Ethiopian Airlines, Africa’s largest cargo and passenger carrier, is dreaming big. After generating revenue of US$2,43 billion in the 2016 financial year, which saw a 70% jump in net profit and an 18% increase in passenger numbers to 7,6 million, the airline says it is buying an additional 55 aircraft, expanding its fleet to 142 planes. Zimbabwe Independent’s assistant editor Brezhnev Malaba (BM) interviewed the Ethiopian Airlines managing director (international services), Esayas Woldemariam (EW), in Victoria Falls at the launch of a direct flight from Addis Ababa. He also spoke about the revival of Air Zimbabwe.

Esayas Woldemariam chats to Transport minister Joram Gumbo in Victoria Falls at the launch of direct flights from Addis Ababa. Pics: Winstone Antonio.

BM: You have been involved in discussions to explore the possibility of reviving Air Zimbabwe. Any progress on that front?

EW: The talks still continue and we are very much focussed on helping in that initiative.

BM: How do you envisage to structure this Air Zimbabwe deal if it were to materialise? We are talking of an airline saddled with debts exceeding US$300 million.

EW: It all depends on the political will of the government of Zimbabwe, and on how they want to put it, whether it is going to be a joint-venture or management consultancy. Ethiopian Airlines is ready for all that.

We have all the human resources, the material resources and the financial resources.

We are looking forward to co-operating with Zimbabwe in a very big way so that we can be able to revamp the whole thing so that Zimbabwe and the rest of Africa are capable of combating the other airlines so that we can defend Africa’s resources and defend the traffic of African airlines.

BM: After studying Air Zimbabwe, what weaknesses have you identified in that struggling airline?

EW: It is just focus which is lacking, otherwise I have been able to learn that Zimbabwe is the most literate African nation, the people in Zimbabwe are very intelligent.

What needs to be done is to tweak that potential and direct it to the right channel so that we can channel it in the right direction. Instead of building 30 000 kilometres of railway from here to Cairo, we build just three to four kilometres of runway and connect people and goods and culture and services. It is cheaper to build and it’s faster to connect. Right now Africa is transacting only 10% internally and 90% with the rest of the world; we want Africans to transact with each other so that employment creation and capital benefit this continent.

BM: It must be a wonderful feeling to know that you are now flying to one of the top tourist destinations in Africa, Victoria Falls, one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World. How do you feel?

EW: It really feels great because Ethiopian Airlines has always been inspired by the continent and the airline is very African, right down to the bone marrow. Our commercial tagline is “The New Spirit of Africa” and it’s our civic duty to our home continent to promote Africa’s nature, culture, history and wildlife. That’s why we succeeded in building the largest African network in the history of aviation. Ethiopian has been flying in the African skies since 1945.

BM: That’s a long time. What has changed since the old days?

EW: At that time, Ethiopian Airlines was inspired to bring Africa together. At that time, our commercial motto was ‘Bringing Africa Together”. The only way to travel from one part of Africa to another was via Europe, but Ethiopian Airlines came to connect the continent and now we fulfil our civic duty to our home continent. We connect Africa more than any other airline, be it African, American or European. We fly in Africa to 56 destinations. We are operating 87 aircraft.

BM: When are you getting these new planes?

EW: The 55 aircraft have been ordered. Many of them are already getting phased into the fleet. In fact, last month we received additional Airbus A350s, so these will come successively in the next five to seven years.

The 87 aircraft we are operating range from the largest Boeing 777-300, which is a 400 seater and the Dreamliner Boeing 787 and the Airbus A350, the most modern one and the Boeing 737-800, the Sky Interior with next-generation engines.

Our network spans from Tokyo to Los Angeles and just about anywhere in between. The only inhabited continent we do not fly to currently is Australia, but in the next couple of years we are planning to go to Melbourne.

BM: In recent years, we have seen an increase in budget airlines, particularly in Africa, small carriers that charge very low fares. Are they a threat to large airlines like yours?

