The 2025 Nelson Mandela Lecture by investigative journalist and NAIRE executive member John-Allan Namu on 16 February brought close to 500 people to an almost-sold-out International Theatre Amsterdam, the highest attendance in the Lecture’s five-year history. As an investigative journalist fighting for a way forward — not just analysing and lamenting problems — Namu offered a clear, compelling perspective and fiery call to action. The speech offered hope for change coming from Africa: from the recent success of a young, educated ‘Gen Z’ mass movement in getting an exploitative tax bill withdrawn, to a sense of increased ‘uprightness’ Namu noticed among young Africans, reminiscent of that once exuded by icons like Nelson Mandela and Kenya’s freedom fighter Dedan Kimathi. Read our report on the Nelson Mandela Lecture here.Even as the world is realigning in very troubling ways, there are waves of change throughout Africa, where octogenarian kleptocrats appear to be on their way out. Investigative journalists like John-Allan Namu and his fellow NAIRE members offer a forward outlook, building alliances, audiences and critical mass for change in Africa and worldwide.
However, this work needs to be supported, especially now that the Trump administration in the USA has cut off practically all funding that was supporting independent and investigative journalism on the African continent (not to mention humanitarian aid). There is hardly a NAIRE member unaffected by the sudden termination of media projects. Though our colleagues will battle on regardless, facing risks as always, often working under regimes that actively oppress them, their work now needs to be made sustainable by our audiences. Hence our call to you, our audience, to support ZAM’s journalism work financially. It is urgently needed. We are setting up this newsletter to support paid subscriptions. In the meantime, please consider making a once-off or recurring donation to ZAM.
Waves of Change
Read ZAM investigative editor Evelyn Groenink’s bird’s eye view of moves towards democracy on the African continent here.
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State capture in the USA
In the US, President Trump has issued an executive order pausing all enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA). This followed a decision by the new US Attorney General to close down the Department of Justice’s Kleptocracy team, the Taskforce Kleptocapture, and the Kleptocracy Asset Recovery Initiative. The consequences of these changes will no doubt be felt across Africa.
While we take plenty of isses with US foreign policy, enforcement of the FCPA in the US has helped hold multinationals accountable for corruption and kleptcocracy – especially in countries with weak and/or captured law enforcement systems that struggle to do so internally. The FCPA has been used successfully against Rio Tinto (for bribing officials in Guinea ), Glencore (more bribery, in Nigeria, Cameroon, Ivory Coast and Equatorial Guinea), McKinsey & Company (for its role in state capture in South Africa), and many more.
Trump called these corrupt activities “routine business practices” and claimed that enforcing the FCPA harms American economic competitiveness. “American national security,” says the executive order, “depends in substantial part on the United States and its companies gaining strategic business advantages whether in critical minerals, deep-water ports, or other key infrastructure or assets.” Advantages which would not be possible without corruption. It is, at the very least, refreshingly honest, showing exactly how kleptocracy around the world is enabled and legitimised by Western democracies and their economic interests. Our work — and the work of other corruption fighters in Africa — is done in increasingly harder circumstances, now that the US seems to have stopped even the pretense of fighting kleptocracy
Resistance and Femicide
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Naila Aroni wrote for ZAM on Kenya’s anti-femicide march of December 2024, violent state repression, and the interconnectedness of gender inequality, economic hardship, and systemic governance failures. Read it here.
The frozen pension of a water boss
On 31 January the South African daily The Citizen reported that the pension benefits of former South African Water Affairs deputy director general Zandile Mathe were frozen after a lengthy investigation by the anti-corruption Special Investigations Unit into massively inflated water contracts finally came to an end.
Inflated and frivolous water contracts, whereby the equivalent of hundreds of millions US$ of public money was spent by state water bosses — without any discernible improvement of water infrastructure or supply — have been a feature of the South African corruption landscape since 2012. They have even led to murders of whistleblowers and non-corrupt civil servants, most prominently among these South African water affairs director and anti-apartheid struggle veteran Mark-Anthony Williams, who had objected against two water projects overseen by Zandile Mathe. As he was fighting the allocation of the corrupt tenders, Williams was shot in a hail of bullets by intruders on 23 December 2014. ZAM investigated and documented the case here. The South African government finally acknowledged the corrupt nature of the projects Williams had tried to fight in a statement by the Ministry of Water Affairs in 2023.
The murderers of Mark-Anthony Williams were never apprehended. Other murders in connection with water contracts have since been reported in South Africa’s KwaZulu Natal province and in connection with Johannesburg-based Rand Water. See here, here, and here .
From Africa Uncensored: GreenFakes
GreenFakes, an investigation by Mediapart and our partner Africa Uncensored, (the media house directed by Nelson Mandela Lecture speaker John-Allan Namu), shows how multinationals such as TotalEnergies and construction giant Eiffage obtain permits to implement projects that destroy biodiversity in African countries in violation of international standards. This then happens with the complicity of consulting firms and international financial institutions such as the World Bank and the African Development Bank. The investigation is based on internal documents from leading French ecological auditing firm Biotope. They were obtained by Climate Whistleblowers, an organisation specialising in the protection of climate and environmental whistleblowers. Some highlights:
- Despite promises, mines financed by French banks and a World Bank subsidiary are ravaging the environment in Guinea. This greenwashing operation has made a fortune for Biotope, which advises both the government and the mining companies.
- Already contested for its impact on the climate and because of the exactions committed on-site, the Mozambique LNG project will also negatively impact biodiversity, despite TotalEnergies’ promises.
- In Côte d’Ivoire, Eiffage’s Singrobo Dam will destroy critical forest habitats and harm protected species.
- TotalEnergies’ Tilenga Project destroys a Ugandan national park, backed by questionable permits.
More news from our network
- Premium Times has published an investigation into the extortion of universities and education institutions by federal lawmakers in Nigeria.
- The Fourth Estate’s investigation into ghost personnel at Ghana’s National Service Authority (NSA) shows how officials circumvented processes for payments of allowances, enabling thousands of nonexistent names to be added to the payroll.
- Forbidden Stories has published a follow-up on “Rwanda Classified”, the joint investigation into Kagame’s repressive regime by over 50 journalists and 11 media houses, including ZAM, published last year.
Coming soon
- How the world’s appetite for coal and South African coal syndicates poison landscapes.
- The Russian military drone industry’s poaching of young Africans.
- Donkey-killing gangsters’ deal with China and Ghanaian political parties.
- A review of Olivier van Beemen’s investigation into African Parks.
