangs of the puppet Kiev regime, representing the interests of US imperialism and Western Europe, and at the same time help to expose the reactionary selfish class essence of the Russian imperialists and their puppets from among the bourgeois forces of Donbass, as well as “volunteers” from among Russian nationalists .

The Editorial Board of the “Proletarian Gazette” calls on the progressive public all over the world, especially the proletariat and the Marxist-Leninist forces, to use all available measures of public pressure on the United Nations and the governments of their respective countries in order to:

1. Take decisive action to end the hostilities in Donbass and the withdrawal of the Ukrainian army beyond the administrative borders of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions. The agreed terms of the Minsk armistice agreements in the region are just temporary and unstable measures to end the bloodshed in the territory of Donbass. The next step in ensuring the transition from truce to peace, should be the withdrawal of the Ukrainian army and the expulsion of various “volunteer” armed gangs out of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions.
2. Compel the instigators of the devastating war in the Donbass, US and Western European imperialists, the Russian imperialists and their puppets, the Ukrainian government and the bourgeoisie of Donbass, to unconditionally and fully restore the war-shattered industrial and agricultural facilities of Donbass, housing and communal structures, repair the damage caused by war, and compensate the families of the killed and injured citizens of Donbass and the like.

The Editorial Board of the “Proletarian Gazette” recommends that the population of Donbass re-elect the authorities under the control of the People’s Militia without any outside interference. We recommend, in these elections, to deprive all the volunteers and those residents who at the time of the elections are out of the territory of Donbass and do not live there permanently of the right to vote and be elected. We recommend conducting elections according to the proportional social and class principle, that is, the organs of power must include the workers’ militia, the intelligentsia, the petty bourgeoisie, officials and other segments of the population in proportion to their quantitative presence as that would constitute real democratization of power in the Donbas.

“The Militia constitutes military formations, created during the war, of the civilian population which is not in military service…”  TSB, 3rd ed. 1974, Vol. 18, pp. 430.

The Editorial Board of the “Proletarian Gazette” recommends not to dissolve and disarm the people’s militia until a full and democratic resolution of the status of the Donetsk People’s Republic and Lugansk People’s Republic is achieved, and to form a people’s militia and other security forces on the basis of an armed people’s militia, as well as of fully armed troops for the protection of the borders of these People’s Republics.

The decision of the administrative and public affairs is an internal affair of the population and the newly elected government of Donbass.

Editorial Board of the “Proletarian Gazette”

E-mail: proletarskaya.gazeta.leningrad@gmail.com

AfricaFocus Bulletin
May 13, 2016 (160513)
(Reposted from sources cited below)

Editor’s Note

“The loans from the Swiss bank Credit Suisse to the Mozambican state
companies EMATUM and Proindicus involved a gross conflict of
interest, since the banker who organized the loans immediately
afterwards went to work for the Lebanese businessman Iskander Safa,
who owns the ship yard that built 24 tuna fishing vessels and six
patrol boats for EMATUM. … Together these three loans amounted to
over two billion dollars, and added 20 per cent to Mozambique’s
foreign debt, making it clearly unsustainable. … As more
information is becoming available, so it is becoming clear that the
guilty parties in this saga are not to be found only in Maputo.” –
Mozambique News Agency

For a version of this Bulletin in html format, more suitable for
printing, go to http://www.africafocus.org/docs16/moz1605.php, and
click on “format for print or mobile.”

To share this on Facebook, click on
https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=http://www.africafocus.org/docs16/moz1605.php

The debt crisis is most directly a crisis for the economic and
political future of Mozambique, where it comes together with the
resurgence of conflict between the opposition party and former
insurgent force Renamo, which has never fully disarmed. But it is
also a dramatic illustration of the transnational interconnections
between debt, corruption, and illicit financial flows. As such, it
is no surprise that a number of the international actors involved
turn up in the Panama Papers, including companies based in
Switzerland and Abu Dhabi and nationals of Lebanon, Britain, New
Zealand, and the United States.

This AfricaFocus Bulletin contains several recent articles on
different aspects of the debt crisis, including two from the
Mozambique News Agency (Agencia de Informaçao de Moçambique), one by
Joseph Hanlon, and one by University of Copenhagen economist Sam
Jones. As always, AfricaFocus selections are only a small selection,
and readers interested in more details and deeper analysis are
invited to dig deeper through the links provided.

