₦airaland Forum

Guys, it so sad that we still have a very long way to go.

With these further revelations by PM, only God knows why David Mark hasn't resigned or be sacked by the Senate. it just shows that the NA is full of big time crooks.

A former President of the Nigerian Senate, David Mark, was not telling the truth when he denied knowledge of eight offshore companies linked to him as part of the ongoing #PanamaPapers revelations, a series of leaked documents has shown.

PREMIUM TIMES had on April 5 exposed Mr. Mark as operating shell companies in tax havens while being a public official in Nigeria, a violation of the country’s code of conduct law.

But shortly after the story broke, Mr. Mark denied owning any of the companies linked to him in the British Virgin Islands, a notorious tax haven, claiming this newspaper’s reporting was politically-motivated and calculated at tarnishing his image.

“We reiterate categorically that he is not directly or indirectly connected to any of the companies registered, operated or managed by the Mossack Fonseca Law Firm,” the lawmaker said through a statement by his spokesperson, Paul Mumeh. “We challenge all those behind this propaganda and media outburst to prove or show that Senator Mark’s name was mentioned in the leaks.”

In response to the lawmaker’s challenge, this newspaper is now making public documents that strongly established the links between him and the companies listed against his name in the Mossack Fonseca database.

The documents include a due diligence report submitted to Mossack Fonseca by Helms Trust Company, a Jersey based firm, a reference letter written by an associate of Mr. Mark to the Panamanian law firm authenticating his identity, a copy of Mr. Mark’s valid passport at the time, electricity bill receipt of the former senate president’s home in his native Otukpo as well as his official letterhead.

he due diligent report, dated June 12, 2014, categorised Mr. Mark as a politically exposed person (PEP) and identified him as the beneficial owner of the companies listed against his name. It also showed that the companies were active, at least as at June 2014.

The companies are Sikera Overseas S.A, Colsan Enterprises Limited, Goldwin Transworld Limited, Hartland Estates Limited, Marlin Holdings Limited, Medley Holdings Limited, Quetta Properties Limited, and Centenary Holdings Limited.

The other documents in Mr. Mark’s file with Mossack Fonseca were apparently sent by the lawmaker to the law firm as part of a Know Your Customer (KYC) compliance and identity verification process.

Although Mr. Mark is known within Mossack Fonseca as the beneficial owner of the companies, he used nominee directors for years to mask his relationship with the shell entities.

PREMIUM TIMES also found that one of the companies, Goldwin Transworld Limited is a shareholder in London-based Goldwin Services (UK) Limited, along with one Anne Folkard, a British citizen believed to be Mr. Mark’s long time associate and front.

Company documents in the U.K. show that Mr. Mark himself was a director in Goldwin Services (UK) Limited between October 3, 1994 and January 25, 1996, when he substituted himself with another shell company he had registered offshore, Goldwin Transworld Limited.

Ms. Folkard authored one of the documents in Mr. Mark’s file with Mossack Fonseca.

In 2010, apparently after Mossack Fonseca became suspicion about his business dealings, Mr. Mark sent documents across to the Panamanian firm through Ms. Folkard to convince the offshore provider of secrecy to continue to serve as his registered agents in Panama and the British Virgin Islands.

It is not immediately clear when Mr. Mark and Ms. Folkard met, but the letter sent to Mossack Fonseca by Ms. Folkard on behalf of the former Senate President indicated that they had been friends before 1994.

In the letter, dated October 20, 2010, Ms. Folkard wrote:

“You asked if I could confirm Senator David Mark’s address in Nigeria and I am happy to do this for you.

“Please find attached a copy of his senatorial headed paper which I had printed for him when he first became a Nigerian Senator in 1999. I can confirm that the address on the left-hand side of the page, 15 Asa Road, is his constituency address where he resides in Otukpo.

“I first visited that address back in 1994 and subsequently went there for the wedding of his oldest daughter, Caroline Mark, in 2001. If required, I have photos of the actual house. The traditional wedding and reception took place in his garden.

