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Kenya. The Mukuru Promotion Centre: where ‘Life Lives’.

The suburb of Mukuru is home to about 600,000 people. This area, which is experiencing severe urban decay, grows around the financial centre of Nairobi, the Kenyan capital. Right there in the suburb, the Sisters of Mercy have set up the Mukuru Promotion Center (MPC).

Dicson’s house was flooded again a few days ago. The young Kenyan has lost count of how many times water has come in through the rusty brass entrance door of his house damaging everything that was inside.  But Dicson is prepared by now. Each morning, before leaving home to go in search for work, he puts all his belongings on his bed in order to protect them from water. Dicson lives in Mukuru, a slum that houses 600,000 people, who live in substandard shacks mainly made of mud, brass
and corrugated iron.

The Mukuru slum was built on the banks of the Ngong River. The need to find a land where to construct their flimsy buildings led people to steal the land that belonged to the river. The Ngong river narrows as the slum grows, although sometimes, when it rains heavily, the river claims what has been taken away and causes landslides that move the shacks close to the shore. As a matter of fact, it rains daily and heavily. “In October rains are supposed to stop, but they have not this year, and so this week several schools were closed because they were flooded”, laments Sister Mary Killeen, a religious of the Sisters of Mercy.
“The Ngong river is increasingly dirty and contaminated”, says the Irish nun and she puts the blame on the non-existent political will to stop the pollution of rivers and air. The victims of the contamination affecting the slum arrive every day at the clinic of Mary Immaculate, which was also established by the  Sisters of Mercy in order to meet the health needs of the most vulnerable population. “Every month we take care of more than 1,200 people, most of whom are affected by respiratory, gastrointestinal and digestive diseases”. Diseases caused by environmental factors such as poor sanitation, lack of access to drinking water, no waste collection and the burning of kerosene and coal for cooking.

Mukuru is a place where poverty is perceived with all five senses: people can see it, hear it, smell it, touch it and taste it. The people who arrive here are those who try to escape from an uncertain future by moving to Nairobi in search of the promised land. Many of them flee from tribal conflicts and clashes over land, livestock or political power. Others flee from hunger due to scarcity of food as a consequence of drought. “In Kenya, the desert is advancing rapidly, and some green land has turned into desert over recent years, so, many people abandon their land in search of a better life in Nairobi, but the problem is that they are not skilled enough to find a job that can guarantee them a decent standard of life, and so they end up living in a slum”, Sister Mary explains.

Those forgotten by the establishment
“Mukuru is the place of those who have been forgotten by the establishment and society. Despite all this, however, we have been able to verify that life is present in every street and in every corner of the slum. Despite all difficulties you can see people laughing, dancing, chatting, cooking the little food they have, making all kind of garments by using sewing machines. The Mukuro slum proves to us that people, even in the most adverse conditions, want to live and not just survive.

Music has been the salvation for several young people of the slum. Music is the universal language with which human beings communicate their deepest feelings, fears, joys, hopes, denunciations, love and heartbreaks. Emmanuel, who proudly bears the nickname of ‘the Preacher’, and Boaz, a DJ, have been saved by music, which kept them far from alcohol, drugs and the dangers of mafias”, says Sister Mary. She and the Sisters of the mission have always supported the two young men’s interest in music, and now Emmanuel and Boaz in turn, use music to help other young people to stay away from the dangers of a life in the streets.Sister Mary Killeen has been living in Kenya for over 40 years. She and the other nuns of the Sisters of Mercy have been accompanying the poorest and the forgotten of Mukuro for decades.
The Sister’s main objective is to save, through education, children from drugs, violence and prostitution.

While entering the narrow alleys of the slum, the religious tells us that, since 1985, the slum has grown rapidly and so the number of out-of-school children . “That is why we had to intervene quickly, because children who do not go to school end up in the street getting involved with drugs or becoming victims of child prostitution”, Sister Mary Killen explains. “We had neither land nor money to build schools. But thanks to the parish priest and the help of other people, we were able to establish six temporary schools”, the Irish religious recalls. This happened in the early 90s, those schools are still functioning today in the different areas of the slum and are attended by more than 10,000 students every day. Over the years many other projects have been implemented by these nuns, such as a secondary school, education activities for adults, reintegration and support programs for street children, a care centre for children with different disabilities, a vocational training centre, a clinic and three mobile units. The Mukuru Promotion Center has become a centre of attention and development.

Marta Carreño

 

Music. Omar & Gustavo.

Omar Sosa and Gustavo Ovalles. Two great musicians, two different stories often merging in a most striking artistic association.

Omar Sosa, a Cuban of class 1965, is a pianist of the school of jazz. He began with the marimbas – a typical Caribbean instrument – while still a small boy, and then moved on to the piano at the Havana Conservatory. Among his influences, Omar cites traditional Afro-Cuban music, European classical composers (including Chopin, Bartok, and Satie), and the pioneering Cuban jazz group Irakere.

In the eighties, he began to tour the world, starting with Ecuador where Omar immersed himself in the folkloric traditions of Esmeraldas, the northwest coast region whose African heritage includes the distinctive marimba tradition. Then in California where he became well known in the venues of San Francisco, and lastly in Barcelona where he arrived at the end of the decade. His was a rising career to the extent that today, Omar may boast of six Grammy Awards and a discography of nearly 30 albums, not counting his numerous collaborations with other artists. Eclectically creative, he has always enjoyed a range of music that went from jazz to classical, from African world music to that of Latin America.

Gustavo Ovalles, on the other hand, is a drummer originally from Caracas in Venezuela and is a true funambulist of rhythm. He moved to France in 1997 where he collaborated with countless bands with which he, too, combined cultured and popular music. Even though, for some time now, he has been a guest of the main international jazz festivals, he is less known worldwide than Omar. This is not at all important since no meeting of the two musicians has ever been the result of a strategic or commercial plan, but rather of the desire to amalgamate these two disruptive personalities – and spiritualties – a result of their extraordinarily similar musical tastes.

This was already clear even before they produced their first disk together, Ayaguna. It was issued in 2003 and draws inspiration from the religious practices of the Yoruba culture, transplanted to Latin America by slaves sent to the New World. “That record – they recently said – is dedicated to the God of Santeria. We, like him, profess peace and universal brotherhood and we show this by the white costumes we wear onstage”. Reinforced by formidable stage props, their concerts are penetrated by this great spiritual atmosphere – a lay spirituality with undoubtedly popular roots, – where there is room for archaic instruments and electronic contraptions.
Theirs is ‘global music’, not subject to the usual genre labelling. It mixes together different streams and indications. But neither of the two has ever denied or lost sight of their primary source of inspiration: “Africa and the diaspora of the Africans in the Americas represent an incomparable source of inspiration.

We have tried to reproduce the melodic profile of the Continent and its great rhythmic power. It is rhythm that places a person in contact with the supreme Spirit and every land has its own way of calling upon the Spirit to unify the people”. Without doubt, all of this finds its perfect incarnation in their fascinating shows: “Philosophically, by means of Jazz which is perhaps the musical genre most representative of the diaspora, we have sought to put together the Caribbean, Latin America, and Africa in a single expression of liberty”.

Franz Coriasco

 

Demographic Grow and Commercial Crops.