See also, for additional detailed revelations, today’s new
Africa Confidential article at http://tinyurl.com/zong2oo

For regular English-language updates on this topic, see in
particular,

(1) Mozambique’s Secret Debt Triggers Economic Crisis
http://allafrica.com/view/group/main/main/id/00042683.html

(2) Mozambique News Reports & Clippings, 2016, Edited by Joseph
Hanlon http://tinyurl.com/hqcr8bu

(3) Mozambique News Agency AIM Reports
http://www.poptel.org.uk/mozambique-news

For previous AfricaFocus Bulletins on Mozambique, see
http://www.africafocus.org/country/mozambique.php

For AfricaFocus coverage of illicit financial flows, debt, and
related issues, see http://www.africafocus.org/intro-iff.php

++++++++++++++++++++++end editor’s note+++++++++++++++++

Mozambique: Loans From Credit Suisse Involved Conflict of Interests

Agencia de Informacao de Mocambique (Maputo)

11 May 2016

http://allafrica.com/stories/201605120019.html

Maputo — The loans from the Swiss bank Credit Suisse to the
Mozambican state companies EMATUM and Proindicus involved a gross
conflict of interest, since the banker who organized the loans
immediately afterwards went to work for the Lebanese businessman
Iskander Safa, who owns the ship yard that built 24 tuna fishing
vessels and six patrol boats for EMATUM.

EMATUM in 2013 issued loan titles for 850 million dollars,
guaranteed by the Mozambican government, that were sold on the
European bond market by Credit Suisse, BNP Paribas and the Russian
bank VTB. Credit Suisse and VTB granted a loan to Proindicus, also
in 2013, and also guaranteed by the Mozambican government, for 622
million dollars. Much of this money was also supposed to be spent on
military vessels to protect oil and gas companies working in the
Rovuma Basin, off the coast of the northern province of Cabo
Delgado.

A third loan, for 535 million dollars, went to Mozambique Assets
Management (MAM), a company virtually nobody had heard of until last
month, and which was supposedly formed to provide repair and
maintenance services for shipping in the Mozambique Channel.

Together these three loans amounted to over two billion dollars, and
added 20 per cent to Mozambique’s foreign debt, making it clearly
unsustainable.

Although the bond issue in Europe ensured that EMATUM became well
known, the Proindicus and MAM loans were not disclosed either to the
Mozambican public or to the country’s partners. The result has been
a crisis in relations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and
the group of 14 donors and financial agencies who provide direct
support for the Mozambican state budget. All are withholding further
financial support for the Mozambican government.

As more information is becoming available, so it is becoming clear
that the guilty parties in this saga are not to be found only in
Maputo. Indeed, the loans would likely never have happened without
what looks like massive corruption and conflict of interest at
Credit Suisse.

According to an investigation by the independent agency Zitamar
News, the banker at Credit Suisse who helped structure the EMATUM
and Proindicus loans was a New Zealand national named Andrew Pearse,
who went into business with Iskander Safa, immediately after the
loans had been arranged.

Safa is managing director and CEO of Abu Dhabi Mar, a shipbuilding
group based in the United Arab Emirates, which owns 100 per cent of
Constructions Mechaniques de Normandie (CMN), the shipyard in the
French port of Cherbourg where the EMATUM vessels were built. Abu
Dhabi Mar is owned by the Abu Dhabi royal family and by Safa’s
company Privinvest Shipbuilding.

Zitamar says that, once the loan arrangements had been finalized,
Pearse took up directorships in companies owned by Safa, and trading
under the name Palomar. For example, in September 2013 (much the
same time that the EMATUM loan was becoming public knowledge in
Mozambique). Pearse established “Palomar Natural Resources”, with an
American oil and gas executive named John Buggenhagen.

The next month he was appointed director of a Zurich-based financial
advisory company, Palomar Capital Advisers. He became chairperson of
this company in November, taking over from Christopher Langford, a
British lawyer, who is a director of several other Iskander Safa
companies, including Abu Dhabi Mar Europe and Abu Dhabi Mar UK.