“I have also visited him at his official residence in Abuja. It is in the residential Apo Legislative complex in Abuja which is the residential area specifically built to house the Nigerian Senators when Nigeria became a democracy. The house that he lives in there is assigned with his senatorial job and as such he does not have the traditional bills that we would normally expect householders to have.”

When contacted Tuesday, Ms. Folkard told PREMIUM TIMES she was in a meeting, and unable to comment on businesses she run for Senator Mark.

While not all owners or operators of such offshore entities are criminals, owning or maintaining interest in private companies while serving as a public official is against Nigerian laws.

Section 6(b) of the Code of Conduct Act says a public office holder shall not, “except where he is not employed on full‐time basis, engage or participate in the management or running of any private business, profession or trade”.

Mossack Fonseca, reputed as one of the biggest providers of secrecy in the world, helped clients register offshore entities, some of which are then used to launder money, evade tax and dodge sanctions.

They also provide details of the hidden financial dealings of politicians and public officials around the world, including in Nigeria.

The trove of 11.5 million files shows how a global industry of law firms and big banks sells financial secrecy to politicians, fraudsters and drug traffickers as well as billionaires, celebrities and sports stars.

The revelations are among the findings of a lengthy investigation by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung and more than 100 other global news organizations – including PREMIUM TIMES.

PREMIUM TIMES is the only Nigerian publication involved in the investigation, which lasted a year.

http://www.premiumtimesng.com/panama-papers/202452-panamapapers-documents-counter-david-marks-denial-of-secret-assets-in-tax-havens.html

I think whoever put Sowore's details out have made it possible for Nigerians to report more about corrupt practises since a lot of people want to contact him.

What most people don't know is that SR is a citizens media forum - if any citizen have a genuine information and sent it to them, once it has been verified, SR would publish it. The issue is that lots of people are ready to give SR valuable, verifiable sources of information 24 hours 7days a week. Even government sources are not left out.

Sowore has got nothing to lose by putting his information out that he is an impostor, which most people know anyway.

The battle line between SR - an investigative media and the Nigeria's political class have just began...

It seems that Boko haram have changed into being Fulani herdsmen...bent on destroying local communities in the South.

Too many arrests, but less prosecutions.

MPs, councillors and civil servants suspected of corruption are to be targeted by a new law proposed by the home secretary.

Theresa May intends to establish an offence of "illicit enrichment" for cases where a public official's assets have increased significantly without satisfactory explanation.

It is part of a wider shake-up of measures to tackle money laundering.

But Mrs May said it not a "knee-jerk" reaction to the Panama Papers.

She said the economy was "at risk of being undermined" by money laundering, illicit finance and the funding of terrorism.

'Significant threat'

Her new proposals - subject to a six-week consultation period being launched in the Commons later - plan to give the civil courts powers to impose new "unexplained wealth orders".

They would force suspected money launderers to declare their wealth, and those who fail to satisfy authorities will face having their property and cash seized.

The government described the plans as "aggressive" and "the most significant change to the UK's anti-money laundering and terrorist finance regime in over a decade".

Mrs May said: "The laundering of proceeds of crime through UK institutions is not only a financial crime, it fuels political instability around the world, supports terrorists and extremism and poses a direct and immediate threat to our domestic security and our overseas interests.

"We will forge a new partnership with industry to improve suspicious activity reporting, deliver deeper information-sharing and take joint action on enforcement.

"And we will act vigorously against the criminals and terrorists responsible, to protect the security and prosperity of our citizens, and safeguard the integrity of Britain's financial economy."

Under the reforms a new administrative power to designate an entity as being "of money laundering concern" is also being considered.

This would require those in the "regulated" sector - such as banks, legal and accountancy firms - to take "special measures" when dealing with them.

In October last year an official national risk assessment said that taken as a whole, money laundering "represents a significant threat to the UK's national security".

