Nigeria and other resource-rich countries must commit to end the era
of secret corporate ownership of assets in the extractive industry to
curb the huge losses associated with such illegal activities.
Vice President Yemi Osinbajo said at the opening session of the
two-day conference on ‘Beneficial Ownership’ conference in Jakarta,
Indonesia, on Monday, that the sad story of Africa’s underdevelopment
and other developing economies was masked or hidden under the wall of
secret corporate ownership of assets in the extractive industry.
Mr. Osinbajo made reference to the 2015 High Level Panel report on
Illicit Financial Flows from Africa chaired by former South African
President, Thabo Mbeki, which revealed that Africa lost over $1 trillion
over a 50-year period and more than $50 billion annually to illicit
financial flows.
Also, One Campaign, in another report titled “One Trillion Dollar
Scandal” said in 2014 developing countries lost about $1 trillion
annually to corporate transgressions, most of it traceable to the
activities of companies with secret ownership.
“So for us in the developing world, and especially in Africa,
breaking the wall of secret corporate ownership is an existential
matter. It is for us literarily a matter of life and death,” the Vice
President declared.
“Anonymous corporate ownership could serve as vehicles for masking
conflicts of interest, corruption, tax evasion, money laundering, and
even terrorism financing,” he added.
Highlighting the global risks and dangers posed by anonymous
corporate ownership of assets, the vice President said the Panama Papers
investigation, illustrated the monumental scale and threat of the
menace.
Citing Nigeria’s experience with the Malabu Oil scandal, Mr. Osinbajo
said the country was still grappling with the negative consequences of
the use of secrecy by senior government officials and their cronies
between 1993 and 1998 to award themselves juicy contracts in the
extractive industry.
In Malabu oil scandal, then Minister of Petroleum Resources under the
Sani Abacha administration, Dan Etete, used his official position to
secretly allocate a lucrative oil prospecting license, OPL 245, to a
company he had interest.