The strong demographic growth is a main driver of the decimation of the African wildlife. The African population is projected to grow from 935 million to 2,1 billion people between 2013 and 2050.

This growth is expected to generate a habitat loss for the wildlife. The growth of arable land in Sub-Saharan Africa is projected to increase by 26 % during the 2000-2030 period, partly at the expanse of protected areas since much of them are suitable for agriculture or livestock.
Commercial crops are largely responsible for the pressure, especially oil palm, the most rapidly expanding crop in Central Africa. According to the Rainforest Foundation, 1.6 million ha of new oil palm projects are planned in the Congo Basin. Yet, environmentalists claim that these plantations have a devastating effect on biodiversity because they cause fragmentation of forests which disrupt ecological processes.

Slash and burn subsistence agriculture is becoming a serious problem since fallow periods are shortened as the human population grows and more land is required for production. The demand for meat is exacerbating the conflict for pastures between wild animals and livestock in Southern Africa. The control of foot-and-mouth disease led to the erection of fences across vast areas to control movements of game and cattle, which reduced the sustainable densities of wildlife.
In Central Africa, climate change has pushed the cattle herds southwards for access to water and pastures competing with wildlife. According to Baudouin Michel, the migration of cattle herds from Chad and Sudan has caused problems for the conservation in the Shinko National Park in the Central African Republic.Industrial logging is another threat in Central Africa. It is generally selective for high-value species with average extraction rates of four trees per hectare. But it provokes secondary damage since the roads needed for the extraction of trees open the way to poachers and charcoal traders.

The demand of woods fuels, pulled by the population growth exerts an even larger pressure on the habitat. Fuelwood and charcoal represent 90 % of all wood removal from the African forests. The need for it arises from the low electrification rate. The effect is damaging in Somalia which exports illegally huge charcoal quantities.
According to a UN report released in 2014, this trade constitutes an annual revenue of US $ 50 million for the Al Shabaab militias while attempts to regulate this activity are ineffective, partly because of  the complicity of Kenyan occupying forces. (F.M.)

Father Jacques Mourad held hostage by jihadists.

He was rector of the Mar Elian shrine and parish priest of the Syrian Catholic community of Qaryatayn in central Syria when, on 21 May, 2015, he was kidnapped by ISIS militants.
Father Jacques Mourad tells us his story and also gives us a picture of the reality of life today in Syria.

The sanctuary of Mar Elian in the desert of Syria, where the tomb of Saint Julian of Edessa was located, was a point of reference for the citizens of Qaryatayn, a sacred place both for Christians of all denominations and for Muslims. Each year we used to organise inter-confessional and interreligious meetings with teachers, priests and imams. Many young people, Christians and Muslims, attended those meetings enthusiastically  until the outbreak of the war.
The Syrian war is seen, especially in the West, as a religious war that divides the Syrian people. But this representation does not reflect reality. I am a Syro-Catholic Christian and I can affirm that Syrian people do not want divisions. Our monastery has always been open to Muslims. Until one day a group of eight or ten armed jihadists entered my room. They beat me, blindfolded and tied my hands and arms. I was taken along with other hostages to the middle of the desert.

When we arrived in northern Syria, the jihadists locked us in a six by three metre bathroom. Though during the time I was their prisoner my captors treated me very harshly and aggressively, I felt that God was giving me a very special opportunity: the experience of silent prayer.
One day the leader of the group of jihadists entered the place I was held hostage; I thought he had come to behead me, but to my surprise, he kindly addressed me with the Islamic greeting of peace. He started asking me questions about theology. Jihadists always ask questions about theology to demonstrate the blasphemy of Christians. I tried to answer sincerely. He listened to me without saying anything.

At the end of the meeting, I asked what harm we had done for being held prisoners. He looked deeply into my eyes and calmly invited me to interpret that time of confinement as a spiritual retreat. I later learned that the man was the leader of the Raqqa jihadists. After about three months, I was taken to the city of Palmira where about 250 of my parishioners, Christians of Qaryatayn were held hostages: old men, women, children, sick and disabled people who had not managed to escape from the city upon the arrival of the jihadists.Seeing all these people in front of me was beautiful and difficult at the same time.  I was aware that I had to instil hope and the feeling of forgiveness in their hearts.Twenty-five days later an ISIS leader arrived to say that our group had been allowed to return home, with the obligation to follow the laws of the Islamic state. This ISIS man read a long document that listed all the things we were and were not supposed to do. I asked the man the reason why they had decided to let us leave. He replied: “Because you Christians have given up using weapons against us Muslims”. The secret service of the Syrian government had also invited my parishioners to take up arms. I did not agree with Christians taking up arms. I always remember the teaching of Jesus Christ who banned the use of weapons and died crucified for our salvation. Evidently some men of ISIS had noticed that our choice had been different from others.

When the bombings (of the Syrian army) began on the city, I thought once again that we all would die. We were locked in basements for four days. On the fourth day of the bombing, I felt, not without doubts and inner struggle, that we should try to escape: I decided that I too would try to escape. So I asked a Muslim friend, whom I knew I could trust, to give me a ride on his motorcycle. I didn’t care about risks and dangers, ISIS and bombings frightened me much more.
We passed the ISIS check point inexplicably and I came back to being free. Other Muslim friends similarly managed to save 58 other Christian prisoners on the same day. Some of these Muslim friends then paid for their courageous gestures with their lives. Now I am heartbroken: those people died so that we could live.
Just after returning to freedom and life, I felt truly alone. I felt a strong desire to go away, far away, to Europe, and so I left. A few months ago I returned to my country in Iraq, in the Kurdish part, together with my Syro-Catholic Christian brothers who had run away leaving everything they had. Our desire is to return as soon as possible to Syria.
Everyone, today, is prisoner of their ideas and opinions in Syria: the regime, the opposition, ISIS. Each party has some reasons that justify its position. We cannot therefore win the war through reasons but we can stop the war only by opening our hearts. After my experience as a hostage I feel particularly close to the prisoners held hostage by jihadists, but I also feel close to those who are held hostage by the regime, and who are very often forgotten.

I have often had the chance to talk with Christians who hate Muslims who somehow caused them pain. But as Christians we have to stick to the teachings of Jesus and of the Gospel. If we want to make peace, we need to abandon fear and hatred.
It is incredible how much Pope Francis has done to instill hope in my country and throughout the Middle East. The document on human brotherhood signed by Pope Francis is an extraordinary example for me, because it is not a lesson of theology, but it indicates how to live following good principles. The suggestions given in the document are applicable to all people and to all times. It is a document that must be put into effect in our life. We the Christians must fully follow the indications written in this document.

I often ask myself: ‘Who are these people from ISIS?’ Obviously, everyone knows that ISIS is made up of terrorists and criminals. It’s true. But behind or inside them, what is there? What kind of people are they really?  I think that trusting others, even if they are bad and dangerous, even if they are terrorists, is essential to building a bridge of peace. The Lord gave me the opportunity to know what it’s like being a hostage. This experience cannot have been just an accident. I just want to tell my story, narrate what I experienced and what I felt, without hating and without judging. I think this can be useful for opening hearts.

Chiara Lubich. A Spiritual Leader.

