Western Governments & Multinationals Must Behave Ethically In Africa!

The corruption scandal involving the British construction firm, Mabey & Johnson, which recently admitted it had bribed politicians in Ghana during the 1990’s, in order to win contracts here, illustrates perfectly, the double standards of a majority of the Establishments in the nations of the West, when it comes to their dealings with Africa. 

How else can African leaders, such as some of the rulers of nations like: Equatorial Guinea; Nigeria; Gabon; Angola; Rwanda; Congo Brazzaville; DR Congo; Kenya; Eritrea; etc. etc. (many of whom are amongst the wealthiest individuals in the world, although their official salaries cannot possibly be the source of their incredible wealth), continue to keep their money and assets safely in the West – although the secret services and the governments of all the Western nations are aware of the origins of that wealth? 

Are the rulers of Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, and Congo Brazzaville owners of some of the most profitable businesses in the world, for example? Certainly not – they are simply dishonest politicians who steal money belonging to their people: and who can continue brutally gang-raping Mother Africa with such impunity, because of the hypocrisy of those Western nations, which provide safe havens for their stolen wealth.

If that were not the case, why then do the authorities in places like Switzerland, France, Lichtenstein, the UK’s Channel Islands and in North America, not act to freeze those funds that Africa’s corrupt leaders keep in financial institutions (as well as confiscate landed properties and other assets they hold) in the West – and take active steps to trace their origins: especially when they have money-laundering laws in place, and at a time when cutting off the sources of funding for international terrorist groups, has made access to bank accounts in the West that much easier, for their tax authorities and secret services? 

According to bush-telegraph sources, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown apparently invited Ghana’s new president to London, not too long ago, for the sole purpose of pleading on behalf of Vodafone – a company that once bribed Kenyan politicians in the privatization of the state-owned Kenya Telecom. 

Yet, Mr. Brown and the leader of the biggest of the parties that sit on the opposition benches in the British Parliament, the Tory leader, Mr. David Cameron (as well as other leading British politicians), never cease expressing their sense of outrage about the widespread unethical business practices in the financial services sectors of the economies of the West, which led to the financial crisis the whole world now faces. 

The question is: Why do they not rail against similar unethical corporate governance practices when they occur in Africa: as a direct result of the actions and inactions of Western multinationals operating in the continent – actions and inactions that fuel the widespread corruption that daily impoverishes millions of Africans (and even indirectly kills hundreds of thousands of them annually)?

Perhaps one of the most effective ways that Western nations can help ease the burden on ordinary Westerners, whose tax dollars get sent by their governments as aid money to nations in Africa (but which often ends up in the offshore bank accounts of corrupt African leaders), is to end direct aid to governments in Africa – and instead channel such funds to NGO’s working at the grassroots level in the continent, to improve the quality of life of poor Africans. If the nations of the West are sincere about helping to make poverty history in Africa, then they must help end corruption in Africa – because it is the major cause of poverty in the continent. 

They can start by passing legislation that makes it illegal for banks, financial institutions, as well as professional advisors in the West, to provide safe havens and professional advice that enables crooked African politicians to launder the vast fortunes, which they siphon from their national treasuries. Surely, the Western democracies ought to be creative enough, to understand that it really is possible to stop sending their tax dollars to Africa, as direct aid to the regimes of nations in the continent in which corruption is endemic? 

Surely, if they can find a legitimate way of seizing all the stolen wealth from corrupt African leaders sitting in offshore bank accounts in the West (as they do with alacrity, funds in Western banking systems belonging to front organisations, in the business of channeling money and resources covertly, to the Osama bin Ladens of this world), and set up a special fund into which such sums can be deposited and wisely invested (together with some of the huge sums in dormant accounts in Western banks – whose legitimate owners or heirs can no longer be traced after say twelve years), to support good causes in Africa? 

Could such a fund not be drawn on, for example, to create regional revolving poverty-alleviation funds – out of which micro-loans can be made available to outstanding micro-entrepreneurs and social entrepreneurs operating in poor rural communities, right across Africa?

Can the interest from such a fund also not be used to support the work of reputable local NGO’s and international NGO’s working to make a difference for ordinary Africans at the grassroots level, who are forced by circumstances beyond their control to live an existence akin to hell on earth, as a direct result of the corruption and incompetence of their leaders – instead of ordinary Westerners being taxed to the hilt by their governments for that not-so-sensible purpose, which the pouring of money down what is the financial equivalent of a black-hole, that giving aid to certain governments on the continent, actually does represent? 

Do the international NGO’s helping millions of internally displaced Africans in places like Darfur and Eastern DR Congo, such as Medicines san Frontieres, Save the Children, and Oxfam, not deserve to be supported in their humanitarian work on the continent – by making it possible for them to leverage such funds, too?

Corruption in Africa will end, when corrupt African politicians (such as those members of Rwanda’s clever and ruthless ruling elite, who are prospering mightily, from their access to DR Congo’s vast mineral wealth – made possible as a direct result of the instability their proxies have created in Eastern DR Congo: and actively fuel for that purpose), are not only unable to find hiding places in the West to stash their stolen wealth, but are also denied access, through the imposition of sanctions, to the overseas markets in which some of them even sell purloined mineral resources from African conflict zones, for their personal enrichment, and with such complete impunity, too.

Why do the governments of the West not get the UN to ask the EU and other trading blocs around the world to sign and ratify a UN convention, which will make it illegal for companies domiciled in their countries from dealing in minerals from conflict zones in Africa (such as the DR Congo), which do not pass through official export channels and customs border posts, for example? 

