Don't let the corrupt hide behind shell companies, UN members urged

 

In her first address to the UN General Assembly, Center to Combat Corruption and Corruption (C4) executive director Cynthia Gabriel called upon its member states to develop solutions to further strengthen the international anti-corruption framework.

Towards this, Gabriel urged them to introduce public registries of beneficial company owners including corrupt individuals so that the latter could not hide behind secret shell companies.

She also urged them to guarantee full protection for whistleblowers, civil society organisations and journalists.

"Whistleblowers, investigative journalists and anti-corruption activists play a central role in exposing and calling out corruption at the highest levels.

"Yet my colleagues and I were repeatedly intimidated, attacked and arrested by the authorities.

"We were persecuted simply because we followed the money trail, spoke up, published articles and mobilised the public to demand answers," Gabriel said.

"We overcame the fear, the reprisals and retribution."

Gabriel, who is the founding member of C4, also served as the vice-chair for the UNCAC (UN Convention Against Corruption) coalition.

She joined four others to present a three-minute speech at the assembly's  'Special Session of the General Assembly on Challenges and Measures to Prevent and Combat Corruption and Strengthen International Cooperation' which convened in New York from June 2 to 4.

Gabriel said they managed to score important victories with Malaysia's former prime minister Najib Abdul Razak and his cohorts in the 1MDB scandal having been charged and put on trial.

Najib, who was the chairperson of 1MDB, has since been convicted and slapped with a 12-year jail sentence for the seven criminal charges related to SRC International Sdn Bhd, a subsidiary of 1MDB.

He is currently appealing against his conviction.

Gabriel noted that in too many grand corruption cases around the world, powerful individuals and many in the business of facilitating corruption continued to "enjoy impunity."

This was due to the "devastating compromise of national institutions by executive power, corruption involving financing of political parties, secret negotiations over asset recoveries, gaping holes between domestic jurisdictions, poor intelligence sharing and pitiable commitments to international cooperation".

"These have left perpetrators ample room to run and hide from criminal action, pointing to a colossal failure in the international framework to tackle impunity and address cross transnational corruption," Gabriel said.

She also expressed disappointment that there was no consensus among all member states to use the assembly to agree on measures that would have resulted in substantive progress in strengthening international corporation.

She called on member states to ensure that their oversight bodies plus their judiciaries were adequately resourced and independent so that they could "act without undue political interference".

"To mandate the publication of declarations of assets and detect conflicts of interest, to increase transparency over efforts to recover and return stolen assets," said Gabriel.

"And to take enforcement action to end the impunity of powerful individuals involved in grand corruption," she added,

"We ask you to go beyond the lowest common denominator in your efforts and to make this political declaration a success," she stressed, urging them to include civil society as partners in their efforts.

Gabriel said Malaysia was once a booming economy but had been embroiled in the "notoriety of multiple corruption schemes" including the 1MDB scandal that stretched over multiple countries and jurisdictions.

She said the fiasco involved a slew of agents, commercial banks and international law firms that helped hide billions of stolen cash in offshore jurisdictions using shell companies that stole money for private and political gain.

Gabriel also said civil society was willing to stand ready to support anti-corruption efforts.

"To ensure that grand corruption cases such as the 1MDB will no longer occur or go unpunished, not in Malaysia, or anywhere else." - Mkini