Among its various activities Palomar Capital Advisers advises on
debt restructuring ­ including the Proindicus debt, which suggests
that Pearse still has ties, albeit indirectly, to Credit Suisse.

Pearse and Langford are also mentioned in the now notorious “Panama
Papers”, the mass of documents leaked from Panama based law firm
Mossack Fonseca. These documents show that they are directors and
shareholders of Palomar Holdings Ltd, registered in the tax haven of
the British Virgin Islands. Other shareholders include Safa’s
company Privinveste Shipbuilding, one of the owners of Abu Dhabi
Mar.

Zitamar has also seen the EMATUM accounts, which show that the vast
bulk of the 850 million dollars was speedily dispatched to Abu Dhabi
Mar in September and October 2013. Abu Dhabi Mat received 836.3
million dollars from EMATUM. The rest of the money – 13.7 million
dollars – apparently filled bankers’ pockets, being spent on bank
fees and commissions.

But these accounts are very suspicious. For when the French press
reported on EMATUM, it said that the 30 boats cost 200 million
euros, which is about 230 million dollars. But the amount paid by
EMATUM to Abu Dhabi Mat is well over three times that amount.

The Mozambican government did not query the figures given by the
French press. In December 2013, opposition deputies in the
Mozambican parliament, the Assembly of the Republic, citing the
figure of 200 million euros, asked the government what had happened
to the rest of the money.

Far from disputing the figure, the then Fisheries Minister Victor
Borges said the rest of the EMATUM money (about 620 million dollars)
had been spent on such items as training, satellite communications,
radars, on-shore installations, licences and the like.

In 2015, Finance Minister Adriano Maleiane schematically divided the
EMATUM loan into 350 million dollars for fishing assets, and 500
million for the defence component. But if the figures cited by
Zitamar are correct, then most of the 850 million dollars was spent
on fishing assets.

We do not have an exact breakdown of how much each boat cost ­ but
even if each of the six patrol boats cost three times as much as
each of the 24 fishing boats, the fishing assets would still cost
608 million dollars, and the defence assets 228 million.

An alternative explanation, of course, is that the EMATUM figures
given to Zitamar are fictitious, and much of the money was siphoned
off.

**********************************************

Mozambique: Mozambican Public Debt Now ‘Unsustainable’

Agencia de Informacao de Mocambique (Maputo)

3 May 2016

http://allafrica.com/stories/201605040005.html

Maputo — The Mozambican Debt Group (GMD), a civil society
organization that has been working on debt issues for many years,
has denied the government’s repeated claim that the country’s public
debt is still sustainable.

On Friday, according to a report in Tuesday’s issue of the
independent newssheet “Mediafax”, the GMD held a conference on the
debt, at which the main guest was Finance Minister Adriano Maleiane,
and, using the official figures, calculated that the debt was now
way over the sustainability levels.

The government had claimed that in 2015, the debt had reached  39.9
per cent of Gross Domestic Product. The limit of sustainability is
regarded as 40 per cent, and so Mozambique was just 0.1 per cent
away from this threshold.

But those figures were calculated before the revelations last month
that the previous government, led by President Armando Guebuza, had
not disclosed government guaranteed loans contracted by two state
companies – Proindicus (622 million dollars) and Mozambique Asset
Management (MAM – 535 million dollars).

The GMD pointed out that the government’s own figure for total
public debt, of 11.64 billion dollars, given by Prime Minister
Carlos Agostinho do Rosario at a press conference last Thursday,
meant that the debt now stood at 69 per cent of GDP. The foreign
debt is over nine billion dollars, and is equivalent to 53 per cent
of GDP.

This is a conservative estimate: the ratings agency Fitch last week
put the debt at 83 per cent of GDP, and warned that, if the
Mozambican currency, the metical, continues to depreciate, the ratio
could go to over 100 per cent of GDP later in the year.

The sustainability variables are clearly out of control, warned the
GMD. Its document to the conference, cited by the paper, said “74
per cent of the debts contracted since 2012 are not concessional.
The grant element (in foreign aid) has fallen from 80 per cent in
2005, to 52 per cent in 2012, and to less than 40 per cent in 2015.
The period of grace has also fallen – from an average of 10 years in
2005, to an average of six years in 2012, and to less than five
years in 2015”.

