Maravi

(GREENPEACE) Conning The Congo

FALSE ACCOUNTING –
THE DANZER GROUP’S TRICKS OF THE TRADE The Danzer Group is owned by the German Danzer family, but based in Switzerland. Previous Greenpeace International reports on the Danzer Group have exposed the company’s involvement in activities including trading in illegal timber, bribery and dealing with a timber trader blacklisted by the United Nations Security Council for illegal arms trafficking in Liberia.

Now it is the turn of the Group’s financial affairs to come under the spotlight.

Internal Danzer Group documents show in great detail the price fixing arrangements between the Group’s Swiss-based trading arm Interholco AG and the parent firm’s logging subsidiaries in the DRC and the Republic of the Congo. The DRC-based Siforco sells its wood to Interholco at an official price below the true market value of the wood. The shortfall is made up through unofficial payments into offshore bank accounts in Europe, enabling the Danzer Group to evade the payment of a variety of taxes to which it is liable in the DRC. Greenpeace International has evidence that the trick has been concealed by encoding the full market prices shown on order sheets and price lists, and by issuing official invoices that show only the local price while the offshore payment is invoiced internally.

... exposing the social chaos and environmental destruction brought about by the logging sector operating in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Carving up the Congo was released at a time when all logging titles in the DRC were beginning to be evaluated under a World Bank-sponsored legal review process, which is still ongoing.

This new investigative report exposes another hidden aspect of exportdriven resource extraction in the DRC and the neighbouring Republic of the Congo. Internal company documents obtained by Greenpeace International show how the German owned, Swiss-based logging multinational Danzer Group, one of the largest players in the Congo logging sector, is using an elaborate profit-laundering system designed to move income out of Africa and into offshore bank accounts, thereby appearing to evade tax payments in the countries in which its companies operate.

Moreover, evidence has also been uncovered of various other questionable means employed by the Group to minimise its tax burden in those countries

©Greenpeace/Davison

http://www.greenpeace.org/raw/content/international/press/reports/conning-the-congo.pdf

Labels: CORPORATIONS, DRC, GREENPEACE, LOGGING

posted by MrK @ 7:46 PM