Når vi taler om korruption, er der nogle typiske typer som falder os ind.
When we talk about corruption, there are typical types of individuals that spring to mind.
Der er megalomanerne fra det tidligere Sovjetunionen Saparmurat Niyazov, han var en af dem. Frem til hans død i 2006, var han enehersker af Turkmenistan, et centralasiatisk land rigt på naturgas. Ja, og han virkeligt elskede at udstede præsidentielle dekreter. Et var at omdøbe årets måneder blandt andet efter ham selv og hans mor. Han brugte millioner af dollars til at lave en bizar personkult, og kronen på det hele var bygningen af en 12 meter høj guldbelagt statue af ham selv, som stod prangende på hovedstadens centrale plads og roterede rundt med solen. Han var en smule usædvanlig type.
There's the former Soviet megalomaniacs. Saparmurat Niyazov, he was one of them. Until his death in 2006, he was the all-powerful leader of Turkmenistan, a Central Asian country rich in natural gas. Now, he really loved to issue presidential decrees. And one renamed the months of the year including after himself and his mother. He spent millions of dollars creating a bizarre personality cult, and his crowning glory was the building of a 40-foot-high gold-plated statue of himself which stood proudly in the capital's central square and rotated to follow the sun. He was a slightly unusual guy.
Og så er der den kliche, den afrikanske diktator, minister eller embedsmand. Der er Teodorin Obiang. Han far er præsident for livstid i Ækvatorial Guinea, et vestafrikansk land som har eksporteret for milliarder af dollars af olie siden 1990'erne og har en virkelig forfærdende status på menneskerettigheder. Den store majoritet af befolkningen lever i virkelig miserabel fattigdom selvom deres gennemsnitlige indkomst per borger er på niveau med Portugal. Så Obang junior, han køber til ham selv et 30 million dollar dyrt landsted i Malibu, Californien. Jeg har været ved dens indgangsport. Jeg kan fortæller jer at han forstår at sprede sig Han købte en € 18 million kostbar kunstsamling som før tilhørte modedesigneren Yves Saint Laurent, en samling fantastiske sportsbiler, nogle kostede en million dollars stykket -- Ja, forresten også en Gulfstream jet. Nå hør her: Indtil fornylig, havde han officielt en månedsløn på mindre end 7.000 dollars.
And then there's that cliché, the African dictator or minister or official. There's Teodorín Obiang. So his daddy is president for life of Equatorial Guinea, a West African nation that has exported billions of dollars of oil since the 1990s and yet has a truly appalling human rights record. The vast majority of its people are living in really miserable poverty despite an income per capita that's on a par with that of Portugal. So Obiang junior, well, he buys himself a $30 million mansion in Malibu, California. I've been up to its front gates. I can tell you it's a magnificent spread. He bought an €18 million art collection that used to belong to fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent, a stack of fabulous sports cars, some costing a million dollars apiece -- oh, and a Gulfstream jet, too. Now get this: Until recently, he was earning an official monthly salary of less than 7,000 dollars.
Og her er Dan Etete. Han er den forrige olieminister i Nigeria under præsident Abacha, og lige nu er han også dømt som pengevasker. Vi har brugt en masse tid på at undersøge en $1 milliard -- det er rigtigt, en $ 1 milliard -- oliehandel som han var involveret i, og hvad vi fandt ud af var temmelig chokerende, men mere om det senere.
And there's Dan Etete. Well, he was the former oil minister of Nigeria under President Abacha, and it just so happens he's a convicted money launderer too. We've spent a great deal of time investigating a $1 billion -- that's right, a $1 billion — oil deal that he was involved with, and what we found was pretty shocking, but more about that later.
Det er så let at tænke at korruption foregår kun hos de andre, udført af en bunke grådige despoter og dårlige individer i lande som vi, personligt, ved meget lidt om og ikke føler os forbundet til og uberørte af hvad der egentligt foregår. Men foregår det kun de andre steder?
So it's easy to think that corruption happens somewhere over there, carried out by a bunch of greedy despots and individuals up to no good in countries that we, personally, may know very little about and feel really unconnected to and unaffected by what might be going on. But does it just happen over there?
Well, som 22-årig, var jeg meget heldig. Mit første job udenfor universitetet var at undersøge den illegale handel med afrikansk elfenben. Og det var der mit forhold til korruption rigtigt begyndte. I 1993 med to venner der også var kollegaer Simon Taylor og Patrick Alley, startede vi en organisation kaldet Global Witness [Globalt vidne] Vores første kampagne var at undersøge hvordan illegal skovhugst finansierede krigen i Cambodia.
