The Guardian of London has delved into the controversy generated
by the comment of British prime minister, David Cameron, who described Nigeria
as a “fantastically corrupt” country.
The newspaper, in an editorial, accused Cameron, Britain and the west of “epic
hypocrisy”.
“They have spent decades ordering poor countries and failed states
to sort out their problems with dodgy money, even while taking much of that
dodgy money and ploughing it through their banks, their ritzy stores, their
estate agents, and their offshore tax havens,” it said.
Cameron had made the slip while speaking with Queen Elizabeth ahead
of the anti-corruption summit holding in London this week.
THE EDITORIAL
There are times when a manual earth-restructuring implement is
best referred to as a spade, so let us speak plainly. A summit on corruption
will be held on Thursday in a city that is internationally recognised (by the
IMF, among others) as a tax haven. It is being hosted by a politician who
admitted last month that he has personally profited from offshore finance and
whose party is bankrolled by an industry that makes extravagant use of those
same tax havens. Not only that, he has
intervened to aid tax avoiders. That’s right, David Cameron
is holding a meeting on corruption.
The prime minister is not personally corrupt – but he is certainly
guilty of epic hypocrisy. So, for that matter, are Britain and the west. They
have spent decades ordering poor countries and failed states to sort out their
problems with dodgy money, even while taking much of that dodgy money and
ploughing it through their banks, their ritzy stores, their estate agents, and
their offshore tax havens – with barely any questions asked or eyebrows raised.
WhenMr Cameron was
caught on camera on Tuesday boasting to the Queen of the “fantastically corrupt
countries” turning up at Lancaster House this week, he
might have mentioned that Afghanistan is a failed state that did not get any
less failed over 13 years of British intervention. And he should certainly have
mentioned that the president of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari, is coming to London
to lobby it to sort out the tax havens in its own backyard.
Indeed, Mr Cameron might have quoted a letter sent to
him a fortnight ago by campaigners in Nigeria.
“We are embarked on a nationwide anti-corruption campaign,” the
letter said. “But these efforts are sadly undermined if countries such as your
own are welcoming our corrupt to hide their ill-gotten gains in your luxury
homes, department stores, car dealerships, private schools and anywhere else
that will accept their cash with no questions asked. The role of London’s
property market as vessels to conceal stolen wealth has been exposed in court
documents, reports, documentaries and more.” So the president of the Nigerian
senate, Bukola Saraki, currently facing allegations that he failed to declare
his assets, owns a property in London’s Belgravia in his own name. But last
month’s Panama Papers revealed
that the £5.7m property next door is owned by companies incorporated in the
Seychelles and British Virgin Islands, whose respective shareholders are
Saraki’s wife and former special assistant. And a £1.65m townhouse in
Kensington is shown as belonging to a BVI company whose sole shareholder is
Folorunsho Coker, former head of the number plate production authority of the
state of Lagos and currently business adviser to the governor of Lagos. None of
these individuals may have done anything wrong, but the charge from those
campaigners is hard to duck. Under successive governments, from Thatcher to
Blair to Cameron, London has become the financial centre for the world’s dirty
money.
A third of all
the trillions hiding offshore are sitting in tax havens linked to the UK, according to Oxfam. These havens rely on Britain for security
and protection. The Jersey pound note features the Queen. On the Caymans, they
sing as the national anthem God Save the Queen. Yet Whitehall persists in
pretending they are autonomous – even though London has overridden them before,
on the abolition of capital punishment, say, or the decriminalising of
homosexual acts. It will not do so on shady finance, however. The result is
that Britain will soon bring in a public
register of who ultimately owns the companies listed here –
even while its overseas territories won’t. The Caymans and the rest claim that
this is because they are home to perfectly legitimate operations –
in which case, what have they got to hide?
This fudge suits both the City and the havens. The accountancy
firms and tax lawyers and wealth managers in London will
continue to reap fat fees by using their branch offices scattered across
offshore Britain to look after clients seeking low tax and secrecy – even while
the UK can claim that its domestic financial industry is as clean as can be.
Few will call this corruption or hypocrisy, as it wears a sharp suit and talks
so nicely.
In Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest, Cecily implores
Gwendolen: “This is no time for wearing the shallow mask of manners. When I see
a spade I call it a spade.” The reply comes: “I am glad to say that I have
never seen a spade. It is obvious that our social spheres have been widely
different.”
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