EW: We are not competing with them; we’re co-operating with them. We want to see more budget airlines and more national carriers in Africa. The more the merrier.

We want to keep the traffic from the Middle East big three (Emirates, Qatar and Etihad) and from the Europeans and from the others, to boast African airlines, because Africans have more to benefit from co-operating than from competing. If tourists from Zimbabwe come to Ethiopia and Ethiopian tourists come to Zimbabwe, job creation, hotels and other related businesses will thrive and capital will remain in Africa and not leave the continent.

BM: You speak of the big three Middle Eastern airlines. How have you remained afloat in the face of such stiff competition?

EW: Number one, we’re African to the core, to the bone marrow. We know Africa better than anyone else. We know what the African customer wants by way of customer service, in-flight and on the ground.

The others cannot compete, this is number one. Number two, what we do is that, with African people going everywhere, we try to conduct good market research on the primary and secondary destinations in Africa. We have a very good vision, a very good strategy about where to go and when to go. We have good corporate governance. All these factors combined enable us to beat the competition.

BM: Ethiopian Airlines has been heavily involved in the establishment of a regional airline for West Africa, ASKY. How has that project gone?

EW: We have been assisting to establish ASKY airline in Lome, Togo, for the West African sub-continent. And also Malawian Airline, in Malawi.

BM: Why is it still extremely difficult to travel from one African country to another without having to fly via Europe first?

EW: We are changing that. Within the continent, without having to go via Europe, you can now travel to many places.

Ethiopian Airlines is committed to the building of an alliance of African aviation so that we can work with each other to serve the African continent.

By Catherine B. Nyenkan

The Royal Dutch Airline, KLM, is expected to resume flights to Liberia shortly, the Managing Director of the Liberia Airport Authority (LAA) has said.

W. Bako Freeman indicated that KLM’s return is a result of over six months of discussions and negotiations with the airline’s management which were finalized Sunday.

Speaking on the UNMIL Radio “Coffee Break” Wednesday, Freeman said KLM will be flying to Liberia three times weekly, giving a boost to the airline industry in the country.

According to him, the airline’s return after more than 20 years is not only a boost to the aviation industry, but also to the tourism sector and job creation for Liberians.

“KLM returning to Liberia is a renewed confidence for the Aviation sector, it is also a demonstration effect for others that are looking to come into Liberia,” Freeman said, adding that “it is a big boost and we are very happy about it”

“We on our part will ensure that all conditions that made them decide to come back to Liberia are maintained so that they can continue flying to Liberia,” Freeman noted.

He pointed out that discussions are ongoing to ensure that other airlines return to Liberia.

By Abdullateef Aliyu

Lagos — A Nigerian born pilot, Mr. Ademilola “Lola” Odujinrin has concluded his round the world solo flight, shunning Nigeria and other African nations as earlier planned.

Odujinrin, who works for Air Djibouti has become the first African pilot in history to fly solo around the world.

It was learnt that he completed the final leg of his historic journey on Wednesday afternoon, landing safely at Washington Dulles International Airport.

The pilot completed the entire circumnavigation in a one-engine Cirrus SR22, stopping in more than 15 countries on five continents, returning to Washington DC, where his journey began back in September.

Daily Trust reports that the journey was to commence in Lagos, Nigeria as announced during a Press conference at the Murtala Mohammed International Airport (MMIA) in January 2016.

As earlier planned in January, the pilot with over 17 years experience earlier said the journey would kick off from Nigeria through Cameroun, Kenya, Djibouti UAE, India, Singapore, among others, and end in Nigeria.

However, due to lack of sponsorship from the corporate world in Nigeria, Lola, in pursuance of his dream decided to embark on the trip from Washington DC and refused to touch Nigeria or any African nation

ANALYSISBy John Kotsopoulos, University of Pretoria

The signing of the Treaty of Rome, which established the European Economic Community (EEC) 60 years ago in March 1957, came at a tumultuous time in relations between Europe and Africa.