The GMD added that the period of maturity had shrunk dramatically –
from an average of 37 years in 2005, to an average of 22 years in
2012, and to less than 20 years in 2015.

The GMD warned that this unsustainable level of public debt would
have damaging effects, particularly on the poorest strata of the
population, because the weight of debt servicing in the budget will
lead to a substantial reduction in the amount of money available for
public investment.

The GMD asked if the current government has any intention of holding
anyone responsible for the undisclosed loans and the consequent
dramatic expansion in public debt. Maleiane replied that there are
strong legal provisions to punish those responsible, if it can be
shown that they acted illegally.

It was in the interest of the government, he added, to explain as
clearly as possible the question of the public debt and, if anyone
is found guilty, he will receive “exemplary punishment”. But for
this to happen it was important to allow the institutions of the
administration of justice to do their job.

It was these institutions that must decide whether any crime had
been committed and must then sentence the guilty parties. The
Attorney-General’s Office has already announced that it is
investigating Proindicus and MAM. A separate investigation began
last year into the Mozambique Tuna Company (EMATUM), which acquired
a government guaranteed loan of 850 million dollars in 2013.

**********************************************

Frelimo under pressure on debt: parliament, party elders, US, other
donors

Mozambique News reports & Clippings by Joseph Hanlon

319, 11 May 2016

[Received by email. Archive will be available soon at
http://tinyurl.com/hqcr8bu]

Two parliamentary commissions will quiz the government on the secret
debt. The parliamentary Standing Commission agreed Monday (9 May)
that the both Plan and Budget Commission and the Defence and Public
Order Commission would question the government. The parliament
session is scheduled to resume in June, but commissions meet during
recesses so the hearings could be soon. The secret debt was taken
without parliamentary approval (thus the Budget Commission) and is
said to be for patrol boats and others arms (thus the Defence
Commission). Renamo boycotted the Standing Committee session.

This is a total reversal of the position of Frelimo in parliament,
which last month rejected a debate on the debt. More than $2
billion in secret loans and bonds were taken on in 2103-14 by a
small group around the then President Armando Guebuza. Many MPs are
seen as aligned to Guebuza, and the reversal of position is an
indication of increasing pressure on Guebuza and Frelimo.

On Saturday the politically influential Veterans Association
(Associacao dos Combatentes da Luta de Libertacao Nacional, ACLLN)
said the government should investigate possible conflicts of
interest of the still secret individual investors in the three
companies whose debts were guaranteed by the state- Ematum,
ProIndicus and MAM. It also said that the state should only accept
the military part of the debt and not that of the three companies.
Last month the Frelimo Central Committee had demanded a public
explanation of the secret debt.

In a speech to the Mozambican Bar Association on 4 May, Rui Baltazar
said the country is going through “a profound political, economic
and social crisis.” In an obvious reference to the Guebuza
government, he said Mozambique has gone through “a prolonged period
of exercise of political power with an authoritarian nature and
great opacity.” He cited “deepening corruption, misuse of state
property, nepotism, [and] an assault on public goods that should be
exploited for the benefit of the people. … Politics seems to be
only about the conquest and preservation of power as a means to
have unauthorized access to resources, promoted by a premature and
dangerous euphoria based on energy El Dorados, encouraging
wastefulness and megalomania, with all the harmful consequences
that now we will have to face.”

AIM (6 May) calls Baltazar “a moral beacon for Mozambican society”.
An anti-fascist in the late colonial period, he was one of the few
lawyers who defended Mozambican nationalists. After independence he
became Justice Minister and then Finance Minister. Eventually he
became the first chair of the Constitutional Council.

Donors and lenders tighten the screws

The United States said on Monday that it “endorsed the recent
decision by the group of 14 countries (G14) providing general
budget support to suspend such assistance until they are provided
more clarifications and accountabilities.” It also said it was
“reviewing our aid, in particular any aid to the government.” The
US has never been a budget support donor, and provides its largest
support to the health sector. “Most of this assistance directly
benefits the people of Mozambique, and the United States does not
wish to reduce this assistance.” The US says it is the largest
bilateral donor to Mozambique.
http://portuguese.maputo.usembassy.gov/dividademocambique.html

Donors and lenders met with the government last week and laid down a
hard line. They stressed that it is for the government to present a
clear roadmap or preliminary action plan, built around three key
phrases: transparency, corrective measures and accountability. The
first two of these were emphasised by the US in its statement
Monday: “the government must now act quickly to publicly account in
a full and transparent way for these loans and how the funds were
used, as well as outlining a plan to mitigate its impact on the
economy of Mozambique.”

