Soraya and the Development of the DRC: Accountability

Showing posts with label Accountability. Show all posts

Monday, 25 November 2013

Soraya and the McCain Institute: who I am and why I do what I do

I have lived some of these and have decided that more than a hundred years of suffering was enough and things must change. My goal for the next ten years is to participate in the economic and human development of people living not only in Ubwari but in the entire eastern region of the Congo.I went to the only private schools of the district, and in times of war, when most of my friends had to wait for peace to return I completed highschool in the private Congolese school run by the DRC embassy in Burundi. I later completed a law degree in the best University of the South Kivu Province but quickly realised that knowledge in law would not help me change things, but merely name the culprits and extend blames. By then the country was in the middle of the civil war that brought more than 11 countries in the Congolese soil. I went in Kenya for a MA in International Relation, conflict resolution.

I came back and started making an impact for people back home and was recognised as Miss Leadership DRC for 2011. This provided the opportunity for a British Chevening Scholarship which I seized. In 2012, Isuccessfully completed a MA in Development Studies at the University of Sussex and then came back to continue my development work. I am a very optimistic and pragmatic person who believes that change starts with one person who is able to communicate his vision, meet other person sharing the same aspiration and motivate his or her surrounding to shape their destinies in the best possible way for them and the future generations.

Soraya and the McCain Institute: Ethical Leadership

Soraya and the McCain Institute: What I do

in this series I will share some of my experience with the McCain Insitute of the Arizona State University where I am currently part of the Next Generation Leaders program that seeks to connect and empower principled and ethical leaders from around the globe.

The following is an extract of my application interview conducted in Feb 2013:

McCain Institute: Tell us about your current activities towards addressing a challenge (political, economic, cultural, environmental, etc.) facing your community. What are you seeking to achieve? How can a year of professional development best help you in achieving your goals? If applicable, include a timeline for your project and identify key stakeholders or organizations that could help you implement it.

Soraya: When one looks at Lake Tanganyika between Tanzania and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), one will see la little peninsula from the eastern flank of the DRC streching toward the western flank of Tanzania and Burundi… that is Ubwari, and that is where I am from. I am a development specialist, working as the Community Relations Manager for the only mining company that dared to invest in the Kivu province. My main task is to minimize the adverse impact of the Company presence in the communities where it operates, and maximize the potential benefits that exist. On a day to day basis I advise our Vice Presidents on the policies and strategies on resettlement programs, artisanal miners repositioning in alternative livelihood, I negotiate with the community their social development plans based on their needs and aspiration and align them with the National development goals as well as our Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). I have received a national award for the work I do with local communities. The Company I work for has been tagged by UNDP as having the best CSR program of the province.

As I do my job, I come across many stakeholders, including Civil Society organisations, local and international NGO, the Government representatives, local businesses and scholars. They all have various approaches and strategies for the Congo and how to bring about development, particularly in the most affected Kivu regions. Some have laid out development plans that suits foreign donors goals, some try to develop themselves using their offices and power, some exploit the local communities by organising monopolies and racket, some are completely out of touch with the reality and can’t go beyond analysing and explaining the problems… But that is just ‘some’ of them.

Some others are actually interested in changing things for the best; create conditions for Human Development to take place. They go beyond their personal interests and actually focus on sustainable development for the local communities. They mobilise people around a vision and create the conditions to materialise it. These are the people who give me courage and the necessary hope to believe that we can indeed change things, bring an end to the suffering and create all the conditions for Human Development, namely : Food, Shelter, Security and opportunities.

One of the adverse impacts of a mining company into a community is the destruction of houses and fields. This impact is addressed and managed through a resettlement program and provision of alternative lands. This is how we act on bringing about food and shelter for Human development.

On food: The South Kivu alone has the potential to feed the entire Congo. This potential comes in form of vast and fertile land, enough manpower and appropriate climate providing enough rainfall and adequate temperature to grow local tubercles, cereals, vegetables and fruit; enough grazing land to feed cattle and small livestock. Some argue that security remains an issue for industrial productivity in the agricultural sector. While this is only partially true (the war is somehow much localised). One of the biggest challenges faced by local communities is lack of knowledge and support from the government departments.

