Open Secrets Newsletter | May 2024
Accountability Everywhere
May 2024
From in-depth investigative reporting on the potential profiteers of a Basic Income Grant, to our relentless pursuit of legal accountability for those implicated in State Capture in Zimbabwe, Open Secrets continued to pursue accountability in May.
Who Will Profit from a Universal Basic Income Grant?
With the potential implementation of a Basic Income Grant featuring in many of the manifestos of the political parties vying for the 2024 elections, we published a three-part series in GroundUp asking the very important question, who stands to profit?
A Universal Basic income Grant cannot be possible without a functioning grant payments system. This payments system must not only be efficient; it must also be safeguarded against predatory profit-seeking practices. Civil society organisations in South Africa have the basis of where to start and examples from across the world show that it is possible. Our call to action is that the policy makers and political parties who will make up South Africa’s coalition government prioritise a just and equitable grant payment system, now and in the future.
Legal accountability for Zimbabwe’s State Capture Profiteers
In July 2023, we launched our first report on State Capture beyond South African borders: Fronts, Fakes, and Façades: How South African and Mauritian enablers helped move millions from Zimbabwe to Britain. The report explores how Kudakwashe Tagwirei, a politically connected Zimbabwean oil tycoon used front companies, fake invoices, and offshore financial façades to move money from Zimbabwe to the United Kingdom to buy nickel and gold mines worth a combined value of R431 million in 2019.
Directly after the release of the report we wrote letters to authorities and regulatory bodies in South Africa, the UK and Mauritius outlining the findings of our report. Unfortunately we did not received much interest, or any response at all, and have had to go back to the drawing board.
So this year on the 26th of April, we wrote to the UK’s International Corruption Unit and the International Anti-corruption Coordination Centre (IACCC) highlighting the activity of UK based firm Duff and Phelps in the facilitation of the sale of the mines. The IACCC has responded stating they will be in touch with further questions. Although a small step, we hope that this is the start of productive engagement with UK law enforcement, because we will not give up our pursuit of legal accountability for all the individuals and corporations involved.
Legal presentations and international advocacy
In early May, Open Secrets’ lawyers, Jane Borman and Abongile Nkamisa, presented at the African Centre for Transnational Criminal Justice’s conference- Commemorating the 30th anniversary of the Genocide in Rwanda. Building on Open Secrets’ report, The Secretary: How Middlemen and Corporations Armed the Rwandan Genocide, Jane and Abongile examined the role of domestic courts in prosecuting genocide enablers, particularly arms dealers. Jane and Abongile are producing a paper on this very important issue, which we will share with you in the coming months.
Further afield, our Head of investigations, Michael Marchant, travelled to Oslo, Norway to participate in a UNDP symposium in preparation for the United Nations Finance for Development Conference in 2025. Michael made a presentation on the role of professional enablers in facilitating grand corruption and illicit financial flows, and argued that holding those actors accountable should be central to global efforts to ensure a more just and equitable global finance system.
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