This year marks the centenary of the birth of Focolare Movement founder Chiara Lubich. She is considered to be one of the most influential spiritual figures of the twentieth century. The Movement has moved beyond its origins in the Roman Catholic Church and now involves Christians of many Churches around the world.

Silvia Lubich chose the name Chiara when as a 23-year-old she entered the Third Franciscan Order. She took the name because she was attracted by the commitment of Chiara of Assisi, one of the first followers of St Francis of Assisi in the early years of the 13th century. The Italian word ‘Chiara’ means ‘clear’, ‘bright’, or ‘light’. Chiara Lubich became a beacon of light for the Church in the 20th century – a beacon that has burned especially bright for women.
She carved a role for herself as an activist and as founder and leader of the Focolare Movement. She laid the foundations for other women to share in shaping small communities who seek to contribute to peace and to achieve the evangelical unity of all people in every social environment. Her goal, the objective of the Focolare Movement, was and is to create a world living in unity.

Silvia Lubich was born in northern Italy, Trento, in 1920. This infant was catapulted into the chaos of Italy in the immediate years after the First World War. It was a country disappointed by the carve-up of countries that occurred in 1919. There was already a fascist party on the rise, and life was punctuated in the 1920s by violence between the socialists (of whom Lubich’s father was a member) and the fascists led by Benito Mussolini. Mussolini was Prime Minister of Italy from 1922, when Lubich was a toddler, but by 1925 he had established a dictatorship, which he would rule until 1943, leading Italy into the Second World War on the side of Nazi Germany.
By 1938, Lubich was an elementary school teacher, but she wished to further her studies and began to read philosophy at the University of Venice. This was cut short when the war began, but by 1939, the young woman had already identified a calling to the Church after a visit to the Marian Shrine in Loreto on the Adriatic coast of Italy.

Her vision for the Church was a very female one. The Italian word focolare means ‘hearth’ or ‘fireside’, in other words, the very heart of the family. Whether we live in northern climes (and Trento sees some harsh winters) or in a hot country, families and communities gather around the fire to share, to discuss, and to be together in harmony. During that visit to Loreto, Lubich saw the future of the Church as a community of people, both consecrated and lay members, married and single, all totally committed in their different ways to God.
By 1943, she had dedicated her life to the Third Franciscan Order and 7  December, the day she took her vows and the name of Chiara, was later designated as the start of the Focolare Movement. However, it wasn’t until disaster struck Trento the following year that the Movement really came into being. Five months after taking her vows, Lubich’s family home was bombed. Her family fled to safety from the ruins of Trento; Chiara stayed in the city. She moved into a tiny apartment in Piazza Cappuccini, which she shared with four of her first companions, Natalia, Giosi, Graziella, and Aletta. They were the first ‘fireside community’, the first Focolare group.
By 1947, the Archbishop of Trento recognised the movement officially, calling it a movement created by ‘the hand of God’. Some fifteen years later, it would be accepted as an International Association of the Faithful and given the rather more prosaic name of  ‘Work of Mary’.

A  beacon of light

During those war years, Chiara Lubich took her beacon of light into the heart of communities sheltering from air raids. She took her Bible, sharing with these frightened people whose world was being destroyed around them, the idea that God’s love was the remedy for the horrors they faced. She attracted a group of helpers who went with her to the heart of the poorest neighbourhoods, taking practical and spiritual aid to those injured and made destitute by the war. Bombs may have shattered their physical firesides, but Chiara helped them build spiritual ‘focolare’ wherever they were able to seek refuge.

Post war, Chiara Lubich became a force to be reckoned with in government and Church circles. On a visit to the Italian parliament, she met the man she identified as co-founder of the Focolare Movement. Igino Giordani had four children, was a writer, a journalist, a deputy in the parliament in Rome and, most important for Chiara Lubich,
a pioneer in ecumenism.
Giordani was in the vanguard of an ecumenical movement in the 1940s. In 1948, the year he met Lubich, the World Council of Churches was established – but a document that had been issued by Pope Pius XI in 1929 warned against such a coming together. In 1949, however, Pope Pius XII gave provisional permission for Catholic participation in some ecumenical gatherings under careful supervision. It was not until the 1960s and the deliberations of the Vatican II Council that ecumenism and indeed, interfaith dialogue, would be actively encouraged by the Catholic Church, in part influenced by Chiara Lubich.

The art of loving
By then, the Focolare Movement was bringing together people of all faiths and no faith. Lubich, Giordani and their followers were encouraging what today the Focolare Movement describes as ‘the art of loving’, calling it ‘… the first step which leads to a peaceful revolution that can change the hearts of individuals and of the whole world’.
Chiara Lubich intended to create a ‘new people born of the Gospel’, and today, Focolare resembles a big, many faceted family. It has reached out to 182 nations, and more than two million people share in its life and work, spreading the message of unity around the world. To achieve its aims of a more united world that respects and values diversity, it engages in dialogue and is committed to building bridges between individuals and peoples of different cultures and faiths.

There are lay members of all faiths and of no faith, as well as those who have taken religious vows and are known as ‘focolari’. Chiara Lubich called the spread of this message of unity her ‘divine adventure’. It led her to friendships with popes, heads of Churches, political leaders and the movers and shakers in civil society. A quiet but charismatic woman, she wrote, broadcast, and talked face-to-face with all she met in order to grow the idea that we can live in peace together around the spiritual hearth. She called it ‘one family united in truth’.
In the early days, factions of the Church had regarded Focolare as so extreme as to merit closure and Chiara Lubich was urged to put her energies into a more conventional religious order. But in the 1960s, Focolare’s gentle embers fuelled inter-Church and inter-faith relationships throughout the developing world. The Lubich light burned steadily and by 1963, the ecumenical aspect of her work was really catching fire; she went to England and spoke that year at Liverpool’s Anglican Cathedral, igniting the first British Focolare groups. Three decades later, she was the first white woman of Christian faith to speak at the Malcolm X mosque in New York, addressing 3 000 people.

At the heart of Focolare until her death in 2008, was this tiny lady who would pass for anyone’s kindly auntie. Unassuming, she was a powerhouse of activism, waiting for no earthly seal of approval for her work. In a 1988 conference call, she spoke of the Movement’s 200 works or activities that had developed around the world, “…to meet the various needs of our brothers and sisters. There are charitable works for the sick, for older people, the unemployed and those differently able. There are projects for people who are lonely and for overseas students; activities for children in need, for the homeless, prisoners, drug addicts and alcoholics. There are courses for human development and catechesis, projects in the field of economics, work and education. There are initiatives on behalf of developing countries or following natural disasters.” She urged her audience, “…to give some thought to one of these works or activities. I would like you to take it to heart in a special way, interesting yourself in it, helping it develop and grow in whatever way you can, and feeling co-responsible for it.”

That seems to sum up all that Chiara Lubich and Focolare were and are about. It is no surprise that, despite those early negative reactions to her work, when she died in 2008, more than 40 000 people attended her funeral in the Basilica of St Paul Outside the Walls in Rome. It was presided over by the Italian Secretary of State and concelebrated by nine cardinals, 40 bishops and hundreds of priests.
The cause of her beatification and canonization, started in 2015, is currently in the diocesan phase. Considered to be one of the most influential spiritual figures of the 20th century, she continues to influence us in the 21st century.