Just weeks earlier Kwame Nkrumah had declared Ghana a republic, an event which was a turning point in the decolonisation of sub-Saharan Africa.

Nkrumah remarked that the treaty’s inclusion of colonial territories was to neocolonialism what the Berlin Treaty of 1885 had been to colonialism.

He had a point. Two of the six founding members of the EEC – Belgium and France – still held substantial colonial interests on the continent. Accession to the community thus posed the crucial question of what to do about them.

The question became contentious enough to threaten the collapse of the entire Treaty of Rome negotiation process. The other four members of the EEC were Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands.

France in particular was steadfast that its colonies be “associated” with the community. Paris envisaged that its preferential colonial terms of trade would be extended to the entire EEC. But Germany and the Netherlands were opposed, wary of being forced to share the financial and political responsibilities that came with trading with former colonies.

The French argument ultimately won, albeit with some compromises. The treaty’s association agreement would last five years and the preferences France enjoyed from its colonies would be gradually expanded to the rest of the EEC.

The agreement, inscribed into articles 131-136 of the treaty, served as the originator of Europe’s subsequent relationship with the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States (ACP). This was codified in the Yaoundé Agreements, the Lomé Convention and today’s Cotonou Agreement.

So this 60th anniversary is not just about Europe. The treaty created a framework for multilateral relations between Europe and Africa.

The principles of trade and aid enshrined in the treaty’s association agreement form the basis of Europe’s development agenda in Africa to this day, even though relations have expanded into many more areas in the 21st century.

A common future

The Treaty of Rome laid out the blueprint for the creation of the world’s largest single market. It also contributed to the post World War II process of cooperation and reconciliation in Europe.

The push for European unity persisted for 37 years, culminating in the creation of the European Union (EU) under the Maastricht Treaty in 1993.

Although difficult to imagine amid the doom and gloom of Brexit, risingpopulism and the migration crisis, there is still reason to celebrate when you consider the region’s relationship with Africa.

The EU, for all of its troubles, has generally been a progressive partner to Africa, especially with respect to the establishment of the Joint Africa-EU Strategy and the unique programming efforts it has generated.

This of course does not negate instances of neocolonialism, nor the damage done by the clumsy promotion of the European Partnership Agreements (EPAs).

The EPAs in particular remain a sore point. Indeed, the preferential trade terms given to African countries by EU member states have been judged discriminatory and in contravention of World Trade Organisation rules.

Beyond the EPA debate, a number of factors have contributed to challenges facing some of the original asymmetries between the two sides.

For one, the global South, and China in particular, continues to alter global trade dynamics. African countries and regional organisations now have more trading partners to turn to.

In addition, Africa is in the middle of constructive upheaval, brought on by more than 20 years of robust growth.

The Africa of today is not the Africa of 1957. The African Union is also a more robust partner than its predecessor, the Organisation of Africa Unity.

Trade and aid

Back in 1957, the Treaty of Rome laid down the twin principles of EU-Africa relations throughout the 20th century and beyond: trade and aid. These principles were framed within the larger idea of development cooperation.

The association agreement provided reciprocal trading arrangements between 31 ‘overseas territories’ – including 18 African ones – and the ECC countries. An overseas development fund was also created, with all six EEC members contributing to it.

Controversially, the agreement served to perpetuate African dependency on Europe. Even the Lome Convention’s much touted“non-reciprocal” principle, which was supposed to nurture African industries, further attached them to Europe.

The convention eventually met strong criticism as a system of“collective clientelism”, which was perpetuating dependency and “elite capture” in Africa.

This contradictory relationship between dependency and progressive thinking has made Africans understandably circumspect.

What next for Europe and Africa?

The twin principles of trade and aid still exist. But the growth of the EU-Africa partnership since 2000 – outside of EU-ACP channels – has broadened the relationship into less traditional areas such as science and technology, higher education, private investment, infrastructure and continental integration.

