[PEN-L:29991] Johannesburg: Thus spoke Blair

[Sabri Oncu <soncu@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Blair urges crackdown on Third World profiteering

Kay Kay, born in Guangzhou in 1992, only sees her hard working
parents for a few minutes a day. Her dream is to emulate her hero
Miss Hong Kong

Mark Townsend in Johannesburg
Sunday September 1, 2002
The Observer

Tony Blair will tomorrow crack down on 'corrupt' Third World
governments by demanding multinational companies publicise all
payments to rogue states.

The Prime Minister, speaking at the Earth Summit in Johannesburg,
will announce that oil, gas and mining companies trading with
Third World states should reveal all financial dealings to help
eradicate a multi-billion pound a year fraud.

Major companies that refuse to comply face being struck off -
delisted - from the Stock Exchange. It is the Government's most
severe anti-corruption crackdown yet.

At the moment such payments are private, raising fears that
corrupt Third World governments can profiteer from bribes or
discreetly siphon money from state coffers.

Although the initiative is voluntary, the move could become
legislation if major companies refuse to sign up. It follows
longstanding concern in Downing Street that weak governance is
holding back many poor countries and threatening to derail
efforts to eradicate global poverty.

Development agencies last night welcomed the moves, designed to
help ensure communities living in the Third World reap the
benefit of trade with major corporations.

Katherine Astill, policy analyst at the Catholic aid agency
Cafod, said: 'When oil and mining companies operate
transparently, citizens of developing countries become less
poor.'

However, John Hilary, trade policy advisor for Save the Children,
expressed 'grave doubts' that a voluntary scheme would be enough
to solve endemic corruption in some countries.

Investigations by aid agencies reveal widespread embezzlement,
fraud and corruption from some governments and other state
agencies. Gavin Haman, campaigner at Global Witness, said: 'Our
investigations in war-torn Angola suggest that at least $1
billion every year for the past five years - around one third of
state income - went missing from the government's coffers.' The
move comes amid mounting concern over the direction of the Earth
Summit talks, aimed at tackling global poverty.

Today is, according to senior delegates, the most critical day of
the summit so far with negotiators under intense pressure to
agree a firm action plan before world leaders start arriving in
South Africa tomorrow morning.

Plans to halve the proportion of world poor by 2015 while
protecting the planet have been scuppered by disagreements
between the major separate factions of the US, the EU and the G77
bloc, which includes the developing nations. After eight days of
negotiations, most of the major issues such as reducing
agricultural subsidies to Western farmers and delivering a
sanitation supply to the poor remain in deadlock.

Blair, who spent last night in Mozambique, warned that there
could be no 'backsliding' on agreed positions by states. However,
he warned that the sheer logistics of co-ordinating talks between
20,000 delegates and 192 countries was fraught with pitfalls.

Fears that mass anti-poverty protests in Johannesberg yesterday
afternoon would result in riot and civil disorder failed to
materialise.

More than 20,000 protesters from the city marched on the affluent
borough of Sandton - where the Earth Summit is being staged - but
were met by thousands of riot police, armoured carriers and
barbed-wire fences.

A rift between the UK and the US over genetically modified foods
erupted last night when Blair's chief scientific adviser
denounced the United States' attempts to force the technology
into Africa as a 'massive human experiment'.

In a scathing attack on President Bush's administration,
Professor David King also questioned the morality of the US's
desire to flood genetically modified foods into African
countries, where people are already facing starvation in the
coming months.

Article at:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldsummit2002/story/0,12264,784361,00
.html