Through our community development programs we have regrouped some farmers in agricultural cooperatives, we thought them improved farming methods, built their business management skills and helped them market their products and develop distribution channels. The farmers we work with produce up to ten times what they used to produce before and the food price in these communities has gone down, saving many poor families from malnourishment and starvation. People have converted from other professions into farming as they could see the benefits.

On Shelter: The resettlement program managed by the CR department has resettled 450 households to date, and will resettle another 250 this year. Resettling households is not just about building better houses and moving “affected persons” into them. It comes with the challenge of preserving the social fabric that holds families together and that can be destroyed when you take them away from their neighbours, their traditional authorities, and bring them in a new agglomeration where they will have to learn a new way of life, with people they didn’t know but who share their fate. This challenge includes bringing people from a rural-traditional life into a semi urban way of living: Participating in the creation and establishment of a new leadership in the village, facing together challenges of land accessibility, access roads, water, and sanitation, communal infrastructures like churches, schools, and healthcentres, planting trees as part of the environment preservation and firewood etc. Economic displacement and resettlement faces the same challenges as those displaced by disasters such as floods, famines or war, and have to build a new home away from home and may become one of the most widespread program as soon as complete peace returns in the Kivu.

We face these challenges together with the local communities and work hand in hand with the Government, traditional authorities and other organisations. Because the Company cannot bear the costs of taking care of these communities forever, we make sure that we create sustainable way for the community to become autonomous and to integrate their new life in the smoothest possible way. We also make sure that these communities thrive and become models that can be replicated by other institutions that seek to create similar development in the regions where we operate.

On security and opportunity: There is a chicken-and-egg debate about what comes first between economic development on one hand and peace and security on the other hand. I have my own answer on this, based on what I have observed along the National Road number 5 (N5) in the southern part of the South Kivu in the DRC.

The only way to access the Namoya project on the northern tip of the Maniema province was either through the 400m airstrip maintained by the explorationdivision of the mine, or the 420km road through the Lake Tanganyika shore, the rocky hills of Fiziand the equatorial forest through Kilembwe. It took 2 weeks with a 4X4 or two to three months with a truck to make the journey. This road passes 5 km from Ubwari, the little enclavedpeninsula where I come from. In August 2011, the N5 looked more like a pathway and it required a lot of faith (and fertile imagination) to plan moving a 40ft container through it. On top of it, attacks by negative forces were very common and people had traded their hospitality reputation for a ferocious protectionism managed through a cruel militia known as Mai Mai/Yakutumba. Nobody, even the UN went to visit them and discuss their needs. “Too dangerous” was the answer when we asked the Monusco to come with us on a due diligence mission.

With courage and tenacity the mine decided to inject $6M to upgrade the road from what it was then to a two way road that would carry trucks with 25T containers containing parts of the plant and the equipment needed to build the Namoyamine. In just 3 month we were able to drive the 420km in two days by 4X4 and 4 days by truck (with 12 hours stop overs). The Army was able to deploy troops and ensure a continuous supply of food, ammunition and other consumables they needed. The return of peace encouraged militiamen to convert from their security duties to agricultural activities and commerce. Today all security reports on this road mention an unexpected improvement of the security situation with almost no attack on convoys or villages neighbouring the road. People from Ubwari village now supply fresh products to communities, sometimes more than 150km from where they are harvested.I am proud to have been part of this project (On the Stakeholders engagement side). This piece of road did not only bring security to the people but gave them the opportunity to choose how they want to live their lives, in the village or traveling, in agricultural activities or commerce. It also brought the state authority closer to the people, it enabled development institutions and organisations to access the villagers that needed them the most. This piece of road brought in economic and human development.

To answer the Chiken-and-egg debate on economy or peace, I would say that from a certain level of relative security, economic opportunity must be seized to consolidate the frail peace by creating growth that involves the people and gives them the mean and choice to convert from the usual perpetrator-victim relations to more useful activities for themselves and their communities. With roads, little communities like Ubwari have the opportunity to sustain peace and foster a fast tract economic development. As Roosevelt put it in 1940: It is not our wealth that gave us our roads, it is our roads that gave us out wealth.