Well, at 22, I was very lucky. My first job out of university was investigating the illegal trade in African ivory. And that's how my relationship with corruption really began. In 1993, with two friends who were colleagues, Simon Taylor and Patrick Alley, we set up an organization called Global Witness. Our first campaign was investigating the role of illegal logging in funding the war in Cambodia.
Så få år senere, det er nu 1997, er jeg i Angola og undersøger bloddiamanter undercover. Måske så i filmen, Hollywoodfilmen "Blood Diamonds", den med Leonardo DiCaprio. Well, noget af handlingen udspringer af vores arbejde. Luanda, som var fuld af landmineofre som kæmpede for at overleve på gaderne and børn forældreløse fra krigen, som lever i kloaker under gaderne, og en lille velhavende elite som sludrede om de seneste shoppingture til Brasilien og Portugal. Og det var lidt skørt sted.
So a few years later, and it's now 1997, and I'm in Angola undercover investigating blood diamonds. Perhaps you saw the film, the Hollywood film "Blood Diamond," the one with Leonardo DiCaprio. Well, some of that sprang from our work. Luanda, it was full of land mine victims who were struggling to survive on the streets and war orphans living in sewers under the streets, and a tiny, very wealthy elite who gossiped about shopping trips to Brazil and Portugal. And it was a slightly crazy place.
Så jeg sider i en varmt og tætpakket hotelværelse føler mig totalt overvældet. Men det var ikke på grund af bloddiamanterne. men fordi jeg talte med en masse folk der som, well, talte om et andet problem: At det massive netværk af korruption på global skala og millioner af dollars som mangler. Og for det som dengang var en meget lille organisation på bare nogle få folk, der prøver at begynde at tænke på hvordan vi kan takle det var en enorm udfordring. Og i alle de år jeg har været og vi alle har været i gang med at føre kampagne og undersøge, har jeg gentagne gange set hvad der gør korruption på en global, massiv skala muligt, det er ikke kun grådighed og magtmisbrug eller den tågede frase om "svag regeringsførelse". Jeg mener, det er det også, men korruptionen er lavet mulig af deltagelse globale facilitatorer.
So I'm sitting in a hot and very stuffy hotel room feeling just totally overwhelmed. But it wasn't about blood diamonds. Because I'd been speaking to lots of people there who, well, they talked about a different problem: that of a massive web of corruption on a global scale and millions of oil dollars going missing. And for what was then a very small organization of just a few people, trying to even begin to think how we might tackle that was an enormous challenge. And in the years that I've been, and we've all been campaigning and investigating, I've repeatedly seen that what makes corruption on a global, massive scale possible, well it isn't just greed or the misuse of power or that nebulous phrase "weak governance." I mean, yes, it's all of those, but corruption, it's made possible by the actions of global facilitators.
Så lad os gå tilbage til nogle af de folk jeg talte om før. Nu er dette alle folk vi har efterforsket, og det er alle folk der ikke har kunnet gøre det alene. Tag Obiang Junior. Han endte ikke med super kunst og et luksushuse uden hjælp. Han gjorde forretninger med globale banker. En bank i Paris havde konti for de firmaer han kontrollerede, hvoraf han brugte det ene til at købe kunst, og amerikanske banker, det formidlede 73 millioner ind i Staterne, hvoraf nogle blev brugt til at købe det kaliforniske landsted. Og han gjorde ikke alt dette i sit eget navn heller. han brugte dækselskaber. Han brugte et til at købe ejendommen, og et andet, som var i en andens navn, til at betale de store regninger for have stedet.
So let's go back to some of those people I talked about earlier. Now, they're all people we've investigated, and they're all people who couldn't do what they do alone. Take Obiang junior. Well, he didn't end up with high-end art and luxury houses without help. He did business with global banks. A bank in Paris held accounts of companies controlled by him, one of which was used to buy the art, and American banks, well, they funneled 73 million dollars into the States, some of which was used to buy that California mansion. And he didn't do all of this in his own name either. He used shell companies. He used one to buy the property, and another, which was in somebody else's name, to pay the huge bills it cost to run the place.
Og så er der Dan Etete. Well, mens han var olieminister, Han overgav et olieområde til en værdi over en milliard dollars til et selskab, gæt engang, han var den skjulte ejer af. Nå, det var senere handlet videre med venlig assistance fra den nigerianske regering -- Nu skal jeg være omhyggelig med hvad jeg siger her -- til underselskaber af Shell og det italienske Eni, To af de største olieselskaber i verden.