Marian Pallister

Africa. Illicit Financial Flows in the Mining Sector.

The European Commission recognises that mining and extractive companies in Africa are responsible for 65% of tax fraud, i.e. the money that states in Africa fail to collect due to the Illicit Financial Flows (IFF).

The mechanisms that the multinationals use for tax fraud are complex, such as tax avoidance, tax evasion and transfer pricing. In the case of extractive companies, these tax fraud practices are realized through multiple stages in which the companies carry out their activities. Each of these stages entails a number of specific activities that involve a risk of tax fraud and require appropriate national legislation, as well as coordinated international legislation to prevent the illicit
diversion of money.

According to a study presented by the United Nations in 2019, the amount defrauded by mining companies operating in Africa exceeds the global foreign direct investment received by the continent. For example, the United Nations estimates that undeclared gold exports just from South Africa were 78 billion between 2000 and 2014, representing 67% of total gold exports.
These companies operate with outrageous impunity in the tax sphere and carry out illegal practices that find refuge in the governments of developed countries, in tax havens or in the lack of binding international legislation as it is the case in the European Union.

The fight against the IFF must be strategic and take into account all the stages in which extractive companies carry out their work, as there are multiple factors involved that can facilitate money laundering, corruption or tax evasion. Following the outline set out in the paper “the complexities of tackling illicit financial flows” of The European Centre for Development Policy Management we will briefly outline these stages and how companies should reinforce their responsibility to avoid behaviour that even if some of them are legal, deprives developing countries of their own natural wealth and resources through IFFs.

Exploration. During exploration and prospecting stage, companies must be transparent about the expenses incurred in such investment, as well as avoid any situation of bribery to obtain the necessary permits. This stage must be coordinated with the local and national authorities in order to declare a correct estimation of the quantities of minerals are found, as well as their quality. The quantities extracted for valuation must be declared to tax financial services and the companies must pay the fees required to carry out these explorations.

Contracts and licenses. Negotiations to obtain the licenses and contracts needed to operate in a country must be carried out exclusively by the administrative bodies depending on the corresponding ministry and never carried out by the authorities to prevent briberies. Negotiations processes should be transparent, with clear requirements for obtaining licenses. Tax rates, incentives and fiscal exemptions should be established in such contracts. In addition, these contracts should be audited by independent companies that verify that the content of the contracts are in accordance with the mining code, the country’s tax legislation and the international regulations.
Under no circumstances should payments be made arbitrarily or without the knowledge of tax authorities.

Production and Processing. These stages include those activities of the company in which the minerals are extracted from the subsoil, classified, prepared for distribution and export. In these stages, decisive steps are taken to determine the production costs, such as machinery and labour costs. These stages are also important at the accounting level since the produced quantities will determine the amounts to be paid on the basis of production. Moreover, the risk of smuggling is present at these stages where companies can camouflage the production of small-scale and artisanal miners which would make it easier to reduce production costs and pay less tax as their productions are outside the official
production channels.

Assaying, Selling and Exports. During the assaying process, companies declare the quality of the minerals. It is easy for companies to reduce both the quantities and the qualities of the minerals to reduce both direct taxes (on quantities) and indirect taxes (TVA). The quantities and qualities of the minerals determine the price and therefore the potential profits of the companies. The higher the quantity and quality of the minerals, the more production, the higher the profit and therefore the higher the taxes. It is unethical to reduce these quantities as well as the qualities and thus pay less taxes. Sometimes companies even declare losses to avoid paying tax and use other companies in the same group located in tax havens to set fictitious prices (transfer pricing).

To combat IFFs at this stage, international coordination is required to verify that the quantities exported are the same as those received by the recipient countries. Similarly, it should be possible to verify that losses in the countries of origin are not converted into profits in the host countries or into tax havens. Traceability of minerals and transparency are essential in the fight against IFF.

Closure. The activity of the extractive companies cannot end with the export of the minerals, the payment of taxes and the abandonment of the mine. Mining codes must require proper closure and environmental restoration of the mine site in compliance with international standards that allow local people to have alternative employment opportunities.
It is therefore contrary to the established international standard to close mines without proper restoration of the sites in a bid to avoid fiscal responsibilities.

Transparency is key in the control of IFFs. The monitoring and traceability of the minerals, the purchase and sale invoices of the mineral ore, as well as the company’s tax declarations in all the countries where they operate are necessary to control tax fraud. The coordination and enforcement of binding international legislation is necessary to end the impunity of extractive companies that use tax engineering and business strategy to evade their tax obligations and maximize their profits.

The European Union must make progress on the Transparency Directive and demand the publication of accounts, payments and economic movements made in all countries where companies have operated and paid taxes to advance the extraterritoriality of multinationals and strengthen the United Nations Business and Human Rights initiative.

Companies and mining lobbies put pressure on governments not to make legislative changes with threats of possible lawsuits through bilateral investment treaties, Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) clauses as well as the threat of withdrawing their direct investments from those countries, closing down mining operations with the consequent loss of jobs, decrease in revenues and loss of direct investment in the country. A succession of threats that are never carried out or the worst of predictions are never fulfilled because the reality continues to show that the profits of these companies are still much higher than the taxes they pay to the legitimate owners of these natural resources.

José Luis Gutiérrez Aranda,
Trade Policy Officer,
Africa Europe Faith and Justice Network (AEFJN)

 

 

Arms Trafficking. The Sahel Connection.

The arms trade criss-crosses the Sahel region. To the north highly organised networks of traffickers operate. On the opposite bank the local intermediaries come into play.

The Niger River is over four thousand kilometres long. It is an impressive current of fresh water which, from the Loma Mountains, on the border between Sierra Leone and Guinea, to the Gulf of Guinea, carries with it ancient territorial disputes, tribal tensions, Jihadist movements and illegal trafficking. Among these, one of the most lucrative is the trafficking of light arms which literally exploded in Sahel and in West Africa at the outbreak of the Arab Spring in 2011.

Assaults on the arsenals of Colonel Gaddafi in Libya have moved considerable amounts of arms towards the south, especially those of medium and small calibre.
The dossier entitled The West Africa-Sahel Connection, compiled recently by the Small Arms Survey observers based in Geneva, has mapped the flow of arms, indicating the most frequently used routes, giving details of confiscations, the institutional and military sources and, especially, showing the deep sources which, ‘from within’, have provided information useful for reconstructing the method used by the smugglers.

The rules of contraband
In Sahel and all of West Africa, the ‘nature’ of arms trafficking changes as it moves south of the River Niger. Towards the north, highly organised networks of traffickers are operating who are capable of moving large quantities of arms. Along the opposite bank the local intermediaries who see to the sorting of the loads come into play.
The movements are facilitated by a series of problems endemic to these lands: porous borders, corruption established within the security forces, smouldering crises that constantly burst into flame and spread, increasing the requests for arms. Apart from these elements, the lack of controls causes the addition of other legal and illegal commerce, while the arms ‘disappear’ in the traditional black market through the same channels used for drugs, human beings, rare species, ivory and gold.