In November the anti-corruption body Transparency International UK said billions of pounds of "dirty cash" was entering Britain every year.

Reacting to the new proposals, the organisation's executive director Robert Barrington said: "There are some excellent ideas here, but the proof of the pudding will be in whether they are put into action.

"The powers that are envisaged could make a real difference and, while it is important they are properly debated in Parliament to allay any concerns over civil liberties, it is equally important that they are not watered down by self-interested lobbying during the consultation process."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-36098769


Can we have similar money laundering laws in Nigeria and make sure it's effective?[i][/i]

This administration will be a year by end of May, yet nothing, absolutely nothing to show on ground.
Instead PMB has been globetrotting to various countries, what is the purpose of having a foreign ministry?

The tourist president and his fellow co-travellers.

Too much words, we need effective action as the masses are suffering

Even iphone is not exempted in the hacking process...any file can be hacked.

I think the leaking of the Panama papers is an inside job, to be able to get almost 3 tetrabyte of data is not easy even if hacking from a remote location.

The is a generational issue with the House of Saraki which is about to fall like a pack of cards...

I think under the Nigeria pension law, nobody starts to get pension until they are over 55 years...pls someone can confirm.

Beautiful actress, beautiful daughter...wish daughter a very happy marriage life...

This Saraki's CCB trial have really exposed a lot of issues within our political system.

The sh*t have really hit the fan and to many public office holders will be smeared.

Everything is just in millions & billions...yet workers are not been paid their wages every month.

Ex-employees of the defunct Nigeria Airways are yet to receive their package or pensions after almost 20 years of service.

At the end of the day, our public office holders will be extra careful before they get themselves involved in any act of corruption and moving funds overseas....
All avenues are been blocked...from Dubai to Europe to North America...it seems that most countries are taking a different view on money laundering...except they want to take the money to Russia or China.

We need a massive reorientation in this land...everyone inclusive...

It's suprising that the some state legistors voted this charade into law...all ex-governors from 1999 should be probed starting with Tinubu & others...

What must it take to build new refineries in Nigeria with all the petro-dollars?

Four refineries in this country and yet we can't maintain them, maybe its high time private companies are allowed to run refineries to stop all this untold fuel hardship. If Nigeria has got sensible leaders, there should by now be a refinery in every state of the federation.

All previous governments are to be blamed.

If the event is still holding, i think the masses should match down there to protest.
This government have been so insensitive, no update about the economy or the persistent fuel crisis, yet they are hold one useless economic forum.

BY STEPHEN GLOVER

The Panama Papers are sending shockwaves in all directions. David Cameron has still not shown he didn't benefit in the past from his father's offshore tax arrangements.

My guess is he will have to be franker before he convinces his critics that he hasn't somehow been associated with the kind of tax avoidance measures against which he has publicly railed.

But there is another less obvious time-bomb in the Panama Papers that has not yet detonated. When it does, Mr Cameron will have to defend himself on another front.

He is, of course, the great champion of Britain increasing foreign aid at breakneck speed, irrespective of our financial predicament. Last year it stood at £12.2 billion, including an overshoot of nearly £200 million. It is projected to be a staggering £16 billion by 2020.

What is clear from the Panama Papers is that leading politicians from a number of poor countries to which we have given aid possess considerable assets. They have also employed offshore companies.

For example, the daughter of Pakistan's prime minister Nawaz Sharif is named as having been the beneficial owner of flats in Park Lane, one of the most expensive parts of London. Note that in recent years, Pakistan has been among the top three recipients of British aid.

The family of former Sudanese president Ahmed al-Mirgrani own a property in London whose value is not specified. Sudan is one of the poorest countries in the world, and has received £175 million in British aid since 2003.

The wife of Bukola Saraki, president of the Nigerian senate, and his former adviser own two offshore companies that jointly hold a £5.7 million house in London's Belgravia. In 2014, Nigeria was the fifth largest recipient of British aid, to the tune of £237 million.