But Kwame Nkurumah’s 1957 criticism is still being levied at the EU today for its alleged neocolonial promotion of the EPAs. Pundits in East and Central Africa have been vociferous in their opposition to the agreements.

However, EU officials have a dramatically different interpretation. The EU Commissioner for International Cooperation and Development, Neven Mimica, described the 2016 EPA with six Southern African Development Community (SADC) members as helping to tap the economic potential of the private sector and increase trade.

With such contrasting perceptions, it is perhaps unsurprising that SADC is the only regional body to have signed an EPA with the EU despite more than 10 years of negotiation.

What is crucial is that both sides recognise how far they have come since the Treaty of Rome. And that they accept that a more equitable partnership requires continued commitment to cooperation.

Disclosure statement

John Kotsopoulos does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond the academic appointment above.

ANALYSIS

Editor’s Note

“The roots of the New Liberty Gold project stretch back before 1995, when a resource extraction license was issued by former warlord turned president Charles Taylor to a mysterious company called KAFCO. The permit changed hands a few times and, today, Avesoro holds its permit via a wholly-owned subsidiary, Bea Mountain Mining Corp – a company created in 1996 by Keikurah B. Kpoto, one of Taylor’s closest associates. In 1998, foreign interests bought Bea Mountain Mining. The beneficiaries of the sale were well hidden. According to a document IRIN procured, three quarters of its capital belonged to a company incorporated in the British Virgin Islands. The rest was held by owners of bearer shares.” – IRIN investigative report, March 21, 2017

This investigative report on the largest gold mine in Liberia begins with the mining company’s failure to reimburse displaced Liberians, and the World Bank’s failure to hold them to account. But the lack of accountability extends to basic questions about the ownership of the company and the use of tax havens. As such, it is one striking illustration of what seem to be pervasive characteristics of projects financed by the IFC, the World Bank’s arm for working with private sector companies.

This AfricaFocus Bulletin contains two short articles by journalists who have been investigating the project, and a short press release from Oxfam on a study of IFC projects last year.

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

For previous AfricaFocus Bulletins on economic development issues, visit http://www.africafocus.org/econexp.php

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How a gold mine has brought only misery in Liberia

Emmanuel Freudenthal and Alloycious David

Kinjor, Liberia, 21 March 2017

http://tinyurl.com/mzgdjcb

(This investigative report is being jointly published by 100Reporters, IRIN and Le Monde Afrique. 100Reporters is an awardwinning investigative news organisation based in Washington, DC. Its objective is to reveal untold stories on corruption, transparency and accountability. IRIN delivers unique, authoritative and independent reporting from the front lines of crises to inspire and produce a more effective humanitarian response. Le Monde Afrique is a pan-African francophone media for news, reporting, analysis and debates.)

[Article in French available at http://tinyurl.com/m72pjnd]

The maths was merciless. Siah (name changed) had the equivalent of $5 in her pocket but needed $15 to treat her youngest son Joseph’s malaria. She had travelled an hour to the nearest clinic only to discover she couldn’t afford the medicine. Joseph died that day, as she cradled him in her arms.

Siah lives in Kinjor, a small town in the lush forests of western Liberia. Just a few steps from her home, Liberia’s largest commercial gold mine, New Liberty Gold, plans to dig out a billion dollars-worth of the precious metal.

The Liberian government and its multilateral funding partners see commercial mining as a path to development in a country still recovering from the impact of 11 years of civil war.

Under the law, communities are obliged to give up their land rights and move, in return for compensation. But IRIN’s months-long investigation can reveal that financial reward isn’t always forthcoming from the foreign mining operations.

To make way for New Liberty Gold, 325 families in two villages, Kinjor and Larjor, had to abandon their homes, farms, and artisanal mines that had provided some income. In return for their move to a new village, also named Kinjor, and carved out of the forest near the mine, the company promised to make life better: new houses, a school, hand pumps – and what could have made all the difference to Joseph – a clinic.