“When the loads are small, the customers finance the transport and provide the drug merchants with the cash necessary to pay the bribes at road blocks and gain access to the frontier”, Matthias Nowak, an investigator of the commentator Small Arms Survey explains to SouthWorld. “Motor cycles are used to transport the goods as they can travel more easily through the forests and cross where the border is unsupervised. There are also more complicated networks connected to trans-national crime, among tribal groups such as the Tebu between the south of Libya and the north of Niger, or separatist formations as is the case in Mali. These people are capable of providing huge quantities of arms anywhere from the desert to the Atlantic Ocean”.

Niger and Mali the main Centres
For larger quantities of contraband, the main centre is Niger. Converted blank-firing pistols made in Turkey, smooth-barrelled and AK assault rifles enter the country from the south west of Libya through Salvador Pass, located to the north-west of Madama, in the region of Agadez. Even though, in recent years, the increased concentration of French and US forces in the area has forced the smugglers to opt for alternative routes that cross the south of Algeria, once the loads are in Niger, they proceed towards Mali, or farther south towards Burkina Faso and Nigeria. The more frequented routes are shared between the Tebu, in the region of Kawar, and the Tuareg in the region of Tahoua.

Once the arms arrive in Mali, they circulate especially between the cities of Mopti, Gao, Kidal and Timbuktu, where the trading still goes on apace despite the massive presence of the French military in the area of the operations Serval and Barkhane, and of the United Nations MINUSMA (Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali). One of the emerging routes passes through the south-east border of Mauritania; it originates both in the Senegalese city of Bakel and in Eastern Sahara, stopping in Mali where it passes through the city of Foïta. Other Malian hubs are Koygma, Ber, Lerneb, Raz El Ma and Gossi in the regions of Timbuktu and Taoudeni; in Khalil, I-n-Afarak, Talhandak, Tin-Essako and Anefif in the regions of Ménaka and Gao. At this point, it is the groups affiliated to the Coordination of Azawad Movements and to the Platform of armed groups: both subjects involved in the complicated process of pacifying the country, but which have no intention of laying down their arms.

The incursions of Boko Haram
Contexts such as these are fertile ground for the sorties of Jihadist groups operating under the umbrella of al-Qaida or of the province of Islamic State in east Africa. In recent years, its main beneficiary has been Boko Haram. The Nigerian group has exploited the attacks aimed at the military bases of the Abuja army and the Multinational Joint Task Force (MNJTF, made up by Nigeria, Niger, Cameroon and Chad, as well as Benin) for supplies of Chinese-manufactured arms (automatic rifles 56 and 56-1 and machine guns 80), Russian AKs, Bulgarian and Chinese RPG launchers, anti-aircraft defences mountable on pickups, and various types of ammunition.

How can the phenomenon be halted?
To counter the phenomenon, various UN departments – Interpol, WCO (World Customs Organisation) – and NGOs involved in de-mining and disarmament have mobilised internationally, while at continental level there have been interventions by the African Union and ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African States). However, attempts to keep track of arms in circulation and prevent the sacking of military structures have been fruitless.

They will continue to be so as long as the military, themselves, keep opening the doors of their arsenals in exchange for bribes. This has happened in the past in countries like Guinea-Bissau where it was the heads of the local armed forces who supplied the separatist rebellions in the region of Casamance in the south of Senegal. It is happening today in Mali, Nigeria and wherever the ‘engagement conditions’ proposed by the smugglers are more advantageous than the meagre salaries paid irregularly by governments. “Formation is fundamental”, Matthias Nowak affirms. “But so is a larger presence of the institutions that should guarantee better services to the communities they govern”.

On the other hand, it is only by making the systems of governance more efficient and transparent and by bettering the standard of living of the population, that any new hotbeds of crisis may be nipped in the bud, and the demand for arms be reduced. This would bring a halt to this and other illegal trafficking between the Sahel and the coast of West Africa that has had a free hand up to now.

Rocco Bellantone

 

 

South Africa. 2020: The year of Reckoning.

The year 2020 is going to tell us a lot about the long-term future of our country. Are we going to pull ourselves out of the mud of corruption, incompetence and ignorance, and start to glimpse the ‘better life for all’ that we have been promised since 1994, or will we instead continue dithering around, putting personal and party interests before public needs, and simply dig ourselves deeper
into the hole?

The main indicator will be how the governing party deals with Electricity Supply Commission (Eskom) and the other ailing state-owned enterprises (SOEs). Now that we have begun to tackle the political and governance disasters of the Zuma years (and the fact that we have done this is itself a massively encouraging factor), we find ourselves facing economic meltdown. It would be bad enough if we only had to deal with unemployment of over 30%; or with a national debt that will soon reach 70% of GDP; or with falling tax revenues; or with factors beyond our control, such as drought and climate change.

 Any one of these would test the abilities of a government with a good track record when it comes to economic policy; and our government has anything but a good track record. Instead, we must confront an economic challenge greater and more immediate than all these—Eskom has been mismanaged to the point where it has a debt of over R450 billion (30 billion dollars), and not only can it not pay back this debt, it cannot even pay the interest on it.
If that sounds like too much money to think about, consider it this way: Eskom is owned by the state, that is, you and me.
That R450 billion is our debt, money that we owe to banks and institutions here and overseas. Do you have a family of five people? You owe R40 000 (US$ 2, 668). Are you single? You owe R8 000 (US$ 533.60) . No one else is going to pay it. How will you pay it? Through taxes mainly, as the government continues to hand over billions of Rands to keep Eskom going but also through higher electricity prices, since this is the only product that Eskom can sell.

Unfortunately, we are all doing our best to save electricity, and on top of that regular load-shedding further reduces the amount of product that Eskom sells, leading to more growth in its debt, and so the vicious cycle continues.
If you like, you can add into this unhappy mix the problems affecting South African Airways (it owes R20 billion which it cannot pay back, and loses millions more every day); the Passenger Rail Agency, PRASA (which is so badly run that it now transports only a fraction of the number of people that used the trains 20 years ago), and various other SOEs. Ironically, it is only the size of the catastrophe at Eskom that makes the problems of these other parastatals look manageable.
I referred earlier to how the governing party, not the government, deals with the ailing SOEs.

One of the root causes of our governance and economic problems is the fact that the ANC’s massive electoral dominance, allied with its mythic status as the party of liberation, has erased the distinction between the two, the party and the government. The ultimate centre of governance in South Africa is the ANC’s National Executive Committee, based at Luthuli House, Johannesburg, rather than Cyril Ramaphosa’s cabinet, based at the Union Buildings in Tshwane. And so, when important decisions have to be made, the first question is not “what is in the best interests of the country,” but “what is in the best interests of the ANC.” Sometimes the question is further narrowed to ‘what is in the best interests of my faction of the ANC’, and sometimes it is just assumed that the interests of the country and the interests of the ANC are the same thing. Eskom provides us with clear examples of the problem. Over the years, it has grown its workforce to the point where it now employs nearly 50% more people than it did fifteen years ago, while producing no more electricity than it did then.

A large part of its debt problem stems from its huge wage bill, but any talk of retrenchments is immediately ruled out by the ANC; its trade union ally, COSATU, won’t accept it, and the ANC does not want to pay the political price for putting people ‘on the street’. So the debt crisis at Eskom continues. Academic and technical experts concur that one way of helping Eskom out of its current mess is by bringing in private sector finance, skills and resources; in other words, by partial privatisation—but that is a dirty word in the ANC, which still pretends that it is a broadly socialist movement.