My experience with Banro has been very practical and has taught me so much about communities and development. However, Banro only works with affected parties, people whose lives have been disrupted because of the mine activities. Other Congolese continue to suffer extreme poverty and will not benefit from the CSR activities we carry. My goal is to move beyond Banro and implement economic and human development projects that will benefit all the Congolese of the Eastern Congo. This can be achieved through consultancy or advocacy to key stakeholders, and efficient coordination of all economic and human development initiatives in the region.

Friday, 1 November 2013

Foreign Aid is not the only African story worth hearing

With his permission, I am copying Zitto's article in the guardian

Foreign aid is not the only African story worth hearing

It may not be popular but tax evasion and illicit financial flows across the continent are vital issues that must also be addressed

Chimamanda Adichie, the award-winning Nigerian author, has spoken of the danger of a single story. She writes from a literary perspective, but her warning also applies to talk about development in Africa.
For more than five decades, the development debate has been dominated by a single story: foreign aid. But there is another story – that of illicit financial flows.
However, this story is not rosy, nor is it popular. Information about illicit flows are kept secret and efforts to address the situation are often discouraged. And little wonder – because data shows that illicit money flowing out of the continent is double what it receives in foreign aid.

According to estimates by Global Financial Integrity, a research and advocacy organisation working to curtail illicit financial flows out of developing countries, up to $1.4tn (£870bn) was transferred from Africa over the three decades to 2009. Meanwhile, illicit flows exceeded the continent's foreign debts. This makes Africa a net creditor to the world.

The curious case of Tanzania further underlines this story. In 2001-11, the east African country's economy grew an average of 7% a year yet poverty declined by only 2%. The high growth reflects the country's strengthening mining and service industries, but these have not benefited the poor.
Tax payments by multinationals have been minimal, and existing local sources of jobs, such as small-scale mining, have been suppressed for the benefit of big miners.
While Tanzania exported minerals worth $11.3bn between 2001-11, government revenues were US$440m, just below 4% of the total value of the exports. As a visiting IMF delegate remarked in 2011: "The growing mining sector has little net fiscal impact due to significant losses contributed by tax incentives abuse and structure."
Of course, there are other challenges that hamper our development, such as corruption and the dominance of the informal economy, which accounts for an estimated 53% of GDP. However, tax evasion and avoidance are key contributors to Tanzania's development setbacks.
The country loses 5% of its GDP to tax avoidance, 4% to tax exemptions given to multinationals, and almost 3% to evasion of customs duties. Several well-to-do Tanzanians evade tax by shifting their undeclared assets abroad. These assets are sometimes legally obtained, but usually they are acquired corruptly.
In 2012, the Swiss National Bank issued a report that showed Tanzanians held $196m in its institutions. Other unpublished reports indicate this figure could be even higher.

Last week, during an official fact-finding trip, a Swiss banker told me that while Tanzania had been complaining about Switzerland, much more Tanzanian-owned money was being held in London, Jersey, as well as the British Virgin Islands and the Cayman Islands. These are British offshore territories, however secrecy denies us an opportunity to discover the sum being held in these jurisdictions.
Much more money is lost from Africa through tax avoidance by multinationals investing in the continent. They use legal channels to transfer their profits to low-tax areas such as Switzerland, the City of London and the Cayman Islands.
The developed world is also losing resources, through the same mechanisms that are damaging Africa. Consequently, the US and EU have pressured tax havens to share information about the fortunes hidden on their shores, and, as a result, several of the most clandestine jurisdictions, including Switzerland, are preparing to share such information.
Yet my visit to Switzerland revealed a serious problem: the increased co-operation is between, and to the benefit of, developed countries. The rest risk being left in the dark, with no access to information about the financial resources taken from our countries.

We need to change this, and this is how we can start: the developed and developing world must agree to automatic and unconditional exchange of information about tax. Global rules to ensure multinationals report on a country-by-country basis are also vital, to insist they pay the correct amount of tax in each country.
At the same time, African governments must renounce double taxation treaties, which make them surrender tax revenues to developed countries. Instead, they should insist on a global convention on such matters.
Also important is for the UK and other countries in the Open Government Partnership to create public registries of the beneficial owners of companies, trusts and foundations. We cannot talk of open government without opening offshore jurisdictions, and we cannot insist on opening up government data without also opening up the tax havens that impoverish Africa.

Africa must not continue to be a beggar of its own illicitly removed resources, which are returned as aid but with strings attached. Aid to Africa is one story; illicit flows are another, less talked about reason for the continent's poverty.