Also flying the flag for Nigeria is Mallam Bello Gwandu, a former director of the Nigerian Ports Authority. A British Virgin Islands company owned by him holds a flat in Maida Vale, another much sought-after area of the capital.

Nor should we forget Folorunsho Coker, a former head of the Number Plate Production Authority in Lagos, who owns a £1.65 million property in agreeable Fulham.[/i]

And so it goes on. A £2.8 million house near London's Sloane Square belongs to Ayad Allawi, a former prime minister of Iraq, a country in which much British blood and treasure have been invested.

Kalpana Rawal, the deputy chief justice of Kenya (recipient of £135 million of British aid in 2014), was a director or shareholder in four offshore companies, some of which bought and sold property in Britain.

There are hundreds of officials and politicians from Third World countries mentioned in the Panama Papers. Some of them come from oil-rich Arab countries that do not receive British aid.

The ones that concern me here come from poorer countries to which we do give considerable sums of money. Needless to say, I am not suggesting these people are guilty of diverting British aid or their own government funds.

But it is disturbing that officials and politicians from poor countries in receipt of aid should be buying up choice houses and flats in the richest parts of London, thereby pushing up property prices beyond the reach of most British- born people.

Wealthy foreigners from the Third World are apparently using offshore companies in order to minimise their tax liabilities in their own countries, which they are thereby depriving of much-needed tax revenue. The hard-pressed British taxpayer is effectively being asked to make up some of the difference in the form of aid.

There is, of course, already lots of evidence of the misuse of public funds in the Third World. President Jacob Zuma of South Africa has just been found guilty of half-inching nearly £14 million of public money to improve his private home. With the support of his ruling ANC party, he has escaped impeachment.

Over the past decade, the UK has given tens of millions of pounds in aid to South Africa, though it has now ceased. The South African president may not have been literally pocketing our money, but he was indirectly defrauding the British taxpayer.[i]

No less shocking is the case of Rwanda, an impoverished country that has received hundreds of millions of pounds of British aid. Its president, Paul Kagame, doesn't stint on his own comforts and hires a jet for his frequent foreign travels. This disagreeable man, who has cracked down on a free Press, was once a favourite of David Cameron and the Tory hierarchy.

The Panama Papers state that Kagame's former physician, security adviser and spokesman, Brigadier General Emmanuel Ndahiro, has allegedly owned a jet aircraft as well as property abroad.

Will David Cameron, and his fellow foreign aid zealot George Osborne, pause for a moment, and consider this new evidence? They should ask themselves how officials and politicians in dirt-poor countries are able to buy expensive houses in London.

Their commitment to expanding foreign aid while other budgets are squeezed originates in a desire conceived more than a decade ago to 'de-toxify' the image of the Conservative Party. Mr Cameron believed that if Britain undertook to meet a United Nations target of 0.7 per cent of GDP a year, voters would be persuaded that the Tories were no longer 'nasty'.

Has this worked? I hardly think so. In fact, I believe that Cameron and Osborne's pig-headed determination to increase foreign aid during a period of belt-tightening is having precisely the opposite effect to the one they intended.

Many people, including a growing number on the Left, are aghast that money cannot be found for pressing causes closer to home while ever larger sums are lavished on often corrupt Third World countries where there is little or no accountability.

For example, Britain spends nearly £250 million a year supporting industry in developing countries — some 3.5 per cent of the soaring aid budget. Nigeria is a major beneficiary, with leather exporters there receiving tens of millions of pounds from our Department for International Development.

Some, possibly most, of this money is misspent. An investigation on BBC Radio 4 revealed that a 700 per cent increase in Nigerian leather exports, largely to Italy, was exaggerated by filling containers with rocks to collect cash coming from huge aid subsidies.[i][/i]

And yet money cannot be found — or at any rate has not been found so far — to keep alive the strategically important steel plant in Port Talbot on which the livelihoods of thousands of British people depend.