And its alliance partners, COSATU and the Communist Party, would sooner see the lights go out permanently than admit that their statist ideology is a pipe dream. So the skills shortages and the incompetence at Eskom continue. (To be fair, a new CEO from the private sector has been appointed, but whether he will be allowed to cut staff and to introduce a degree of privatisation is far from clear.) ANC factionalism plays its part too.

The secretary-general, Ace Magashule, and the remaining Zuma-ites in the NEC, many of whom benefited from the dodgy dealings of the past, and who stand to lose out significantly if President Ramaphosa’s clean-up continues, will do all they can to frustrate him, including taking ‘the side of the workers’ in debates around much- needed restructuring and cost reductions at SOEs. The Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources, Gwede Mantashe, drags his feet when he should be moving urgently to allow private power producers to add their electricity to the national grid; and still maintains that coal, rather than renewables, must be the long-term mainstay of electricity generation.

The crooked coal supply contracts entered into between Eskom and various crooked companies during the Zuma/Gupta era (which also account for a large slice of the huge debt) don’t seem to bother him at all. As in the days when he was ANC secretary-general, Mr Mantashe can’t seem to pick a side in the factional and patronage battles.

By the end of this year, if we have not seen decisive measures to change direction at Eskom and at some other SOEs, the long-term prospects for the country will be very bad indeed. Fortunately, here at the beginning of the year there are some positive signs: the appointment of Mr De Ruyter at Eskom was a brave step politically; so was the placing of SAA into business rescue. The arrest of various executives implicated in corruption at SOEs is also important, not only in itself, but also because it signals that the prosecution authority is finding its focus. Let us hope for more of the same as the year rolls along.

Mike Pothier
Programme Manager,
Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference (SACBC)
Parliamentary Liaison Office

The ‘Deal of the Century’ .

The latest ‘Peace’ plan, the so-called ‘Deal of the Century’ by US President Donald Trump has added more pressure on King Abdullah.

Jordan plays a crucial role in President Trump’s ‘project’, which at its essence implies the retirement of the two-state solution (Israel and a Palestinian State, entirely independent, comprising of the entire West Bank, the return of Israeli Settlements in the Occupied Territories and Gaza with East Jerusalem as Capital). Rather, Trump’s plan places the proposed Palestinian ‘State’ (a mere scrap of what was envisaged by the Oslo Accords 1993/1995) under Jordan’s protection.

Under the plan, the problem of the refugees would remain unsolved, as these would continue to live in Jordan without the benefit of naturalization, since granting citizenship would run counter to the monarch’s efforts to add more balance in the population, already dominated by the Palestinians. The legacy of Black September having not faded. The two-state solution would have favoured Jordanian stability and King Hussein was one of its leading sponsors. Still, King Abdullah may sincerely reject the Deal, and he also knows that those who drafted it, and who would finance some of its more ‘generous’ aspects, are the Americans and the Saudis. However, given that those same Saudis and Americans have sustained Jordan’s economy, the Jordanian monarch does not have the luxury of independence on the matter. Abdullah might be pressed into accepting the Deal. Without a regular flow of aid, Jordan’s governments will be forced to lift subsidies, triggering widespread protests. Accepting the Deal, of course, would compromise the relationship between the Hashemites and the Palestinians. That may be a more digestible poison, because Palestinians dominate the private sector, while Jordanians dominate the public arena; therefore, the Palestinians have the most to lose from economically motivated protests.

A small minority of Palestinians dominate the private sector and the professions in engineering, finance, trade, and construction. However, most Palestinians reside in the poor suburbs of the main cities, while the ‘native’ Trans-Jordanians inhabit the rural areas. The electoral laws have exploited this distribution, maintaining the balance of power in favour of the tribes.  Rural areas get a level of parliamentary representation that exceeds their demographic strength. At the same time, the Palestinian dominated urban and suburban areas suffer from under-representation. The result is that the Transjordanians will always make up the parliamentary majority. This pattern creates both evident political obstacles as well as social ones. Even though economic policies such as subsidy cuts, unemployment, and the raising of taxes affects all citizens, the communities continue to impose obstacles against one another.

The 2011 protests, for example, had to avoid Palestinian nationalist symbolism, preventing the formation of shared socioeconomic interests based on class rather than ethnicity. Still, the International Monetary Fund can often succeed in unexpected ways.
During a series of protests over Prime Minister Hani al-Mulki’s proposed widening of the income tax in 2018 to meet IMF conditions to secure a new credit line to the government, ethnic divisions were drowned in a general sense of economic malaise as the demonstrations engaged the middle and higher bourgeoisie (both Palestinian and Jordanian) such as medical doctors, lawyers, and other professionals. The more impoverished strata of the population joined the protests because they had to endure rising prices for services and higher prices for staple goods because of subsidy cuts. Ethnic divisions, as elsewhere in the world, have mere relative value in contexts of higher income.

Interestingly, the income tax protests offer a textbook example of how the Constitutional monarchy uses parliamentary democracy to its advantage, shielding him from social discontent even as it wields almost all executive power. The professionals who protested in the streets took care to avoid blaming the monarchy for the higher costs of living caused by the new taxes, focusing their anger on the elected representatives of government instead.  Thus, the King forced Mulki’s to resign, replacing him with Omar Razzaz, who reversed the income tax law. Abdullah’s decision to remove al-Mulki reflects an effort to appease the uprising, which if left unheeded, could have provided opportunities for the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafist groups to take control of the protests away from the secular opposition groups. (A.B.)

Jordan at the Crossroads.

Jordan is a country marked by ‘artificial’ borders, drawn on a map in the wake of World War I and the new world order that emerged from it.

These borders extend from the fertile lands of the Jordan River and the shores of the Dead Sea, to the desert of Syria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia.
The country has attracted considerable archaeological interest, owing to the presence of remains from every major period of Biblical, Greek, Roman, Persian, Babylonian, Nabatean, Byzantine, Umayyad, and Ottoman history.

The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, as it exists today, is the last remaining kingdom that emerged from the ashes of the Ottoman Empire, the Anglo-French diplomatic intrigues, known as the Sykes-Picot Agreement, and the Arab revolt of 1916-1918. Jordan began its history as the Kingdom of Transjordan in 1946 (renamed Kingdom of Jordan in 1949) after gaining independence from the British.

Jordan’s current monarch, Abdullah II is the last representative of the Hashemite dynasty, which traces its roots to the Hashim ibn ῾Abd Manaf, great-grandfather of the Prophet Muhammad. In the 20th century, al-Husain ibn Ali al-Hashemi, the Sharif and Emir of Mecca established a dynasty (with British assent) which spread from the Hijaz to Syria through his son Faisal (in 1919, a short-lived ‘Kingdom of Syria’ was established under him) and Transjordan through his son Abdullah – who became Abdullah I. A third brother, Ali, briefly became king of the Hijaz, succeeding his father, until Abd al-ʿAziz al-Saʿud expelled him in 1925, founding Saudi Arabia. King Faisal in Iraq succumbed in 1958 during the coup led by General Abd al-Karim Qasim. One of the more significant aspects, in the context of the Middle East is its stability. Jordan has served as a model of consistency or homogeneity after the end of the British mandate in 1928, and after achieving full independence in 1946 with the Treaty of London.