Transparency means providing a complete list of government
guaranteed debts – it is believed that there are more which have
not been revealed – and documenting in detail what the money has
been used for. With Ematum, donors were satisfied when the IMF
forced the loan onto the government books, without actually asking
for an accounting of how the money was used. But with two new
secret loans revealed, this is no longer enough, and donors are
demanding that government at least reveal in some detail what the
money was used for.

Corrective measures mean filling the financial hole (of which more
below), and a range of measures to make public enterprises more
accountable, make sure procurement follows the rules, and ensure
that there are more public and detailed evaluations of future
investments.

Accountability is more complex. Some donors and lenders want
forensic audits, which would identify corrupt payments and where
they money went. In past corruption cases, Mozambique has only
allowed one forensic audit and it was never allowed to be used (of
which more below). Some donors want Guebuza named, shamed and
prosecuted, while others realise this is unlikely. There are
rumours that some in Frelimo want to offer former Finance Minister
Manuel Chang as the scapegoat.

Some donors now argue that there has been such good will toward
Mozambique that the country has been allowed to get away with past
corruption scandals. One admitted: “donors have not wanted to
accept that this is not a success story. So much has been invested
that they do not want to lose face – or their own hopes.” But many
donor representatives feel personally offended – government
ministers and officials lied to them about low levels of military
spending and about investments. They say the Mozambique leadership
does not yet realise how serious has been the smashing of trust,
and how this will have in impact in their home capitals.

A full renewal of aid will be dependent on Mozambique having an IMF
programme. The previous one was based on misleading data from the
government, so the IMF will want to start from scratch, and this
could take more than a year. But the IMF will surely demand harsh
austerity measures and tight controls of both government spending
and the money supply. Investment will be frozen, wages might be
cut, and devaluation will continue, raising Maputo food prices
(which in the past has caused riots).

**********************************************

How Mozambique can contain its debt crisis and avoid long-term
damage

May 12, 2016

Sam Jones, Associate Professor in Development, Economics, University
of Copenhagen

http://theconversation.com – direct URL: http://tinyurl.com/z9ubo34

[Disclosure statement: Sam Jones works for the University of
Copenhagen, which provides technical assistance in economic research
and analysis to the Ministry of Economy & Finance in Mozambique. The
present article is written in his personal capacity only.]

[Note: original version at link above includes further links to
additional sources]

Mozambique’s return to the international limelight reads like a John
le Carré novel. The elements of a bestseller are all present:
growing internal instability, unexplored natural gas deposits,
international loans to purchase weapons disguised as lending to fund
tuna boats, and hidden public loan guarantees to private companies
owned by the secret services. And, of course, there are legions of
international bankers and diplomats wringing hands in late-night
meetings.

Unfortunately, this is not fiction. The debts are real and the costs
of these decisions will hang over Mozambique for decades. This
article provides a summary of what we know about Mozambique’s
external debt situation and proposes measures to contain the current
situation and avoid longer-term damage.

The scale of the debt burden

After weeks of rumour, some clarity about Mozambique’s external debt
position recently emerged following an emergency visit of the
government to the International Monetary Fund in Washington. [table
of rough estimates by author available as image in original article]

The country’s officially reported external debt stock at the end
2014 was more than US$6.5 billion, excluding $500 million taken on
to government accounts in 2014 associated with the infamous Ematum
deal for the tuna fleet.

Even before the current crisis this was a cause for concern.
Mozambique had been a major beneficiary of various debt relief
initiatives in the late 1990s and 2000s. At the beginning of this
century the country’s debt stock was about $1 billion. In 2010 the
same stock was $3.3 billion. By 2014 it had doubled.

Then there’s what is owed on the controversial “new” debts:

Ematum, for the controversial tuna fleet;

ProIndicus, which is aimed at providing security, especially for gas
and oil operations; and

Mozambique Asset Management, which was set up for maritime
maintenance and repairs.

