KR#14: Faith, power, and minerals

New investigations and analysis from ZAM and our network.

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In this edition of the Kleptocracy Report:

• Editorial: the gloves are off
• Class action lawsuits disappoint in Mozambique and Malawi
• Nature parks, military style
• Microfinance for the rich
• A 13 US$ billion contract amid Nigeria’s malnutrition crisis
• And more stories from the network!

Editorial: The gloves are off

US Secretary of State’s Marco Rubio’s ode to Western empire at the recent Munich Conference may not have surprised as a view of the Trump administration. Especially not since the ‘empire’ thought was immediately twinned with the MAGA, white, Christian-ethnonationalist version of Europe that the same administration would like to see.

What was, perhaps, a tad surprising, was the standing ovation Rubio got from most if not all European representatives at the conference. Whereas initially a third to half of delegates stood up to applaud, little by little this contingent became more, until virtually everyone stood and clapped. This may be the result of a phenomenon also seen in theatres after a performance that was perhaps OK but not really magnificent. When some stand up, others also tend to join, because no one wants to appear rude.

But it is also possible that lots of them really meant it.

Many African investigative journalists and pro-democracy activists would argue that Europe’s much-trumpeted values of human rights, equality and fair trade vis a vis their continent were never more than a cosmetic layer over continuing plunder of resources in cahoots with local kleptocrats. Some, like Emmanuel Macron, who recently said that France is still “better than China” in its dealings with Africa, may dispute this. Nevertheless, like the Chinese, recent strategies of European states also increasingly focus on ‘critical minerals’ from Africa. This, too, was explicitly stated as a Western need in Rubio’s speech.

And of course there is such a need. The same need is felt by all the global powers that are currently competing for the wealth beneath the feet of African citizens.

We at ZAM and NAIRE had hoped, perhaps foolishly, that Europe would be different from the other powers -including the US-, in that it would seek alliances with those in Africa who share its much-vaunted values: democracy, human rights, a guardianship of resources in the public interest. That it would -perhaps only gradually, but still- drop its partnerships with oppressors, sell-outs, and kleptocrats in Africa and listen more to the Generation Z democrats, activists, and thinkers who oppose them.

After the standing ovation for Rubio, we are not so sure. We still hope we are wrong. But maybe, now that the gloves seem off in the new, starker, global competition for Africa’s wealth, the masks have come off too.

We produce the Kleptocracy Report with a small team of African investigative journalists. Your support can help us to keep publishing in freedom and open gateways for democratic change. Read more about our work and funding here.

Worlds apart

Though intended to bring “lasting, systemic change”, NAIRE members in Mozambique and Malawi report that class action lawsuits did not bring much improvement to exploited communities in their countries. In Mozambique’s mining area of Montepuez, the Gemfields mining company, with its London head office and its local ruling party co-owners, still guards its concession avidly and villagers trying to dig for gemstones on the land of their birth still risk being shot by special forces.

In Malawi, where a class action was undertaken on behalf of tea plantation workers, and won, the workers report the same abuses as before. In the end, money, -not enough, several villagers claim-, came and went, and exploitation and violence continued. Is it really possible to bring change from law firm offices in a Western capital like London, when a local context of exploitation and oppression remains unchanged?

Read Worlds Apart

Wildlife police state

Talking about empire, US military systems now appear to be taking over wildlife reserves. Our colleagues at Oxpeckers report that close to 3 billion US government dollars have turned South Africa’s game parks into a “fortress frontier.” Live digital feeds and maps automatically tag every vehicle crossing the park’s perimeter, logging license plates, times and GPS coordinates into a central database. “The setup is similar to a panopticon, a circular prison with cells arranged around a central well from which prisoners can at all times be observed”, the reporters write. It is “an example of how global security priorities are integrating hi-tech into the African conservation landscape.”

According to earlier research, this doesn’t augur well for people who live or walk in the area.

Read The Green Panopticon

Read Hunting Season

Emptying the bank for the poor

Our colleagues at the Platform for Investigative Journalism in Malawi investigated a government microfinance scheme to uplift the “ultra-poor” and found that it was hijacked by the political elite. Leaked records show how the National Economic Empowerment Fund was captured by former President Lazarus Chakwera’s family, cabinet ministers and party cheerleaders, sidelining the communities it was designed to serve.

Image courtesy of PIJ

Read Microfinance for the Rich

Keeping it in the family

While Nigerian media and civil society report a malnutrition crisis due to increasing poverty in the country, our NAIRE partners at the Premium Times highlight the recent award by the Nigerian state of a US$ 13 billion highway contract to a subsidiary of a conglomerate owned by the brothers Ronald and Gilbert Chagoury, who are friends of Nigeria’s presidential family.

The deal is being challenged by activists and opposition politicians because it was not done through a public tender. While stating that the “procurement followed due process and the president hasn’t had any hand in the award or execution,” Minister of Works David Umahi confirmed to reporters that “the entire process is (now) before the court.”

The Chagoury brothers, Premium Times says, enjoy a long-standing friendship and business relationship with Nigeria’s President Bola Tinubu. Our colleagues also discovered that the president’s son, Oluwaseyi Tinubu, was a majority shareholder in an offshore company, incorporated eight years ago in the British Virgin Islands, alongside Ronald Chagoury (junior).

Read the Highway Contract story

More news from the network

• Africa Uncensored’s Elsa Kariuki highlights on the platform’s Substack newsletter how, when community-based organisations in Kenya apply for (international) grants, “funders demand a lot of paperwork” before a “single dollar is released”, while government’s loans from the IMF have increased “even as official audits repeatedly document misappropriation.”
• Tracy Bonareri, at the same Africa Uncensored platform, has made a documentary exposing how women are obliged to sell sex to male mineworkers if they want a share in artisanal mining.
• Meanwhile, China has secured rights to lots of minerals in Malawi, with the government, apparently, unaware. See this report by the PIJ in collaboration with Finance Uncovered and The Continent.
• Our partners at Ukweli in the Great Lakes region investigated the killing of Thierry Banga Lole, a journalist who was part of a budding group in civil society trying to hold authorities accountable. Read their report here. 

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