Stability and Continuity

Unlike its neighbours Syria, or Iraq, Jordan has retained the monarchy and the same Dynasty. The Constitution adopted in 1952 gives the monarch the power to appoint and dismiss the prime minister and the cabinet. The monarch approves amendments to the Constitution, and has the power to declare war, as head of the armed forces. The government has legislative power over more ‘administrative’ sectors: clearly, the monarch enjoys powers superior to those of the government, which can be dissolved at any time. The Jordanian government does boast the aesthetics of democracy.

A bicameral Parliament consisting of two houses: The Representatives and the Senate, makes up the National Assembly. Every four years, Jordanians elect 130 representatives proportionally in uninominal colleges (15 seats are reserved for women, 9 for Christians and 3 for the Circassians). The Representatives approve, reject or modify laws. The 65 senators remain in office for 4 years, the speaker of the upper chamber is appointed by the monarch for two renewable years. In 1992, Jordan adopted a national charter to support the Constitution, introducing greater political pluralism, characterized by the admission of banned parties, such as the Muslim Brotherhood, in the country’s political mechanisms. However, the political power is firmly in the hands of the monarchy, also under the tribal bond that unites it to the Transjordanians, who are the Hashemites’ most reliable support base. King Abdullah II, as did his father Hussein, also benefits from the support of the Jordanian army and security forces.
A major factor contributing to this stability is the small population (9.5 million as of 2015) and the 90-95% Muslim population (the remainder being Christian) is overwhelmingly Sunni. The population is largely Arab (some 98%), many of whom are nomadic shepherds, or Bedouins. The Circassians, who emigrated from the Caucasus in the late 19th century due to the Crimean War, represent the largest ethnic minority – and it is generally deeply loyal to the Hashemite monarchy.

This unity may explain why Jordan has pursued a consistently pro-West foreign policy, even while maintaining good relations with neighbours such as Iraq, for example, which were essential to safeguard economic health. King Hussein, who reigned from 1952 until his death in 1999, always maintained strong diplomatic ties with the West-particularly with the United Kingdom and the United States. Despite its participation in successive conflicts in (the Six-Day War of 1967 and the Yom Kippur of 1973), in 1994, Jordan became the second Arab state to open diplomatic relations with Israel. In geopolitical terms, Jordan has played a fundamental role for the stability of the Middle East and a reliable preserver of balance between the Arab states. (AB)

Uganda. Father Giuseppe Ambrosoli, a Blessed for Africa.

On 22 November 2020, the Italian Comboni priest Father Giuseppe Ambrosoli will be beatified in Kalongo in the north of Uganda. A story of dedication to the poor as a doctor and missionary.

It was the summer of 1949 when a young doctor asked to enter the Congregation of the Comboni Missionaries. In his letter of application he wrote: “I would like to place myself at the service of the missions as a qualified doctor”. Before joining, the young doctor decided to go to London for a course in tropical medicine. When he returned to Italy, he entered the Comboni Institute.
On 9 September 1953 he made his first profession and on 13 December 1955 he was ordained priest by the Cardinal Archbishop of Milan, Giovanni Battista Montini, the future Pope Paul VI.
A few months later, on the first of February 1956, he left for Africa. His destination: Kalongo, in the North of Uganda. The town of Kalongo is located on a plateau 1,100 metres above sea-level. When Father Giuseppe arrived there, it had a population of over 4000. There he found a small medical dispensary.

He was not at all discouraged and his plan for a large hospital meant there was a lot of work to do. Working with his own hands, he dug for stones and transported them on a lorry to the building site where he also saw to the making of bricks. Little by little that dispensary grew, one block after another until it had room for 350 patients. There were departments for maternity, paediatrics, medicine, surgery, gynaecology, radiology and infective diseases; to these were added others for the care of the malnourished, the lepers and tuberculosis patients.
Father Giuseppe immediately understood that, to win the hearts of the Africans one must sow infinite benevolence. In only a few years, the people began to call him Ajwaka Madit (the great doctor) or Doctor Ladit (the great giver of medicine). Together with his unmistakeable smile, his peacefulness became proverbial. But this did not prevent him, as the occasion required, from being strict, with courage and determination and even capable of risking his life for others.
He defended the wives of the soldiers and, in general, of the people of the south, upon whom the guerrillas who were his people of the north, tended to unleash all their aggression.

The faith of the people in the healing powers of Father Giuseppe knew no limits. They saw him as a kind of healer. In the collective imagination of the people, Father Giuseppe became ‘The man of God with the power to heal’. To heal not only the body but the spirit and the heart. In his work as a surgeon, Father Giuseppe afforded special care to the women as mothers and bearers of life. He understood that those mothers were capable of heroic acts to make sure their children were born and lived.
Father Giuseppe looked for collaboration and made people responsible: the doctors working alongside him were duty bound to look upon Kalongo Hospital as ‘their own’. He wanted all the nursing staff to feel directly involved in running the complicated machine that was Kalongo Hospital. For this he valued the local element.
His esteem for the Sisters working with him was deep and sincere, and he regarded their work as essential.

Towards the end of 1973, Father Giuseppe’s health began to show signs of deteriorating but he gave himself no rest. Even the periods he spent in Italy were a race against time as he went from one operating theatre to another to learn the latest surgical techniques. He met with support groups who provided medical equipment.  He was well aware of his precarious state of health but he felt it would be a betrayal to hold back with things in Uganda in such a state of emergency. For him, to love others more than himself was the norm.
The year 1986 was certainly the most difficult year for Kalongo, overrun alternatively by rebels and the regular army. On 21 October, the army occupied Kalongo amid indescribable scenes of panic: not only the people but even the patients as well took flight. Relations with the government troops collapsed irremediably: the very fact of having spent a few months with the rebels was interpreted as connivance. This is the destiny of any hospital in a war zone. The situation of the hospital came to a head on 30 January 1987. The military authorities accused the missionaries and hospital personnel of collaborating with the Acholi guerrillas and ordered the evacuation of Kalongo. Having to transfer everything and everyone suddenly to Lira was a real Calvary for Father Giuseppe. His concern was for the doctors, the young women students of the school of midwifery, and the Sisters in charge of them. He feared the students would miss a school year while he wanted them to end their courses with their exams and diplomas. Even though he had only one partly-functioning kidney, Father Giuseppe asked his superiors’ permission to delay his return to Italy for treatment. Unfortunately, his health was rapidly deteriorating.

After working unceasingly for 31 years, he died in Lira on 27 March 1987, of a renal infection. He was 64 years old.  It was not until seven years later that his remains were exhumed and reburied in Kalongo, close to the hospital that bears his name.
On 28 November 2019, Pope Francis authorised the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints ‘to promulgate, among others, the miracle attributed to the intercession of the Venerable Servant of God Giuseppe Ambrosoli’.  The miracle, granted through the intercession of father Giuseppe and which will allow him to be beatified next November 22, took place to the benefit of a young Ugandan woman. This was the decision reached in Spring of last year by the medical commission set up by the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints, concluding their examination of ‘an extraordinary and inexplicable cure’ from the clinical and scientific point of view. The beneficiary’s name is Lucia Lomokol. On the evening of 25 October 2008 (she was 20 years old), she lost the child she was carrying in her womb and was dying of septicaemia in Matany hospital, in Northern Uganda where she had been brought in an extremely poor condition. The hospital had no means of helping her. Then Doctor Eric Dominic placed an image of father Giuseppe on her pillow and asked the relatives there to pray to ‘The Great Doctor’. The following morning, Lucia was better, something no one expected.

