Food for thought.
Things are never simple in oil-rich and poverty-striken Nigeria. Wait, how can those two things go together? That’s right, little old Colin Corruption has come out to play. Corruption described by Human Rights Watch as being “rampant and endemic”. In fact the Inspector-General of Nigerian Police was forced to retire because of accusations that he pocketed nearly N1.7 billion (equivalent to £7,475,756) from public funds. One of the few people who seemed to be trying to stop this was Ruhu Ribadu, the head of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission in Nigeria. At one point the EFCC had 31 state governers in Nigeria under investigation – bear in mind that there are only 36 in total. It’s also investigated the daughter of former president Iyabo Obasanjo-Bello as to how $300,000 managed to vanish from the Ministry of Health. Ribadu was soon thrown out of government.
Furthermore the American company KBR has been accused of bribing Nigerian officials in order to build a natural gas plant. KBR was forced to pay $420m in fines for this. KBR has also been accused of political corruption in the US (Lyndon Johnson had a close relationship with them, they gave him campaign funds and they got construction contracts), avoid paying its taxes by using shell companies in the tax haven of the Cayman Islands, professional negligence in Iraq, endemic sexual abuse towards female workers, human trafficking, and exposing US soldiers to asbestos fumes.
Wow.
You’d imagine America would be pretty ashamed of these abuses.
Nope.
They hold a larger contract with the US Government than with any firm in Iraq.
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