Construction began on the mine in 2014, and the first gold sales came a year later. Even though the company describes the operation as a “key asset”, the promised better amenities are yet to materialise years later, and there has already been one major chemical spill that has polluted the environment.

New Liberty Gold has the backing of the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation, which since 2014 invested $19 million and became a key shareholder. That support was predicated on a 155-page Resettlement Action Plan by the company, which listed its planned $3.9 million investments in the new Kinjor.

During the IFC board meeting that approved the mining project, the US delegate formally raised “serious concerns” regarding “the environmental and social risks posed”. The US urged the IFC “to work with the company to ensure that all appropriate funds are set aside for this [resettlement] plan”.

A history of displacement

Projects funded by the World Bank have displaced more than three million people between 2004 and 2013 in 124 countries, according to data published by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (https://www.icij.org/project/world-bank). Those shortcomings were acknowledged by Bank president Jim Yong Kim in 2015, after an internal review found “major problems” that caused him “deep concern”.

But the Bank and the IFC do not appear to have held New Liberty Gold accountable for failing to meet its basic obligations, despite a commitment made by the IFC on its website to help the company “implement best practice standards” in Kinjor.

“I’m really disappointed to say that [this case] is one amongst many,” said Jessica Evans, a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch. “We’ve seen time after time serious failings by the World Bank and the IFC when it comes to resettlement.”

That is little comfort for Siah. Outside a neighbour’s house in Kinjor, she fought back the tears to speak about her son’s death. Her voice rose in anger when she listed the failings of New Liberty Gold: “no hospital here, no safe drinking water”.

“There are toilets right next to the water pump. It makes us sick,” she added. “We are suffering.”

The owner of the mine, Avesoro Resources Inc. (previously called Aureus Mining), has built a school and installed some water pumps. But the rest of the action plan, the compensation due for uprooting people against their will, remains little more than a wish list.

Still waiting

Controversy at mining projects like New Liberty Gold is not new in Liberia. For nearly 100 years, natural resource extraction – from rubber to minerals – has been steeped in violence and corruption. Opaque investments carry a tremendous risk in the context of such a fragile state as Liberia.

In one of Kinjor’s narrow alleys flanked by mud huts, Yarpawolo Gblan, an old man in a faded black polo shirt, stepped forward: “Are you a journalist? Come and see my house!”

We sat on a bench, our backs to the wooden wall of a hut scrawled with the phone numbers of Gblan’s children. Three years ago, Avesoro had forced him to move from what had been his home for a decade, into “temporary” accommodation, to make way for the mining project.

The huts the company provided have just two small rooms: not nearly big enough to house Gblan’s family of eight. He extended the original structure as best he could, using his own resources.

The huts were meant to be a stopgap measure, until the displaced families could move into 325 “improved houses” promised by the company. The unfinished shells of those houses stand in ordered rows, just a few hundred metres away.

But construction stopped longer than a year ago. Weeds now grow between the brick walls, and slimy bright-green algae thrive in puddles fed by rain falling through where roofs should be.

The company man

Half a day’s drive from Kinjor, in a wealthy suburb of Liberia’s capital, Monrovia, a striking white-walled villa serves as the headquarters of New Liberty Gold.

Debar Allen is the company’s general manager, a physically imposing man who fills his generously appointed office. From behind a large wooden desk, he explained in a calm baritone that people like Gblan, who were supposed to have been resettled, “do not want to move from where they are”.

He offered two reasons for the construction delay: the need “to get going with the mining project because we were running out of funds”, and the desire of those being resettled to build their own permanent houses where they are now. “Rather than bringing contractors from Monrovia, we have to team up with them,” he said.

The World Bank, via email, offered a different explanation. With “the Ebola outbreak, the company faced significant construction delays. As a consequence, the project experienced some significant challenges that impacted its financial/cash flow position.”

The result was that “the full implementation of several aspects of the project had to be postponed, and some of the permanent houses have not yet been completed.”

