Islam is the real positive change that you need to change for being a better person or a perfect human being, you can change yourself if you read QURAN, IF YOU DO THAT !! you will change this UMMAH, say I am not A Sunni or Shia, BUT I am just a MUSLIM. Be a walking QURAN among human-being AND GUIDE THEM TO THE RIGHT PATH.
The prevailing narratives about corruption in Nigeria rarely mention
its international dimension. They tend to gloss over how the United
Kingdom, United States, and other financial centers welcome the steady
stream of illicit cash flowing out Africa’s largest economy.
Yet the country’s kleptocrats are increasingly exploiting weaknesses
in the international financial system to launder and conceal their
ill-gotten gains, often via high-end real estate in London, New York,
and Dubai.This month’s release of the Paradise Papers—a juicy sequel to last year’s Panama Papers leak—is a glaring reminder of how offshore tax havens and secrecy jurisdictions facilitate corruption in developing countries like Nigeria. According to Global Witness,
the top five jurisdictions implicated in the Papers, are all UK
Overseas Territories or Crown Dependencies like the British Virgin
Islands, Jersey, and the Isle of Man.
Nigeria
has lost an estimated $230 billion or more in illegal financial
outflows since 2004: equal to $1,280 for every Nigerian citizen.
Expatriating stolen funds to offshore tax havens and secrecy
jurisdictions not only sucks value out Nigeria’s economy, it makes
stolen funds harder to find and puts pressure on the value of the
naira—Nigeria’s flagging currency.
“That’s no moon…”
Recently dubbed “The Death Star of Global Kleptocracy”,
London is not just the world’s banking capital, it is also a global
focal point for corruptly-acquired wealth. Corrupt officials from around
the world find the UK attractive because of its lax corporate and
property laws, anemic anti-money laundering safeguards, and the variety
of posh neighborhoods. Nigeria has lost an estimated $230 billion or more in illegal financial outflows since 2004: equal to $1,280 for every citizen. At
least £4.2 billion ($5.6 billion) worth of UK properties have been
bought with suspicious wealth from around the world—likely just a tiny
fraction of the total, estimates Transparency International. Decades of such property acquisitions by absentee foreign owners have had a profound impact on London, creating “ghost neighborhoods” where many high-end homes sit empty.
Although
it is difficult to gauge what percentage of suspicious properties are
owned by Nigerian kleptocrats.The examples below have been derived from
corporate, property, and other public records in the UK and Nigeria.
Since these property holdings may be of interest to international law
enforcement, the names are being withheld.:
Three swanky apartments collectively worth over $10 million
linked to Nigeria’s former oil minister, Diezani Alison-Madueke. Two of
the flats were bought by anonymous briefcase companies registered in The
Seychelles and paid for with loan from a Nigerian bank known to
facilitate such deals.
Three UK properties worth about $7 million in total associated with a
senior legislator. One of these residences is owned by his personal
foundation, another in his wife, and the most expensive is held by an
anonymous shell company.
A multi-million pound jet hangar at a major UK airport and London
flat owned by one of Nigeria’s most notorious political godfathers.
Implicated in contract fraud, election rigging, corrupting judges, and
bribing foreign officials, this individual has a wide financial
footprint in the UK.
A high-end flat in West London held under a fake name used by the
son of a former Nigerian head of state. Several UK criminal money
laundering and bank fraud cases identify this individual and his
pseudonym.
The London laundromat
Why do corrupt Nigeria elites looking to stash their loot find London so attractive?
Home
to the world’s snazziest neighborhoods, London has a massive luxury
property markets through which large sums of money can be laundered in a
single transaction. London’s expensive housing market does not
discourage kleptocrats from investing, finds Transparency International.
On the contrary, it offers opportunities to launder huge sums of money
at a time.
Buying an opulent home in London is a relatively low-risk investment.
These properties not only symbolize wealth and respectability, their
value often appreciates significantly over time. Such properties can
also be used to generate rental income or launder additional money via
bogus leases.
