Financial Transparency Coalition

International oil companies such as the U.S. giant Chevron are beginning exploration off of Liberia’s coastline. However, this new research by Global Witness and Liberian Oil and Gas Initiative (LOGI)¹ suggests that while Liberia has come a long way from the devastating set of resource-financed civil wars that claimed the lives of 250,000 people between 1989 and 2003, serious governance problems persist, and the warning signs for the emerging oil sector are stark. Curse or Cure? How oil can boost or break Liberia’s post-war recovery shows that even before a discovery is made, there are deep-seated problems in Liberia’s oil sector: government officials and at least one company...

LONDON/MONROVIA – Far-reaching reforms of Liberia’s oil sector are urgently needed if its population is to benefit from future oil discoveries, says a report released today by Global Witness (1) and the Liberian Oil and Gas Initiative (LOGI) (2). As the country heads to the polls in October, and with major oil companies such as US giant Chevron trying to find oil in Liberia, these reforms must be a priority for any new government.

On September 9th the Cayman Islands introduced a bill for the establishment of new Special Economic Zones. The most Alice-in-Wonderland part of the bill is this bit, on page 14:

"A special economic zone shall be deemed to be outside of the Islands and not in the Islands."

Emphasis added. So where will this zone be? It seems that it will, for the relevant purposes, effectively be 'elsewhere' - which, in practical terms, means 'nowhere.' This 'it's elsewhere, don't-blame-us, we-can't-regulate-this' approach is what a lot of the activity of secrecy jurisdictions is designed to do - it's not so common,...

WASHINGTON, DC – Global Financial Integrity's Director of Government Affairs and Legal Counsel, Heather Lowe, will participate in a high-level meeting of governments and civil society at the U.S. Department of State on Tuesday, July 12, at which U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Brazilian Foreign Minister Antonio Patriota will launch the Open Government Partnership (OGP). The Open Government Partnership is a new, multilateral initiative that aims to secure concrete commitments from governments to promote transparency, empower citizens, fight corruption, and harness new technologies to strengthen governance.