But in February 2015, the IFC provided a $5.3 million cash injection for New Liberty Gold to help the company “cope with additional costs” as a result of the Ebola outbreak, and to “support the company’s ongoing work in Liberia”.

In reality, the company should have finished the resettlement houses several months before Ebola hit Liberia. Moreover, the outbreak was brought under control more than 18 months ago, yet the new housing construction will not be completed any time soon.

Allen explained: “We signed with the [local] leaders a memorandum of understanding that postpones the completion to the end of next year”. That means December 2017.

Community representatives told IRIN that the company had asked them to sign numerous times, accepting the new deadline, and that they eventually gave in. They had reasoned that whether they signed or not, the houses would not be built any faster.

The World Bank did not reply to IRIN’s requests for more details on the resettlement timeline and the mine’s failure to make good on its promises to the community.

Dead fish and rashes

In March 2016, an accident at New Liberty Gold mine released cyanide and arsenic, byproducts of the mining process, into a nearby river that serves villages downstream. In Jikando, where people use its water to fish, bath and wash clothes, they began to see dead fish floating. Soon, they started developing skin rashes themselves.

A slim teenager lifted his t-shirt to show a rash he has had since shortly after the spill. He told IRIN it still itched but said: “it doesn’t worry me all the time”. Several mothers confirmed their children were still afflicted by similar rashes. No medical tests have been conducted on villagers who’ve reported similar effects.

Avesoro’s Allen said the company found out about the leak in April, after a phone call from the local chief in Jikando. He noted that the company now regularly delivers frozen fish to replace the poisoned ones, as the community’s “source of protein was from the creek”.

On 14 April, shortly after the leak, the Liberian Environmental Protection Agency fined the company. On 10 May, Avesoro publicly disclosed the spill to shareholders, stating that its “investigations to date indicate no adverse impact on any human settlement”.

It’s difficult to pin responsibility for the mine’s failures on any individual because it’s hard to identify the successive true owners of New Liberty Gold. Aureus is part of a long list of shell companies named in the Panama Papers leak, many of them registered in opaque jurisdictions.

The latest twist in the ownership trail came at the end of 2016 when MNG Gold, headquartered in Turkey, took over Aureus and changed its name to Avesoro Resources Inc.

The warlord

Investing in companies with complex ownership is not unusual for the IFC. A recent report by Oxfam found that 84 percent of the IFC’s investments in sub-Saharan Africa in 2015 used “secrecy” jurisdictions.

But the roots of the New Liberty Gold project stretch back before 1995, when a resource extraction license was issued by former warlord turned president Charles Taylor to a mysterious company called KAFCO.

The permit changed hands a few times and, today, Avesoro holds its permit via a wholly-owned subsidiary, Bea Mountain Mining Corp – a company created in 1996 by Keikurah B. Kpoto, one of Taylor’s closest associates.

The exploitation of Liberia’s gold and diamonds allowed Taylor, convicted of war crimes and crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court in 2012 and now serving a 50-year prison sentence in the UK, to fund his war effort.

In 1998, foreign interests bought Bea Mountain Mining. The beneficiaries of the sale were well hidden. According to a document IRIN procured, three quarters of its capital belonged to a company incorporated in the British Virgin Islands. The rest was held by owners of bearer shares.

Bearer shares are the vehicles of choice for the corrupt because they are owned by whoever holds the paper certificates, just like cash. There is no trace of their owner in company records and they can easily become covert payments for pretty much anything.

The World Bank nevertheless wrote that it had undertaken due diligence on New Liberty Gold, an investigation that included “desktop reviews, several meetings with Aureus management and a site visit”.

Over the past decade, the IFC has spent more than $200 million on projects like New Liberty Gold. It has a seemingly unshakable faith that commercial mining can deliver development that will trickle down to communities like Kinjor.

As for Siah: Her last-born is now buried. If she once believed the promises of New Liberty Gold, that is certainly no longer the case. “The company is doing nothing for us,” she told IRIN. “If the company had built a hospital here, [his death] would not have happened.”