UK law allows anyone to purchase property using anonymous offshore companies or complex multi-layered corporate structures. According to the country’s former top anti-corruption cop,
this permissive system frustrates law enforcement: “the lack of access
to beneficial ownership information about offshore companies…is a major
barrier for our investigations. Investigators may spend months and years
attempting to peel back layers of secrecy in order to uncover how the
proceeds of corruption are being laundered…”
Stemming the tide
What can the UK, United States, and other global financial centers do
to wean themselves off of corrupt cash? Because their financial systems
are such permissive operating environments, even beefed-up law
enforcement and financial intelligence efforts almost certainly won’t
stop kleptocrats from trying to exploit them.
To disrupt the flow of corrupt cash from Nigeria and beyond, British
and American lawmakers need to issue directives or enact legislation
that eliminates home-grown secrecy jurisdictions like the British Virgin
Islands and Delaware.
They also should create public beneficial ownership registries and
expand the range of legal and administrative tools available to identify
and investigate suspicious financial and property transactions.
UK lawmakers took a step in the right direction last year when they created a potent new legal tool–the Unexplained Wealth Order (UWO).
This mechanism empowers UK prosecutors to force–for example–a Nigerian
politician who owns a multi-million pound London flat to explain how he
acquired wealth far in excess of his official salary. If he refuses or
inadequately responds then the UWO could be used in a separate legal
process to seize the official’s suspect assets under the Proceeds of Crime Act.
First line of defense
Although law enforcement efforts have room to expand, Western
diplomats on the ground in Nigeria could be doing more to help identify
kleptocrats and prevent them from establishing financial footprints
abroad. Both UK and US officials have the power to deny travel visas to
Nigerian kleptocrats on the basis of credible corruption allegations or
unexplained wealth, but rarely do so. Under UK Immigration Rules,
for example, the Home Secretary has wide discretionary powers to
exclude non-citizens from the UK when it is “conducive to the public
good”. Existing immigration policy guidance
allows officials to withhold visas from individuals linked to “proceeds
of crime and finances of questionable origins” and “corruption”.
Though by no means a silver bullet—or a substitute for fixing
corporate and property laws—visa bans should be a foundational element
of any UK or U.S. anti-corruption strategy. Until kleptocrats from
countries like Nigeria are stopped from visiting their luxury homes or
spending their ill-gotten gains in cities like London, their “Death
Star” reputation will be hard to shake. Sign up for the Quartz Africa Weekly Brief — the most important and interesting news from across the continent, in your inbox.
The global healthcare spectrum: from inefficient to efficient
Source: The Commonwealth Fund, Bloomberg Healthcare Efficiency Index
hong kong
88.9Efficiency Score
5.4%Healthcare cost as % of GDP
Hong Kong enjoys the benefits of being one of the
healthiest places on the globe: Residents enjoy a life expectancy of
85.9 years for women and 80 years for men, making it overall the third
highest in the world. Much of healthcare spending is paid for by its
progressive income tax and free treatment is available to all citizens.
Still, residents are encouraged to hold private insurance to get more
comprehensive care and keep from overloading the public system.
Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy
The
US healthcare structure continues to be the focus of intense debate,
centered on both its effectiveness and its fairness. In the past decade
or so, that conversation has only become more heated as factions square
off about the degree to which the government should be involved, if at
all.
It’s certainly no surprise that passions run deep. But setting aside
political or ideological views, at some point most of us are going to
depend on the broader healthcare system. To hope for quality care at a
fair price seems like a reasonable expectation. What’s more, the
economic impact of healthcare policy could be staggering. According to
data from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Institute for
Health Metrics and Evaluation, global spending on health could jump to $18 trillion in 2040, up from about $8 trillion in 2013.
Given its global importance, it’s imperative that the key
stakeholders involved in the healthcare discussion consider all options
and also examine systems that have shown success in other parts of the
world. One of those places is Singapore.
Why Singapore?
In 2017, the Bloomberg Global Health Index ranked Singapore as number
4 in the world, bolstered by a long life expectancy of 81 years, and
low infant mortality rate of 1.5 per 1,000 live births. Another
Bloomberg index of the world’s most efficient healthcare systems ranked Singapore first in 2014 and second in 2017, behind only Hong Kong. (The US came in at 50th on the 55-country list.)