Today the work of Father Giuseppe goes on through his foundation called ‘Doctor Ambrosoli Memorial Hospital’.  The foundation was built in 1998 by the Ambrosoli family and by the Comboni Missionaries to guarantee the continuity and future of the hospital and the school of midwifery founded by him. Its aim is to ensure access for the population to a qualified health service for their better health and standard of living. The Foundation proceeds together with the local communities and fosters medical training so that Uganda may one day have its own independent health service. Father Ambrosoli will be the first Comboni Missionary to be beatified. (E.B.)

 

Gambling in Africa.

It is illegal in just seven countries. In the continent it is an industry with large profit margins. A market in rapid development due to the internet, smartphones and online payment systems. Is it harmless?

A market worth billions of dollars. It is a transverse passion involving mostly young people but also women and the elderly. A cross between hope and dependency. Gambling contains all these elements. It is a world of chance and expectations which, in Africa in recent years, has generated a business that would seem to conflict with reports that still speak of needs and poverty.
In fact, gambling summarises, for better or for worse, the constant evolution of the continent, due to its connection with various factors: economic growth, the spread of the internet and the smartphone and methods of payment online. These are all elements that, directly or indirectly, may explain the expansion of the phenomenon. We add to these the instinct for business affairs (including those that are illegal) of those who see the African continent as a virgin market and a goldmine. And gambling is one of these.

The profit figures are impressive: in 2016, gambling is said to have generated, worldwide, 400 billion dollars and probably more than 500 billion in 2020. Online betting alone accounted for 50 billion dollars in 2017 and these figures continue to increase. The African continent has today attracted the attention of analysts and sociologists where people gamble not just for the fun of it. There are many people who live by gambling. Even in the remotest villages we find small shacks made of wood or iron sheets equipped for lottery betting. A few cents may gain a hundred times the amount. Who could resist trying their luck? But this is but a small fraction of the phenomenon and concerns the world of peasants, fishermen and small businessmen. It is the huge casinos, the websites and especially gambling applications that guarantee sums amounting to billions. Given that much of this money, in the form of taxes, ends up in the coffers of governments, the morality of gambling allows for attempts at regulation, something that is not at all easy when it is a matter of controlling apps and mobile money.

The Geography of Regulations
There are only seven countries in Africa where gambling is forbidden and, consequently, punished by the penal code. These are Libya, Mauritania, Sudan, Guinea-Bissau, Burundi, Eritrea and Somalia. A further seven countries place limitations on gambling by means of partial prohibitions. These are Tunisia, Algeria, Senegal, Egypt, Togo, Nigeria, The Central African Republic and South Africa. In all other states there are laws and norms that allow and regulate gambling and, in a few cases (Namibia, Tanzania, Uganda), online gambling is also regulated.

Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya, Uganda and Ghana are the countries with the highest percentage of gamblers and the highest expenditure. But even the DR Congo, Senegal, Mali and Morocco are ’emerging’, despite these three countries (as stated in the 2019 Gambling Compliance report) being mostly Moslem.
In Nigeria alone (according to a study by  News Agency Nigeria), 60 million people between the ages of 18 and 40 years, are now spending as much as 5 million dollars a day on sport-linked gambling. These are mostly people who have no permanent employment. In Sub-Saharan Africa, it must be remembered; more than 40% of the population live on less than 2 dollars a day. Despite this, the casinos, slot machines, video poker and backgammon, even those that are illegal, are more numerous than ever. In South Africa, there are at least 38 casinos and there are plans to increase the number of licences for off-shore properties, the opposite to what other governments are trying to do. This is one of the countries where it is forbidden to gamble online; this prohibition is neither respected nor controlled and besides, it concerns only cell-phones and not desk-tops. Kenya – to give another example – boasts 28 casinos, 11 bingo halls and a horse racecourse.

 Young Gamblers
An inquiry conducted by Geopoll (a research company in the field of cell phones and information concerning emerging markets) has revealed that 54% of young people in the Sub-Saharan region have sought their fortune in gambling. The first on the list are the Kenyans at 76%, followed by the Ugandans, on 57%. Ghanaian youngsters seem to be the least interested, with 42% of them involved in gambling.
Furthermore, Geopoll has discovered that Kenya leads the field in betting on football matches, with 79% of those involved. The main football competition used for betting is the European Champions League. Nevertheless, the African Cup of Nations competition has also assisted an increase in betting. It must be said that at this point the gambling industry comes into play.

Kenya has proved to be very fertile soil with an expenditure of at least 2 billion dollars per year. But, as the President of Uganda, Yoweri Museveni, stated recently, “They accumulate money and take it away”. This is one of the reasons why the leaders of these countries are beginning to react by applying extreme measures. Museveni has made it known that he will neither renew old licences nor issue new ones. Uhuru Kenyatta, President of Kenya, seems equally determined. Last year, Nairobi introduced a tax of 35% on winnings from gambling – the highest in the region – apart from a 30% tax on companies and a legal mandate to devote 25% of income from betting to social causes.  When the companies threatened to pull out of the country, the latter rate was first reduced to 15% but again increased this year to 20%. Last year, 17 directors of foreign gambling agencies were expelled from the country, accused of violating internal laws.

A Social Crisis
To summarise, let us take a close look at what is now becoming a social crisis. Suicides among young people are increasing. A recent example is that of a student of Kenyatta University who took his own life after gambling, and losing his university fees, betting on the Europa League. This is how the number of very young people entangled in the web of gambling grows ever larger.

On 3 September 2019 a group of 38 students, in a district of Kenya, were surprised while betting; some were arrested and some were found to be primary school pupils. There are also those who, on the contrary, see a number of benefits to be gained from gambling: above all, employment opportunities. SportPesa, one of the biggest gambling houses in Kenya, has let it be known that it had to dismiss 400 people due to the new government regulations. Then there is the income from taxes and even the ‘easy money’ gained by low-income gamblers. And what about gambling addiction? And the psychological and social disorders caused by gambling? People are starting to think about these issues before things get out of control. It is not for nothing that the Betting Control and Licensing Board, which in Kenya manages the authorisation of lotteries and gambling as well as the fight against illegal gambling, has adopted some measures such as a ban on advertising betting connected with sport. They have also banned TV advertising from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. as well as sponsoring sporting personalities.

Despite everything, it will be hard to end such a profitable industry as gambling. The organisers of ICE Africa, already at its third edition, are certain of this. It is one of the most popular events in the international gambling world. It is a business to business event – organised in South Africa – during which networks are created, the latest innovations in the sector are presented and achievements and criticisms are shared. No politicians are invited; it is purely a meeting of businessmen. Its objective is to look for gold, even by means of the perversion of gambling. This year, the new element was Women in Gaming, a demonstration that the future of this sector consists in its ability
to cross every divide.

Antonella Sinopoli

 

 

 

 

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