AU demands EITI take action on Glencore’s Bribery Scandal in Nigeria, 5 Others
…Asks Nigeria, Cameroon, DRC, 3 Others To Initiate Joint, Separate Judicial Action Against Glencore, Accomplices
The African Union (AU) has asked the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) to draw attention to Glencore’s bribery allegations in Nigeria and five other African countries.
The AU in a communique released on Tuesday at the end of its two-day session in Dakar, Senegal, asked “EITI to publicly call out Glencore over its bribery scandal in Nigeria, Cameroon, South Sudan, Cote d’Ivoire, Equatorial Guinea and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The Conference was convened by the Secretariat of the African Union High Level Panel on Illicit Financial Flows and the Working Group on Common Africa Position on Asset Recovery (CAPAR) alongside the 2023 Global Conference of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) on 13th and 14th June 2023 in Dakar, Senegal.
The United Kingdom subsidiary of Glencore a mining and commodities trading group was in November 2022 fined £281 million by a London court for seven bribery offences relating to its oil business in Africa.
Judge Peter Fraser described Glencore’s offences as “sustained criminality, corporate corruption on a widespread scale, deploying very substantial sums of money in bribes”.
The Judge said, “the corruption is of extended duration, and took place across five separate countries in West Africa, but had its origins in the West Africa oil trading desk of the defendant in London. It was endemic amongst traders on that particular desk,”
In its 11-recommendation communique, the Conference described the Glencore corruption scandal as “a symptom of a widespread and deliberate practice in the extractive industries in Africa”.
The communiqué called on “the African Union and the governments of the six African victim states to draw upon all the necessary resources for joint and separate judicial action against Glencore and its accomplices”.
“The Conference called upon Transparency International and its partners, Publish What You Pay, and related advocacy Civil Society Organizations to actively engage and support action against Glencore on these six cases.
“The Conference also called upon EITI to publicly call out Glencore and demand that it publicly demonstrates fidelity to the principles and values that EITI stands for.”
It reminded the EITI of its critical role in promoting accountability and transparency in the extractive sector given that the bulk of illicit financial flows stems out from transactions in the sector.
It added that the EITI should actively take up its role in partnership with the Working Group on Extractives.
The communiqué added that “the Conference noted the significant contribution of the extractive industries to illicit financial flows and the attendant impact on African economies.
“The extractive industries mostly contribute to illicit financial flows through various means including through under-declaration, underpricing and the evasion of capital controls.
“It is further complicated by base erosion and profit shifting practices of Multinational Corporations (MNCs) that misrepresent the value of goods and/or services in order to relocate untaxed profits to their home nations or to financial secrecy jurisdictions.
“The Conference noted that Multinational Corporations in extractive industries also engage in bribery or other corrupt activities to secure mining or drilling licenses, permits, or favourable tax treatment from government officials.
“Some mining companies also undertake mass exports of mineral ores and crude oil from African countries often disguising and grossly understating the true value of the minerals, precious metals and/or oil in the raw materials that they export for refining.”
On the issue of criminal accountability in the extractive industries, the Conference urged African Union member-states to prioritize ratification of the Malabo Protocol for a criminal jurisdiction for the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights.
This, it noted, would strengthen Africa’s own mechanism for criminal accountability in the extractive industries.
Another recommendations by the Conference was that: the Working Group on CAPAR should prioritizes inclusive consultative processes towards the development of a continental framework for whistleblower protection.
The Conference commended the African Development Bank for taking the initiative to put in place the African Integrity Fund but advised the bank to prioritize the operationalization of the fund.
The Global EITI Conference is the first ever conference to be held in Africa in spite of African countries being the majority of its fifty-seven member countries which meet every three years.
The Conference on Addressing Illicit Financial Flows and Asset Recovery in the Extractive Industries is aimed at fostering dialogue and collaboration on the promotion of accountability and transparent management of oil, gas, and mineral resources.
It was attended by state agencies, civil society organizations, academia and the media. Nigeria’s anti-corruption agency, the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) was represented at the conference.
