Financial Transparency Coalition

Forthcoming Report Finds North African Nation Loses $US1.16 Billion Annually in Illicit Financial Outflows

President Zine el-Abdine Ben Ali of Tunisia fled his country on Friday, and Prime Minister Mohammed Ghannouchi has announced that he is now in charge. Tunisia is a country known for its oppressive government rule and, according to a BBC analysis, “human rights groups say the authorities tolerate no dissent, harassing government critics and rights activists.” Unrest among Tunisians has lead to deadly riots this month over unemployment and poor governance. According to the Associated Press at least 23 Continue Reading

Sudan has been embroiled in two civil wars for most of the 55 years it has existed as an independent state. In the 1980s and 1990s Sudan witnessed four million displacements and two million deaths as a direct result of this conflict. Islamic-oriented military regimes have ruled Sudan since independence, which is large part attributable to the religious demographics. Of Sudan’s sizeable population of over 44 million inhabitants, seventy percent identifies as Sunni Muslim, twenty-five with indigenous beliefs, and five percent as Christian. Muslims are concentrated in Northern Sudan, while Christians mostly occupy the South. This...

Corruption is a criminal behavior. To contain the harm done to society by the corrupt, we rely on oversight and prosecution. We expect integrity from our leaders, and while the ability to stamp out corruption through prosecution is imperfect, it is demonstrable that few are immune from scrutiny. The headline grabbing investigations of figures like Tom DeLay, Charles Rangel, and Steven Ratner are only the most recent examples. Our response to corruption abroad follows the same reasoning. To foreign leaders we counsel: remove the corrupt from positions of power and prosecute them for their crimes. Yet for every story of...

LONDON—Taxpayer-funded Lloyds bank may have stashed $9 billion for President Omar al-Bashir of Sudan, according to Wikileaks cables published in the Guardian today. Lloyds must now confirm if this is true or not and if it is then the bank must publically explain what due diligence checks it has done to ensure that these funds are not the proceeds of corruption, said Global Witness.