And then there's Dan Etete. Well, when he was oil minister, he awarded an oil block now worth over a billion dollars to a company that, guess what, yeah, he was the hidden owner of. Now, it was then much later traded on with the kind assistance of the Nigerian government -- now I have to be careful what I say here — to subsidiaries of Shell and the Italian Eni, two of the biggest oil companies around.
Så virkeligheden er, at motoren i korruptionen, den findes langt væk fra kysterne af lande som Ækvatorial Guinea eller Nigeria eller Turkmenistan. Denne motor, den er drevet af vores internationale banksystem, af anonyme dækselskaber, og det hemmelighedskræmmeri vi har tilladt de store olie-, gas- og mineselskaber, og mest af alt, af forsømmelsen fra vores politikere til at følge op på deres retorik og gøre noget rigtigt meningsfuldt og systematisk for at takle det.
So the reality is, is that the engine of corruption, well, it exists far beyond the shores of countries like Equatorial Guinea or Nigeria or Turkmenistan. This engine, well, it's driven by our international banking system, by the problem of anonymous shell companies, and by the secrecy that we have afforded big oil, gas and mining operations, and, most of all, by the failure of our politicians to back up their rhetoric and do something really meaningful and systemic to tackle this stuff.
Nå, lad mig tale om bankerne først. Det kommer næppe som en overraskelse når jeg fortæller jer at bankerne modtager beskidte penge, men de prioriterer deres profit også på andre destruktive måder. For eksempel, i Sarawak, Malaysia. Denne region, den har bare fem procent af sin skov tilbage. Fem procent. Så hvad skete der? Fordi en elite og deres facilitatorer har lavet millioner af dollars med at støtte skovhugst på en industriel skala gennem mange år. Så vi sendte en undercover undersøger ind for at hemmeligt at filme et møde med medlemmer af den herskende elite, og de endelige optagelser, de gjorde nogle folk meget ophidsede, og I kan se det på Youtube, og de bevidste hvad vi længe havde mistanke om, fordi det viste hvordan statens hovedminister, på trods af hans senere benægtelser brugt sin kontrol over land- og skovlicenser til at berige sig selv og sin familie. Og HSBC, vi ved at HSBC som var bank for regionen største skovfældningsselskaber som var ansvarlige for noget af ødelæggelserne i Sarawak og andre steder. Banken overtrådte sin egen bæredygtighedspolitik i den proces, men de tjente 130 millioner dollars. Og kort tid efter vores afdækning, meget kort efter vores afdækning tidligere i år, annoncerede banken en gennemgang af deres politik. Og er det et fremskridt? Måske, men vi er nødt til at holde meget tæt øje med den sag.
Now let's take the banks first. Well, it's not going to come as any surprise for me to tell you that banks accept dirty money, but they prioritize their profits in other destructive ways too. For example, in Sarawak, Malaysia. Now this region, it has just five percent of its forests left intact. Five percent. So how did that happen? Well, because an elite and its facilitators have been making millions of dollars from supporting logging on an industrial scale for many years. So we sent an undercover investigator in to secretly film meetings with members of the ruling elite, and the resulting footage, well, it made some people very angry, and you can see that on YouTube, but it proved what we had long suspected, because it showed how the state's chief minister, despite his later denials, used his control over land and forest licenses to enrich himself and his family. And HSBC, well, we know that HSBC bankrolled the region's largest logging companies that were responsible for some of that destruction in Sarawak and elsewhere. The bank violated its own sustainability policies in the process, but it earned around 130 million dollars. Now shortly after our exposé, very shortly after our exposé earlier this year, the bank announced a policy review on this. And is this progress? Maybe, but we're going to be keeping a very close eye on that case.
Og der er et problem med de anonyme dækselskaber. Vi har alle hørt om hvad de er, tror jeg, og alle ved at de bruges meget af folk og firmaer som prøver at undgå at betale deres andel til samfundet også kendt som skat. Men hvad der sjældent kommer frem i lyset er hvordan dækselskaber er brugt til at stjæle kæmpe summer af penge, betydende summer af penge, fra fattige lande. I næsten alle de sager om korruption vi har efterforsket, her dækselskaber optrådt, og nogen gange har det været umuligt at finde ud af hvem der i virkeligheden har været deltagere i handlen.
