Swiss banks and Africa�s kleptocracy
Correspondent | Friday January 29, 2016 15:42
Arguably Switzerland has one of the best banking systems in the world and this unique system has attracted to that country’s banks a chunk of global foreign financial lodgement, but unfortunately over the years, large numbers of depositors included people with dubious sources of wealth especially from Africa.
For more than half a century the Alpine nation of Switzerland has built a reputation as the world’s centre for tax evasion, fraud, money laundering, racketeering, save haven and above all a staunch ally of corrupt African leaders and a great beneficiary of third world corruption.
The often perceived neutral country in Europe is a haven for a quarter of the world stolen money.
This has been safely guarded by its ultra-secret banking law enacted in 1934 which makes the disclosures of client identity a crime.
Various categories of people including popes, presidents, prime ministers, corrupt dictators, wealthy business, drug dealers have all used and benefited from the banking secrecy laws of Switzerland, as a result her economy has been described in various terms as an underground economy, a deposit box for dirty money and dirty driven economy.
One of my all-time favourite African scholars, political activist and a fearless anti-corruption campaigner Lord Aikins Adusei lamented that of all victims of Swiss banking secrecy laws and shady banking practices developing countries in Africa in particular seem to have suffered the most.
The global infrastructure of international banking secrecy with headquarters in Switzerland has helped bleed trillions of dollars in illicitly generated money out of Africa.
According to a report from the Global Financial Integrity, total illicit outflows from Africa between 1970 to 2008 may be as high as $1.8 trillion.
Activities of Swiss banking institutions and real estate companies have plunged African nations into debts, poverty, misery, malnutrition, diseases, economic meltdown, infrastructure decay and political instabilities through the help the give to corrupt multinational corporations who connive with corrupt entities to loot and hide the proceeds to their ill-gotten gains.
Lord Adusei opines that Africa lack infrastructure needed to run successful economies, they lack schools, hospitals, roads, harbours, rail infrastructure, irrigation facilities, electricity, clean water, telecommunication, sanitation facilities because of these loots.
The academic points out in frustration that African children are orphaned and malnutritioned and many do not have access to education and healthcare because the money meant for all that are stolen and are sitting in Swiss banks such as UBS, and Credit Suisse.
While African countries continue to struggle to provide the basic necessities of life, the Swiss economy is awashed with money that could save millions from hunger, starvation and diseases. Over a couple of years Swiss banks have been accused of accepting money from horrible dictators and autocratic demagogues like Sani Abacha, Mabuto Se Se Seko, Lassanna Conte, Gnassiambe Eyadema, Arap Moi, Mubarak, Ben Ali, Omar Bongo, Obiang nguema, Blaise Compaore, Denis Sassou Nguesso, Dos Santos to mention a few. For example the 2007 World Bank- UN report estimated that General Sani Abacha, the late Nigerian dictator has embezzled between two to five billion dollars between 1993 and1998.
Another neo Bolshevik Stalinist kleptocrat, Mabuto of the former Zaire (now DRC) is thought to have stolen more than five billion American dollars.
This cruel murderer was known for lending his country some money which he demanded with quadruple interests’ rates. It is painful to note that the Swiss banks do not ask these corrupt dictators the source of their wealth.
Hypocrisy is an international phenomenon as most European leaders keep on attacking and criticising African leaders about corruption but at the same time they are quite happy of what is going on due to the benefits of those stolen money in Europe.
Dishonesty, immorality, decay, and accepting of bribes summed up to the corruption is endemic in all parts of the world.
Exploitation of Africa has taken place in many ways by Europeans. Slavery was the historical exploitation, whilst assisting or helping corrupt and kleptocratic African leaders to deposit large amounts of money in Swiss banks is the modern version of exploitation.
They use their money to finance their development projects, raise the standard of living of their citizens while Africa wallows in poverty. Furthermore it is evident that neither aid from wealthy nations nor donations from philanthropists and humanitarian organisations can save Africa’s destitutes.
The only way out for Africa is the return of the money that has been stolen from the continent. I also call for the international financial institutions like IMF, World Bank and the international community to boycott or impose financial sanctions on those countries like Switzerland and their banks who allow dictators to continue to condemning millions of Africans to death. Undoubtedly, the issue of corrupt African leaders emptying treasures is not an exclusively African problem that calls solely for an African solution, it is very important for African countries to mane radical reforms in order for them to unlock their African potential, i.e. African leaders should strive to maintain a high level of transparency, accountability, good governance, promote democratic values that that will give zero tolerance to corruption and maladministration.
It is always said that old habits die hard but with goodwill African governments with huge natural resources at their disposal can invest the financial capital accrued from these resources to bring huge smiles to millions of Africans due to economic, social and political prosperity.
*Solly Rakgomo is an international relations student