Aureus Mining: A Promise Betrayed; World Bank Funded Project Dashed Hopes

Monrovia – Liberia’s first industrial gold mine failed to hold its promises, dashing the hopes of local residents of Cape Mount County.

Report by Alloycious David and Emmanuel Freudenthal

FrontPage Africa, March 20, 2017

http://tinyurl.com/lyxoff3

[Emmanuel Freudenthal is a freelance reporter investigating businesses in Africa, while Alloycious David is an award winning Liberian investigative journalist]

Contrary to President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf’s assurance that the New Liberty Gold Mine will positively impact the lives of Liberians, the 325 families displaced by the mine have not yet moved into the houses they had been promised.

The World Bank injected over US$ 19 million into the project with the aim of bettering the lives of Liberians.

The houses should have been finished three years ago and now lie in ruins, overtaken by grass. In the resettled town, called Kinjor, residents still live in the inadequate structures that were meant to host them temporarily.

There is no sign that their construction works will resume soon.

The company in charge of the project, Aureus Mining, now renamed Avesoro, has also failed to construct a health post in Kinjor, as required in an agreement between local residents and the company, known as the ‘Resettlement Action Plan’.

Residents claimed that the absence of a health center is contributing to untimely deaths.

Residents also complained that they did not receive adequate compensation for the crops they lost when their farms were destroyed to make way for the mine.

Gbaley Dorley, 32, alleged that his farm was completely destroyed by the company. In exchange, he got less than a hundred United States dollars in compensation for the cassava, coconut, and pineapple he cultivated.

Another problem being experienced in Kinjor is safe drinking water.

Residents said the community, has less than five functional hand pumps and that many of them do not work during the dry season.

The company’s operations, according to some residents poses health hazard. Kulah Dassin, a 36-year-old mother of eight explained that in March 2015, the company polluted their river with cyanide, which killed all the fish.

The children, who usually bath and wash in the river, suffered from rashes, which look like ringworm, she said.

Dassin disclosed that the application of traditional medicine has helped to cure the rash, but that it is still visible on children.

The Town Chief of Jikandoh, called Pa Jimmy, corroborated that hundreds of fish died, and related “I immediately placed a call to the company’s management when we noticed that the fish were dying.”

Pa Jimmy explained that Debar Allen, the company’s manager, and a team came quickly to collect water samples in the river and took some of the dead fish back to their office.

Debar Allen, admitted that the company accidentally dumped cyanide in the river but said the company has taken action to advert the situation.

The company’s General Manager instructed them to stop using the water.

In restitution for the pollution of their river, Aureus Mining constructed two hand pumps to provide community members with safe drinking water.

The company is compensating residents by providing them with cartons of fish.

Although, the company or the Liberia Ministry of Health has not provided official statement on the safety of the river, and no one was examined by a doctor, community members have resumed bathing and washing their clothes in the river.

The Liberia Environmental Protection Agency attempted to investigate the leak, but said that the company obstructed its investigation, which led to a US$ 10,000 fine for the company.

Allen further stated that construction work on the houses were halted to focus more on the mining, because the company was running out of funding, but contradicted himself and said individuals resettled in new Kinjor were satisfied with where they staying and that the company was thinking about what to do with the units when they are completed.

The company’s ownership remains sealed in secrecy, Aureus Mining is part of several shell companies registered in secrecy jurisdictions and named in the Panama Papers.

The NEWS also unearthed that it has links to former President Charles Taylor, who is currently serving a 50 year jail sentence for war crimes committed in neighboring Sierra Leone.

Taylor’s former associate, the late Senator Keikurah B. Kpoto created the Liberian subsidiary of Aureus Mining, the Bea Mountain Mining Corp. This company was given a mining license under Taylor’s government.

The World Bank and Aureus Mining failed to provide information on inquire whether Taylor’s associates or some of his ex-officials still hold shares in New Liberty Gold Mine and whether they are aware that the project had link with Taylor.

