Financial Transparency Coalition

LONDON – Christian Aid today welcomed Chancellor George Osborne’s pledge to commit 0.7 per cent of gross national income next year to overseas aid, but called for a coherent tax strategy to benefit poorer countries.

LONDON – Bloomberg and Reuters news agencies have reported that the International Monetary Fund has halted its loan programme with the Democratic Republic of Congo because of concerns over transparency in the country's mining sector. While Congo is clearly in desperate need of funds, Global Witness believes that concerns over possible corruption in the country's mining sector were so serious that the IMF was justified in stopping its lending.

LONDON - Christian Aid today welcomed a House of Commons committee’s report on tax dodging by multinationals, which puts morality at the heart of the tax debate, and said the harm the practice causes to developing countries should be seen in the same light.

LONDON - The first official analysis of the “Kabul Bank Crisis” of 2010 reveals an urgent need for reform in the international banking system, said Global Witness today. The “Report of the Public Inquiry into the Kabul Bank Crisis”, published today by Afghanistan’s Independent Joint Anti-Corruption Monitoring and Evaluation Committee (MEC) shows how the perpetrators behind the fraud were able to repeatedly bypass the checks and balances of regulators, donors, auditors and international banks, and steal enough money to incur a bailout costing approximately 6 percent of Afghanistan’s GDP.