Aid is lavished on countries whose politicians and officials are mysteriously able to buy expensive properties in London while our own people are asked to make sacrifice after sacrifice.

A couple of days ago, a major study warned that GP surgeries are reaching 'saturation point' and can't cope with the rapidly rising population.

Will Cameron and Osborne ever understand the rage of ordinary Britons facing such adversity? I am sure they are decent men, but I don't think their desire to splurge so much aid money is chiefly attributable to humanitarian concern. No, first and foremost they hoped it would look good.

But it doesn't. It looks increasingly bad. They never express any outrage at stories of waste and corruption in countries to which we give aid, and they show scant concern when people in this country are in need of help.

I understand that ever-rising foreign aid is a cornerstone of their political credo to which they blindly cling. But, actually, their addiction to what I believe is an immoral cause will be more and more interpreted as proof of hard-heartedness and remoteness from their own people — clear evidence that the nasty Tories have not changed.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-3527405/STEPHEN-GLOVER-irony-Cameron-s-obduracy-foreign-aid-proves-Tories-nasty-party.html

It seems most banks in Nigeria encourage money laundering...based on the evidence of cash deposits made in dollars in a single day.

The Central Bank of Nigeria should look into this quickly.

The same search light should be beamed to other ex-governors who are still receiving extra income from their states.

Indeed, Saraki is very greedy.
More exposures to follow.

When will David Mark & other politicians named in the panama papers offer their resignation?

As public office holders they are not above the law. Our politicians are shameless...i don't have respect for anyone of them.

Icelandic PM just resigned over the panama papers.

At least we know that footballers & entertainers are legimately earning their income, but are dodging paying taxes which itself is a criminal offence.

By the way Lionel Messi is undergoing trials in Spain based on tax evasion done for him by his dad.

Heads must roll...i mean literally...

At this rate, Nnamdi Kanu will spend up to a year in custody even before his trial commences...then factor another year for the trial & presenting of witnesses, counter-appeals, adjournment & prosponement...very likely that before the sentencing date Nnamdi Kanu will have spent up to 3 years in custody...

Anyway he believed in his 'Biafra freedom', so he has to fight for it!!!

Our politicians no get shame at all...shame on them for approving corruption...

unlawfulact:
What is happening to saraki now is not really about his emergence as senate president neither is it about genuine concern to fight corruption using him as a scape goat. Ther truth is saraki is seen as a strong contender a man to beat in 2019 hence the need to shut him down by all means. Are u not susprise that nasir el rufai offers to be a witness against saraki. He might not be jailed eventually but they must have suceeded in damaging its reputation.

Likely, his reputation has already been been battered & damaged...even if he remains the Senate President until 2019, he should just forget about contesting for the Presidency.

Saraki's case like other politicians in this country is very simple to decide without wasting too much resources on court appearances.

The Federal Government should ask for the tax clearance for all the companies owned by the Saraki family, review the companies operations, and look into the financial statements...i guess within a month the truth will be out.

For over 6 months now, the CCT have allowed Saraki & his bunch of legal team have their time in the various court of appeal. All have come to a fruitless end, now the trial must begin.

I hope if & when judgement is passed, nobody will say that Saraki's human rights have been denied, or that the presidency is not allowing him to defend himself properly.

This is serious, depositing ₦4bn in one account!!!!

The latest gist is on Saraki, he has stepped on the toes of many powerful people both in PDP & APC & they are ready to deal with him ruthlessly. So we should not assume that his present delimma is only from the APC party, even his late dad 'cursed' him.

Politicians will always be politicians...looking for the best place where their bread will be buttered.
I think after Tope Aluko didn't get any favours from APC, he has no other option but to return to Fayose.

The funds for the cheques, are they from his personal account or government account?

A great man indeed...if he had been given the chance...Nigeria would have been like Singapore, a nation who got independence around the same time as Nigeria.