And then there's the problem of anonymous shell companies. Well, we've all heard about what they are, I think, and we all know they're used quite a bit by people and companies who are trying to avoid paying their proper dues to society, also known as taxes. But what doesn't usually come to light is how shell companies are used to steal huge sums of money, transformational sums of money, from poor countries. In virtually every case of corruption that we've investigated, shell companies have appeared, and sometimes it's been impossible to find out who is really involved in the deal.
Et nyligt studie fra Verdensbanken kiggede på 200 sager om korruption. Og fandt i over 70% af sagerne var anonyme dækselskaber blevet brugt, for omkring 56 milliarder dollars. Mange af disse selskaber var i Amerika eller United Kingdom, det oversøiske territorier og kongelige besiddelser og det er ikke kun et offshore problem det er også et indlands. Som I ser, dækselskaber, de er centrale for hemmelige aftaler som kommer rige eliter til gode snarer end de almindelige borgere.
A recent study by the World Bank looked at 200 cases of corruption. It found that over 70 percent of those cases had used anonymous shell companies, totaling almost 56 billion dollars. Now many of these companies were in America or the United Kingdom, its overseas territories and Crown dependencies, and so it's not just an offshore problem, it's an on-shore one too. You see, shell companies, they're central to the secret deals which may benefit wealthy elites rather than ordinary citizens.
En nylig iøjefaldende sag vi har efterforsket er hvordan den Demokratiske Republik Congo frasolgte en serie af værdifulde, statsejede miner til et dækselskab på de Britiske Jomfruøer . Så vi talte med kilder i landet, gennemtrawlede forretningsdokumenter og anden information og prøvede at stykke det sande billede sammen af aftalen. Og vi var alarmerede over at finde at disse dækselskaber havde hurtigt omsat mange af disse værdier med store profitter for store internationale mineselskaber med adresse i London. Nu, det afrikanske fremskridtspanel, ledet af Kofi Annan, de har beregnet at Congo kan have tabt mere end 1,3 milliard dollars fra disse handler. Det er næsten det dobbelte af landets samlede udgifter til sundhed og uddannelse. Og vil folkene i Congo nogensinde få deres penge tilbage? Svaret på det spørgsmål, og hvem som i virkeligheden var involveret og hvad der egentlig skete, det svar vil forblive låst inde hos hemmelige selskaber registeret på de Britiske Jomfruøer og andre steder medmindre vi alle gør noget ved det.
One striking recent case that we've investigated is how the government in the Democratic Republic of Congo sold off a series of valuable, state-owned mining assets to shell companies in the British Virgin Islands. So we spoke to sources in country, trawled through company documents and other information trying to piece together a really true picture of the deal. And we were alarmed to find that these shell companies had quickly flipped many of the assets on for huge profits to major international mining companies listed in London. Now, the Africa Progress Panel, led by Kofi Annan, they've calculated that Congo may have lost more than 1.3 billion dollars from these deals. That's almost twice the country's annual health and education budget combined. And will the people of Congo, will they ever get their money back? Well, the answer to that question, and who was really involved and what really happened, well that's going to probably remain locked away in the secretive company registries of the British Virgin Islands and elsewhere unless we all do something about it.
Og hvad med olie-, gas- og mineselskaberne? Okay, det er lidt af en kliche at tale om dem. Korruption i den sektor, ingen overraskelse. Der er korruption alle steder, så hvorfor fokuserer på den sektor? Fordi der er meget på spil. I 2001, eksport af naturressourcer oversteg ulandshjælp med omkring 19 til en i Afrika, Asien og Latin Amerika. Nitten til en. Det er en helvedes mange skoler og universiteter og hospitaler og iværksætterfirmaer, mange som ikke har vist sig og aldrig vil fordi mange af de penge simpelthen er blevet stjålet.
And how about the oil, gas and mining companies? Okay, maybe it's a bit of a cliché to talk about them. Corruption in that sector, no surprise. There's corruption everywhere, so why focus on that sector? Well, because there's a lot at stake. In 2011, natural resource exports outweighed aid flows by almost 19 to one in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Nineteen to one. Now that's a hell of a lot of schools and universities and hospitals and business startups, many of which haven't materialized and never will because some of that money has simply been stolen away.
Nå, lad os gå tilbage til olie- og mineselskaberne, og lad os gå tilbage til Dan Etete og den 1 milliard dollar store aftale. Og undskyld mig at jeg er nødt til at læse det næste stykke op fordi det er en åben sag og vores advokater har været igennem nogle af detaljerne så jeg ønsker at de skal siges korrekt.
