Another Day, Another Dollar ....... Stolen

Corruption is the biggest handicap to development in the third world  ...... the scale of it is mind blowing, and I have touched on it before, but occasionally I am still reminded of how massive it can be.

 

The Face of Corruption


Equatorial Guinea President, Teodor Obiang Nguema is as bad as any dictator on the continent .... in fact he may well be the most corrupt of them all, and that's some claim considering the opposition. 

 

Equatorial Guinea's vast earnings from oil and gas should give its population of 600,000 people a theoretical income of $37,000 a year each ..... but most Equatorial Guineans live in absolute poverty, even after 15 years of plentiful oil production. Billions, and Billions of dollars have simply been appropriated by the President and his cronies.

In 2004, a US Senate investigation discovered that Mr Obiang, and members of his family, were the signatories to accounts at Riggs Bank in the US which had received millions of dollars in revenues from the central African country's oil wells. 

 

Of course he likes to keep it in the family ...... Obiang Mangue, often called 'Teodorin', is his son and potential successor to the dictator. An investigation, led by the Justice Department and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), identified a list of Teodorin's American assets. They include an estate in Malibu , which sits on sixteen acres of land and boasts a swimming pool, tennis courts, and a four-hole golf course. Teodorin paid $35 million in cash for the property three years ago. He also owns a $33.8 million Gulf Stream V private jet, millions of dollars worth of sports cars, and at least two luxury boats, and has used money laundered through shell corporations to finance his American shopping sprees, according to the documents.

'Teodorin' Shows Off What Corruption Buys An Ugly Man.


A Justice Department memorandum from September of 2007 noted that Teodorin's salary as Minister of the Agriculture and Forestry paid only $5,000 per month. “It is suspected that a large portion of Teodoro Nguema OBIANG's assets have originated from extortion, theft of public funds, or other corrupt conduct,” said the document, which also detailed how between 2005 and 2007 Teodorin had funnelled into the United States at least $75 million — nearly twice the amount allocated by Equatorial Guinea for its yearly national education budget.

Oddly his jaunts across the US (and France) are unaffected by the 2004, George W. Bush Presidential Proclamation 7750, which barred corrupt foreign officials from entering the United States and ordered the State Department to compile a list of banned individuals. Three years later Congress approved a complementary measure that said the State Department should take special heed to bar officials when there was “credible evidence” to believe they were involved the theft of natural resources revenues.

Its not as though he is sneaking about .... and he has been investigated. The London-based Global Witness organisation has shown that an extensive federal investigation of Obiang Mangue was underway a few years ago. Global Witness's report on the U.S. investigation into Obiang Mangue is available here .

France has occasionally shown some interest in prosecuting the numerous dictators who own chalets etc inside its borders, but the process has been at best stuttering, and at worst, suggestive that corruption isn't just an issue in Africa ..... If we aid the corrupt in moving billions of stolen dollars out of Russia, Africa and Asia, then we are as guilty as they are, and have no room to wag fingers at them for allowing it to flourish.

Update 26/10/2011: The US and France are taking action against Mr Obiang, and members of his family ... read more here with 'Teodorin' Obiang Mangue having £150m seized in France alone.