OpeOluwani Akintayo
27 August 2017, Sweetcrude, Lagos —The oil, gas, and mining industry ranks as the most corrupt sector on the planet, according to international statistics.
According to Global Witness, the extractive sector has the most bribery cases, with 19% of the total. The group then called on the sector to be transparent in its dealings especially in terms of revenues and awarding of contracts instead of money being siphoned into pockets of few.
“The extractives sector has the most bribery cases, with 19% of the total. For Global Witness, this is not surprising. For 20 years we’ve campaigned for transparency in the oil, gas and mining business to ensure that these vast sums of money benefit civilians rather than disappearing into the pockets of a small, corrupt elite. The solutions include transparency over payments made by the industry to governments and much better information on who gets awarded lucrative contracts,” it said.
The group said three-quarters of the cases involved intermediaries who helped to funnel the bribe money.
In 35% of the cases, these intermediaries were companies, often located in offshore tax havens, saying the crucial role that anonymous company ownership plays in bribery and corruption is enormous.
“It is incredibly easy for corrupt politicians, and other criminals, to use secretive company structures to hide their involvement in dodgy deals.
It said senior management was involved in making the decision to pay a bribe in over half of the cases.
“Corruption can go right to the top of organisations and senior managers often play an active role in any criminality. It’s really important that senior managers are properly incentivized to stamp out corruption and criminality”, it said.
Over 80% of bribes were promised, offered or paid to officials from state-owned enterprises (SOEs).
According to the group, it should not come as a surprise to anyone in fighting corruption, that state-owned company pose a particular risk.
“They’re often opaque, while those who should be holding them to account frequently have their hands in the till. However, it is shocking that they represent such a large proportion of the total cases”, it said.