Now let's go back to the oil and mining companies, and let's go back to Dan Etete and that $1 billion deal. And now forgive me, I'm going to read the next bit because it's a very live issue, and our lawyers have been through this in some detail and they want me to get it right.
NU, på overfladen, så handlen ud til at være lige ud af landevejen. Underselskaber af Shell og Eni betalte den nigerianske regering for rettighederne. Den nigerianske regering overførte præcist det samme beløb, ned til den enkelte dollar, til en konto øremærket for et dækselskab hvis skjulte ejer var Etete. Nu, det er ikke dårligt for en dømt pengevasker. og her er pointen. Efter mange måneders gravearbejde og læsning gennem hundreder sider af retsdokumenter, har vi fundet bevis for, faktisk, at Shell og Eni vidste at disse beløb ville blive overført til dette dækselskab, og ærligt, det er svært at tro at de ikke vidste hvem de i virkeligheden handlede med.
Now, on the surface, the deal appeared straightforward. Subsidiaries of Shell and Eni paid the Nigerian government for the block. The Nigerian government transferred precisely the same amount, to the very dollar, to an account earmarked for a shell company whose hidden owner was Etete. Now, that's not bad going for a convicted money launderer. And here's the thing. After many months of digging around and reading through hundreds of pages of court documents, we found evidence that, in fact, Shell and Eni had known that the funds would be transferred to that shell company, and frankly, it's hard to believe they didn't know who they were really dealing with there.
Nu, det burde ikke kræve den slags anstrengelser for at finde ud af hvor penge i handler som disse ender. Jeg mener, det er statsejendom. De brude blive brugt til fordel for folket i landet. Men i nogle lande, borgere og journalister som prøver at frembringe historier som disse har blevet overfaldet og arresteret og nogle har også risikeret deres liv, for at gøre det.
Now, it just shouldn't take these sorts of efforts to find out where the money in deals like this went. I mean, these are state assets. They're supposed to be used for the benefit of the people in the country. But in some countries, citizens and journalists who are trying to expose stories like this have been harassed and arrested and some have even risked their lives to do so.
Og til sidst, der er dem som tror at korruption er uundgåelig. Det er bare sådan forretning gøres. Det er for svært og kompliceret at ændre. Så hvad der effekten, Vi må bare accepterer det. Men som kampagnefører og efterforsker, jeg har et andet synspunkt, fordi jeg har set hvad der kan ske når en ide får momentum. I olie- og minesektoren, for eksempel, er der nu en begyndelse på en ægte verdensomspændende gennemsigtigheds-standard som kan takle nogle af disse problemer. i 1999, da Global Witness opfordrede olieselskaberne at gøre deres betalinger for aftaler gennemsigtige, nogle folk grinte af den ekstreme naivitet af den lille ide. Men bogstaveligt hundrede af civilsamfundsgrupper fra hele verden fandt sammen om at kæmpe for gennemsigtighed, og nu er det hurtigt begyndt at blive normen og loven. To tredjedele af værdien og jordens olie- og mineselskaber er nu omfattet af gennemsigtighedslove. To tredjedele.
And finally, well, there are those who believe that corruption is unavoidable. It's just how some business is done. It's too complex and difficult to change. So in effect, what? We just accept it. But as a campaigner and investigator, I have a different view, because I've seen what can happen when an idea gains momentum. In the oil and mining sector, for example, there is now the beginning of a truly worldwide transparency standard that could tackle some of these problems. In 1999, when Global Witness called for oil companies to make payments on deals transparent, well, some people laughed at the extreme naiveté of that small idea. But literally hundreds of civil society groups from around the world came together to fight for transparency, and now it's fast becoming the norm and the law. Two thirds of the value of the world's oil and mining companies are now covered by transparency laws. Two thirds.
Så ændringer sker. Dette er fremskridt. Men vi er der ikke endnu, langt fra. Fordi dette handler ikke kun om korruption ovre hos de andre, gør det? I en globaliseret verden, korruption er en rigtig globaliseret forretning, og den behøver globale løsninger, støttet og presset på af os alle, globale borgere, lige her.
So this is change happening. This is progress. But we're not there yet, by far. Because it really isn't about corruption somewhere over there, is it? In a globalized world, corruption is a truly globalized business, and one that needs global solutions, supported and pushed by us all, as global citizens, right here.
Mange tak.
Thank you.
(Bifald)
(Applause)