Due to the heavy financial burden of the Ematum deal, originally due
in 2020, it was recently restructured. The repayment period was
extended from 2020 to 2023, increasing the annual interest rate from
6.305% to 10.5%, and switching to a “bullet” repayment. This means
that the full principal amount is only repaid at the end of the
period.

The two other loans, ProIndicus and Mozambique Asset Management, are
standard private loans and must be repaid in the next five years.

Together, the immediate annual costs of these three debts are
expected to be more than $300 million per year, double the total
external debt service costs in 2014.

Another point that has been neglected in the debate around these
three controversial loans is additional public debt taken on since
2014. According to government declarations, the external debt stock
stood at $9.89 billion in May 2016. Basic arithmetic means that,
even excluding the controversial loans, a further $1.4 billion of
public external debt has been incurred since 2014. This continues a
worrying trend of rapid indebtedness.

What it all adds up to

Putting all this together, annual debt service costs are likely to
be in the region of $500 million over the next few years, of which
more than $200 million are in interest costs alone. These costs
could be higher, depending on the structure of these other more
recent debts.

A total of $500 million is equivalent to about 33% of conventional
merchandise exports – excluding the contribution of mega-projects
such as aluminum and coal – or 25% of net international reserves.
This will create significant pressures on public finances.

Moreover, news that a set of major donors, including the
International Monetary Fund and World Bank, are reviewing their
lending to Mozambique means that access to hard currency will become
even more scarce in the short term. Further depreciation of the
currency is likely, which would only add to the local currency cost
of the debt burden.

What action can be taken

How can Mozambique contain this situation and avoid a downward
spiral?

There are no simple solutions. But calls by donors for full
transparency and accountability around the debt situation must be
taken more seriously. The government could start by opening its
books to a credible and thorough external audit of the external
debt, as well as of its relationships with private companies through
loan guarantees and private-public partnerships.

Admittedly, a legal investigation into the controversial loans has
begun. This is welcome but needs to be more than a pro forma
exercise and must be free from political interference.

Substantive actions in these two domains would go some way to
restoring donor confidence.

A further set of immediate actions should be to deal with the
companies associated with the controversial loans. Under current
circumstances, it is difficult to envisage any plausible scenario
under which these companies become viable. A sensible option is to
avoid further losses now.

One strategy here starts by recognising that some of the rights
owned by these companies are valuable, as are the existing assets of
Ematum. An international auction to these rights or to an exclusive
management contract would serve two purposes. First, it would raise
money to pay off the loans, thereby reducing their social costs.
Second, it would provide a transparent commercial valuation of the
businesses opening the way for renegotiation with creditors.

In my view, if the private lenders to ProIndicus and Mozambique
Asset Management were excessively optimistic in their valuation of
these businesses, they should bear some losses.

Temptations to be avoided

An unavoidable consequence of the current crisis will be some form
of austerity. Here the government needs to maintain a cool head and
avoid rash decisions that undermine long-term growth and fiscal
health. It will be tempting to seek a new round of loans from
abroad, perhaps from China where Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi
will be making an official visit in May.

Of course, some short-run relief would be handy. But there is a
major risk that this is not transparent and will incur new fiscal
liabilities or high long-run opportunity costs. Moreover, this
approach could alienate other donors and therefore jeopardise
critical sources of financing for social sectors.

The general point is that a more serious and rational approach to
public debt is needed, in which loan decisions based on vanity or
political preferences are avoided. Rather, rigorous analysis of
project viability and the profile of their net benefits is needed.
It would be helpful to enact in law stricter requirements and
transparency around all new debt issues and guarantees.

Another temptation is to hand out attractive tax breaks to foreign
companies to kick-start delayed natural resource investments. Again,
this might provide temporary relief but this would be the public
finance equivalent of selling the family silver to a pawn shop. It
is critical that the long-run public value of these assets is not
squandered due to poor policy decisions by a previous government.

Finally, it is essential that the government continues to invest in
the foundations for sustained growth. This means that public
investment in infrastructure, agricultural development and human
capital (education, health) should be the main priorities. So these
budgets need to be ring-fenced in some way. This is easier said than
done, especially given ongoing internal conflict. Solving this
political standoff is vital to get out of the current economic mess.

*****************************************************

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