Aureus Mining has not only failed to meet the aims for which the World Bank infused over US$ 19 million into New Liberty Gold Mine, but has created more sufferings, inflict pains and enriched shareholders at the detriment of Liberia.

Via email, the bank disclosed that it conducted desktop review of the project and held several meeting with Aureus Mining, but refused to provide further information, because it entered a confidentiality agreement with the company that prevents it from providing more information on the project.

84% of World Bank’s private investments in Sub-Saharan Africa go to companies using tax havens

Oxfam International

11th Apr 2016

http://tinyurl.com/n2rpthk

Fifty-one of the 68 companies that were lent money by the World Bank’s private lending arm in 2015 to finance investments in subSaharan Africa use tax havens, Oxfam revealed today.

Oxfam’s new analysis focused on International Finance Corporation’s (IFC) investments in Sub-Saharan Africa. It shows that together these 51 companies, whose use of tax havens has no apparent link with their core business, received 84 percent of IFC investments in that region in 2015. It also reveals that the IFC has more than doubled its investments in companies that use tax havens in just five years – from $1.2billion in 2010 to $2.87billion in 2015.

The findings come ahead of the annual IMF-World Bank Spring meetings starting on Wednesday in Washington DC, and in the wake of the Panama Papers scandal which revealed how powerful individuals and companies are using tax havens to hide wealth and dodge taxes. The issue of tax havens is also expected to be high on the agenda at the UK government’s Anti-Corruption Summit in London next month.

In Oxfam’s study, the most popular haven for IFC’s corporate clients was Mauritius; 40 percent of IFC’s clients investing in Sub-Saharan Africa have links there. Mauritius is known to facilitate “roundtripping.” This is where a company shifts money offshore before returning it disguised as foreign direct investment, which attracts tax breaks and other financial incentives.

Sub-Saharan Africa is the poorest region in the world. It desperately needs corporate tax revenues to invest in public services and infrastructure. For example, the region lacks money to provide enough skilled birth attendants, clean water or mosquito nets, resulting in high rates of child mortality; one child in 12 dies before their fifth birthday.

Oxfam’s Head of Inequality, Nick Bryer, said: “It’s crazy to be giving with one hand and taking away with another – the UK government donates to the World Bank to encourage development, but by allowing investments in tax havens the World Bank’s lending arm is ultimately depriving poor countries of much-needed revenues to fight poverty and inequality.”

“The World Bank Group should not risk funding companies that are dodging taxes in Sub-Saharan Africa and across the globe. It needs to put safeguards in place to ensure that its clients can prove they are paying their fair share of tax.”

The IFC invested more than $86billion of public money in developing countries between 2010 and 2015; 18.6 percent of it spent in SubSaharan Africa. The IFC has a significant focus on financial markets, infrastructure, agribusiness and forestry, among other sectors.

While the IFC arguably leads the private sector with its disclosure, environmental and social standards, the public still has no access to information about where over half of the institution’s financing ends up, because it is done through opaque financial intermediaries. It also continues to face major challenges in measuring its overall development impact, and ensuring that the projects it funds do not harm local communities. This latest Oxfam research shows that the organisation also has a long way to go in ensuring that its clients are responsible tax payers.

Oxfam is calling for the IFC to develop new standards to ensure it only invests in companies that have responsible corporate tax practices. For example, companies should be transparent about their economic activities so it is clear if they are paying their fair share of tax where they do business.

The international agency is also calling on David Cameron to show strong leadership in tackling tax havens, beginning by intervening to ensure that the UK’s Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies publish public registers revealing the true owners of companies based there, ahead of the Anti-Corruption Summit in May.

Oxfam is urging the World Bank and IMF to work with governments around the world to further reform the international tax system and help prevent tax dodging by wealthy individuals and companies, including action to end the era of tax havens. Tax dodging using tax havens is estimated to cost poor countries $100billion in lost revenues every year.