As long as we have countries that are willing to receive these illicit monies, then it [corruption] will keep happening
One of the many strengths of the book, is the representation of experts from the Global South. This can be seen in the make-up of the team of this collection: Thirty in total, they include experts, academics, activist, political and economic advisors, and importantly come from a variety of backgrounds and geographies.
Through its network of tax havens, the UK is the fulcrum of a system that benefits the rich and powerful.
Tax avoidance, understood as the use of the so-called ‘loopholes’ in the tax legislation to reduce one’s tax payments increasingly tops news charts. The recent Pandora Papers, EU’s blacklist of 17 tax havens, Paradise Papers and the Panama Papers are among the starkest examples.
The Kenyatta family has ruled one of Africa’s largest economies for decades. But to the Swiss advisers who helped them funnel wealth into tax havens, they were ‘Client 13173’.
Reporting on the Pandora Papers leak has robbed the country of the opportunity to use the revelations as a catalyst for change.
As revelations of offshore abuses by elites continue to pour out, there is a growing realization around the world that there is “one set of rules for them, and another set of rules for everybody else”.
Journalists from the BBC, The Guardian and Finance Uncovered, spent months matching the names of company owners found in the Pandora Papers with UK Land Registry records to discover who really bought hundreds of UK properties. The result is the most comprehensive dataset ever published focusing on rich and powerful Nigerians who have secretly bought UK property.
The Pandora Papers are nearly 12 million files — totalling close to 2.94 terabytes — leaked from 14 companies that provide corporate services in offshore jurisdictions.
The Pandora Papers, based on almost 12 million documents leaked from 14 companies that provide corporate services in offshore jurisdictions, expose some of the most prominent current or former leaders and politicians as beneficiaries of offshore accounts.
The Kenyatta family, Kenya's first family twice over, has perhaps, one of the deepest investments in Kenya’s economy than any political family. But a global leak of documents from offshore secrecy locations has exposed the family's long standing use of companies, and trusts in Panama and the British Virgin Islands. The leak is called Pandora Papers. The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists shared this leak with Africa Uncensored, who, with contributions from Finance Uncovered, can now report on the Kenyatta family's secret companies.
Seven members of the Kenyatta family are revealed through the Pandora Papers as being variously connected to 11 offshore companies and foundations.