What differentiates the small island’s healthcare system
from those in other large, developed countries? Dr. Kai Hong Phua of
the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, cites three key reasons: …global spending on health could jump to $18 trillion in 2040, up from about $8 trillion in 2013.1) The Public-Private Balance. Singapore’s universal
health coverage system is largely overseen by the government’s Ministry
of Health, but also includes support from citizens and the private
sector. “The Singapore government has experimented with a host of
different reforms which reflect evolving stages of socioeconomic
development, as well as changing priorities in public health—from
environmental measures to personal lifestyles and healthcare
consumption,” says Dr. Phua. The government also weighs its citizens’
values as a social determinant of health: there is a cultural emphasis
on family support in Singapore, which brings with it a strong support
network. 2) Sustainable Financing. The government adopts a diversified but integrated approach which includes:
Tax measures that pay for accessible public health services and subsidize indigent coverage;
Individual saving plans for acute medical care consumption, and;
Defined coverage for medical insurance.
The latter only covers catastrophic care, which can help avoid the
pitfalls of “moral hazard” (when consumers purchase additional
unnecessary care because they’re insured) in comprehensive plans, as
well as adverse selection—both of which are typical of private
insurance. Subsequently, there are cost-sharing features on both the
supply and demand sides of healthcare. 3) Strong Regulatory Governance. Though it
encourages free market competition and choice, the government makes
substantial targeted investments in areas where market failures would
make healthcare costs unaffordable. Because it controls the dominant
public hospitals and supply of doctors, there is less emphasis in
Singapore to protect the interests of the private sector through
supplier-induced demand.
A Roadmap for the Rest of the World?
Many American observers—including William Haseltine, in his 2013 book
examining Singapore’s healthcare—said the island’s system might offer a
glimpse of how healthcare could look in other parts of the developed
world. While those observers may have focused particularly on aspects
like cost-sharing or personal responsibility incentives, the key seems
to be the quality of government oversight in Singapore’s public policy
implementation. And the collective accumulation of savings for
healthcare, especially in old age, may be the salvation for increasingly
expensive medical systems in ageing societies.
But others—like Dr. Phua—suggest that Haseltine’s optimistic
Singapore appraisal may be too focused on the potential solutions it can
offer the US healthcare system, rather than investigate its grounding
principles. Haseltine glosses over some crucial tenets
of the Singapore’s system success: it thrives because its society
embraces public health as well as disease prevention, and its health
financing scheme epitomizes good governance.
Still, Haseltine notes some factors that may be transferable to other
countries’ health systems, especially those facing large demographic
shifts. “Today, the emphasis is on planning for the coming demographic
crises using the same cross-ministry approach that has worked so well in
the past,” Haseltine said in “Affordable Excellence: The Singapore Healthcare Story”.
“How can the current system be adapted to provide excellent care for
the elderly at a cost the country can afford? This is the central issue
for all developed economies. Those planning for the future might well
look to Singapore for ideas on how to prepare for the challenges ahead.”
Indeed, Dr. Phua notes the importance of adjusting the various
“control knobs” of healthcare financing in order to achieve the proper
balance in the system in the future. That is, allocating proper
resources to the poor and the elderly, more robust lifelong savings to
generate further resources for future aging needs, and insurance to
provide greater risk pooling to cover high-cost catastrophic illnesses.
This helps to avoid public cutbacks and rationing, or widening gaps
between generations and the haves and have-nots.
“Notably, Singaporeans believe in good governance and support
stronger regulation and information-sharing within the health sector.
They want to enjoy old age with greater peace of mind—with good health
and medical care at affordable prices,” he said.
That sounds like a model that could work for the rest of the world. For additional insights on Singapore’s health policy experience, visit Global-Is-Asian. This article was produced on behalf of the Lee Kuan Yew School of
Public Policy by Quartz Creative and not by the Quartz editorial staff.