Clearly, one of the most effective means of helping Africa to eradicate poverty will be for the West to end its double standards – and use existing laws to prosecute Western multinationals that behave unethically in Africa and operate in a manner that break laws in their home countries: with the same vigour that they deal with fraudsters like the Conrad Blacks and Bernie Maddoxes, and errant companies like the now-defunct WorldComs and Enrons of the Western world. 

An example is the payment of bribes by such companies to corrupt African leaders in order to win contracts. Yet another example of the hypocrisy of members of Western Establishments in Africa, is their turning a blind eye to unethical practices by Western multinationals in Africa – such as the disgraceful evasion of its responsibilities to laid-off workers (whom it had exploited for years to make vast profits), at a plant it recently closed down in Ghana’s Ashanti Region, by Guinness Ghana Limited.

That respectable multinational then tried to protect its public image (and pull wool over the eyes of Ghanaians), by giving those workers (whom it had used and dumped so callously without paying any redundancy payments to), what its spokesperson, with tongue firmly in cheek, called an “appreciation package.” Incredibly, Guinness Ghana Limited, had all along apparently “outsourced” ultimate responsibility for the welfare of those poor laid-off Ghanaian workers: whose hard work ensured the vast profits that Guinness Ghana Limited made from that defunct Ahensen plant in Kumasi, Ghana’s second city, to a “private contractor” (code for colluding with a privileged member of Ghana’s greedy and politically well-connected educated elite – an over-pampered group in society famous for its selfishness and lack of fellow-feeling for the less privileged in Ghana). 

They were thus able to niftily sidestep having to pay those laid-off workers their full redundancy entitlements mandatory under Ghanaian labour laws – through that clever and shabby ruse. Are we to assume that its experienced and competent expatriate management are not aware that that is no way for a socially responsible multinational with a world-famous brand-name like Guinness to proceed in a poor developing nation it has invested in ostensibly to create jobs for local people (in addition to its profit-making objective) – and are they also unaware of the fact that foreign direct investors like their company are welcomed and given generous terms to invest in Ghana, by the government of Ghana, principally because it is hoped that they will create well-paid employment with decent and above-average working conditions for Ghanaians?

The questions is: In this instance, were they not acting in a manner clearly at variance with the spirit of the premise upon which they were welcomed to our shores, when they elected to effectively wash their hands off those whose hard work they relied on to make their stellar profits, by “outsourcing” their recruitment to a private company – specifically contracted for that unethical, cost-cutting, bottom-line-seeking, robber-baron-type capitalist philosophical end? 

Clearly, Guinness Ghana Limited went to great lengths to ensure that no nosey-parker anti-globalization activist group or NGO in the EU, North America, and elsewhere in the developed world that it operates in, got wind of this outrageous and ruthless exploitation of poor Africans workers, in order to increase its bottom line – by giving the workers they had made redundant the impression that they were being benevolent to them, in giving them the so-called “appreciation package” when what they were in fact doing, was literally robbing them in a most shabby manner: whiles at the same time enriching an influential member of Ghana’s greedy and politically well-connected elite at the expense of those workers. 

How can that be? Where is the Trades Union Congress (TUC) of Ghana that is supposed to protect the interests of Ghanaian workers in all this? Why have the deafening silence from them, in the face of this egregious example of the worst aspects of the crony-capitalism, which President Kufuor & Co. introduced to our country – so as to assure the coming to pass of their dream of a golden age of business for themselves whiles in office; and for their family clans; their cronies; and the sundry young bimbos whom they just could not keep their designer trousers up for, and on whom they showered expensive gifts such as, Hollywood-style homes, luxury four-wheel drive vehicles, and mega-zillion cedi bank accounts? 

Are we to conclude, dear reader, that the TUC has been emasculated – and have become powerless to act to protect Ghanaian workers, from being abused by foreign direct investors: because the stooges for neocolonialism in Ghana (President Kufour & Co.) passed laws, which ensure the virtual enslavement of Ghanaian workers by foreign companies operating here, such as Guinness Ghana Limited?

The new government of Ghana, under the able, honest, and fair leadership of President Mills, must step in immediately – and insist that Guinness Ghana Limited pays the laid-off Ahensen workers the full entitlements due them: as if they had employed them directly – and not hide behind the innocuous sounding “we outsourced their recruitment to a private contractor” nonsense on bamboo stilts. 

The question is: Will Guinness dare sink to such depths in the EU or the USA in order to maximize its profits – and if not, then why should it act so callously here: especially when the return on its investment in African nations like Ghana, definitely yields far higher returns than it does in the Western capitalist world?

 Ordinary Africans are sick and tired of the hypocrisy of Western leaders and multinational companies in their dealings with the continent – and demand that Western multinationals operating in Africa are held to the same ethical standards expected of them in their home countries. 

Since their embassies in Africa do not hesitate to speak to the local authorities on behalf of those multinationals, let them also talk to companies like Guinness Ghana Limited, and ask them to treat their workers in Africa the same way they treat their workers in their home countries. 

Above all, let our own leaders wake up to their responsibilities to ordinary Africans – and ensure that they do not become the victims of globalization: but can rather gain from the cornucopia of benefits it has undoubtedly brought in its wake to humankind, as it has swept across the whole of the surface of the planet Earth, like a juggernaut. A word to the wise…

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