Zitto Kabwe MP is chair of the parliamentary public accounts committee in Tanzania, as well as an economist specialising in anti-corruption and campaigner on tax justice

Wednesday, 19 June 2013

#G8, Lough Erne Declaration, a panacea for Africa?

First things first, here is the declaration as copy-pasted from Zitto Kabwe's blog. Remember, Zitto has been quoted as one of the persons leading the discussions with the hashtag #G8 especially when it comes to Taxes (10th position) and transparency (2n position) by Portland Communication

LOUGH ERNE DECLARATION #G8

Private enterprise drives growth, reduces poverty, and creates jobs and prosperity for people around the world. Governments have a special responsibility to make proper rules and promote good governance. Fair taxes, increased transparency and open trade are vital drivers of this. We will make a real difference by doing the following:
1. Tax authorities across the world should automatically share information to fight the scourge of tax evasion.
2. Countries should change rules that let companies shift their profits across borders to avoid taxes, and multinationals should report to tax authorities what tax they pay where.
3. Companies should know who really owns them and tax collectors and law enforcers should be able to obtain this information easily.
4. Developing countries should have the information and capacity to collect the taxes owed them – and other countries have a duty to help them.
5. Extractive companies should report payments to all governments – and governments should publish income from such companies.
6. Minerals should be sourced legitimately, not plundered from conflict zones.
7. Land transactions should be transparent, respecting the property rights of local communities.
8. Governments should roll back protectionism and agree new trade deals that boost jobs and growth worldwide.
9. Governments should cut wasteful bureaucracy at borders and make it easier and quicker to move goods between developing countries.
10. Governments should publish information on laws, budgets, spending, national statistics, elections and government contracts in a way that is easy to read and re-use, so that citizens can hold them to account.

Source

________________________ End of Zitto Kabwe's post _________________________________

Now let's read this reaction "a chaud" from the UK-based NGO ActionAid:

ActionAid spokesperson Soren Ambrose said: "Today the G8 has shuffled a few inches towards progress on tackling tax dodging but there is still a long way to go before poor countries will be able to access the resources that are rightfully theirs.

“The G8 has talked a good game on tax dodging, and there has certainly been a breakthrough in the leaders’ recognition of its impact on developing countries. It’s good to see that our campaign on the damage done by tax havens has at least pushed rich countries to start helping themselves with systematic collection and sharing of information.

“But actions speak louder than words. We had high hopes that this G8 Summit would deliver significant reforms to the broken tax system which would help poor just as much as rich countries. Developing countries lose billions of dollars in vital revenues to tax dodging every year. But instead of making sure that they can hold on to this badly needed revenue, the G8 has helped itself and left the rest of the world without the rapid advance it needs.

"The G8 insists their new tax information sharing deal needs to include all countries including the poorest, and this is a welcome shift from cosy tax deals for rich countries alone. But they’ve made no concrete commitments yet to ensure that this will really happen or that tax havens will sign up. We still risk a two tier tax system emerging, with developing countries left trailing.

“On ending secret company ownership we have been told that black is white – more secrecy is really more openness. Some countries will gather more information on who really owns what, yet this may still be kept secret from those that need the information most. This strays very far from what Thabo Mbeki and his African Union panel are calling for to help reverse the illicit financial flows from the continent. It is vital that such information is made publicly accessible.

“We are heartened, however, that the G8 has taken steps toward requiring companies to report on the profits they make and the taxes they pay in each country where they operate. If this is taken forward in an enforceable, public way, developing countries will realize real benefits.

"There remains a mountain to climb when it comes to ending the global scourge of tax dodging. We have inched into the foothills but have not yet begun the ascent. World leaders must now increase the pace and we look to the G20 Summit in St Petersburg in September as the next port of call in the path towards progress."

Ends

Editors' notes
Jane Moyo | Head of Media Relations | ActionAid UK

TEL: +44 (0)20 3122 0635 | MOB: +44 (0)7734 023347

__________________________________ End of ChristianAid's article_________________________

My question of course is: what impact would this have on the resource curse in the DRC? I end this post with a good read from Dr. Aikande's website: The #G8 changed agenda from "Aid" to "Tax Reforms" is what Africa needs.