Abuse of govt resources for campaigns
By The Post
Wed 08 June 2011, 04:00 CAT
There is little doubt that being in government and in control of state resources and public institutions gives the ruling party and its candidates certain advantages that their challengers are unable to match.
Phineas Bbala, a public administration lecturer at the University of Zambia, is right when he says that Zambians will continue witnessing abuse of state resources and public institutions by those in power for party activities in the name of government projects for as long as there remains no clear separation of the two.
There is no doubt that the ruling MMD is using taxpayers’ funds for political activities rather than government purposes. Recently, government ministers were all over the country with government motor vehicles and support staff on MMD electoral and organisation business.
The taxpayer was paying for all this. This should not be allowed to continue. A thick line needs to be drawn between MMD and government business, and it needs to be done soon. Levelling the political playing field will require creating a thick line marking a distinction between the government and the ruling party. Lack of a distinction between ruling party campaign activities and government business creates a climate of abuse and unfairness.
We do appreciate that the party in power may enjoy the advantages of incumbency, but the rules and conduct of the election contest must be fair.
There are some legitimate arguments that it is difficult to establish a dividing line between when the president’s itinerary is purely party political since he also has to discharge his duties as a head of state all the time. It is further argued that the constitutional responsibilities of the president dictate that the incumbent shall be on duty 24 hours a day and seven days a week.
And this makes it impossible for the president to separate his party political responsibilities from his official government responsibilities. Whereas this may be understandable, what about his ministers and other party functionaries who accompany him using these and additional government resources and facilities?
And Bbala is calling for new laws to stop this practice. We don’t think the problem is really of laws.
It is much more a question of enforcement of the law. We say this because the electoral Act number 12 of 2006 and the Electoral Code of Conduct 2006 prohibit any person from using state resources for political party campaigns, but give the president and vice-president an exclusive right to use state resources. Section 7 (k) provides that “…a person shall not use government or parastatal transport or facility for campaign purposes; provided this paragraph shall not apply to use by the president and the vice-president in connection to their offices”.
Despite this prohibition, those in power have continued to use, or rather abuse, government resources and facilities in their election campaigns. In the 2008 presidential elections, Rupiah Banda and the MMD abused government resources and facilities with impunity. Rupiah’s team of image builders was moving in a Ministry of Health motor vehicle. Photographs of them using a government-owned motor vehicle were taken and published by this newspaper. But no action was taken against anyone.
In short, the law was not enforced in any way. Rupiah had friends from the opposition who were supporting him and they travelled with him using government resources and facilities – sometimes even having a second helicopter for those who accompanied him. Rupiah personally distributed sugar, mealie- meal, cooking oil and other things, bought with government money, at election campaign rallies. The then Attorney General, Mumba Malila, advised that this was wrong but they continued doing so in total disregard of his legal advice.
Probably there is need to understand the background to our people’s opposition to those in power abusing public resources and facilities in their election campaigns. In 1991, the MMD proclaimed that once in power, they would eliminate the unfair access to state resources by the party in power.
However, once in power, the MMD did not address the issue and deliberate misuse of state resources continued. After Levy Mwanawasa came to power in 2001, his government, in response to public demands, initiated electoral reforms to enhance transparency and level the playing field. This culminated in the passing of the electoral Act in 2006 and the Electoral Code of Conduct 2006.
Although there is this law, those in power have continued to operate as if nothing stops them from using public resources and facilities in their bid for re-election. The reason why the President and the vice-president were allowed to use government facilities even during their election campaigns were for security. But we have seen an abuse of all this. We saw it in 2008 when Rupiah used government helicopters and planes as if there was no restriction on their use.
His friends were flying around in these planes and helicopters as if they were part of his security team. Some of these were not even government officials. But he carried them around on his campaigns at additional costs to the taxpayer, taking advantage of these privileges in ways that directly support partisan purposes and disadvantage the opposition.
It cannot be denied that it is these abuses of public resources and facilities that have kept the MMD in power for this long, making it very difficult for the opposition to effectively challenge them.
This explains why our electoral politics have been one-dimensional, requiring a revolution or an uprising to change government. This defeats the whole purpose of having a multi-party political dispensation.
With such practices, we will continue having a political party dominating the politics of our country for a very long time even when they have lost the legitimacy to govern. The opposition should not be made to be effectively competing with the state when they participate in elections.
Clearly, there is urgent need to limit or stop these abuses of incumbency because it is not good for democracy; it is not good for good governance, transparency and accountability. We need to put in place mechanisms that can ensure the playing field is levelled and the abuse of taxpayers’ money for political purposes is avoided.
Labels: CAMPAIGN FINANCE, SEPARATISM
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It’s illegal to use public funds for campaigns - Chitala
By Chibaula Silwamba
Sat 28 May 2011, 04:01 CAT
RUPIAH Banda and the MMD’s use of public resources and chiefs to campaign for their re-election will not work, says Mbita Chitala. Commenting on ministers’ 21-day countrywide campaign trail under the pretext that they are touring government projects, Chitala, a former deputy minister of finance and one-time ambassador to Libya, said use of public resources for political campaigns was illegal.
“Abuse of public resources is not only unlawful, it is also immoral and should be condemned by all democracy loving people,” Chitala said.
He said the Electoral Code of Conduct prohibited chiefs from taking partisan positions.
Chitala said use of public resources and chiefs’ involvement in partisan politics was punishable.
“The country has gone back to the authoritarian system of the one party state of UNIP,” Chitala said.
He said President Banda’s MMD had eroded all the gains from the reintroduction of multiparty democracy attained in 1991.
“Chiefs are traditional leaders for all of us, be it in opposition or ruling party, so they should show that leadership by being above politics. Chiefs are too senior to be intertwined in politics. They should be fair to all of us as their children,” Chitala said.
“It is not good for chiefs to be partisan. Chiefs that are partisan will not have respect from their subjects.”
The MMD has been parading chiefs on the state-run Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation (ZNBC) TV to endorse the re-election bid of President Banda.
Labels: CAMPAIGN FINANCE, CHIEFS, CORRUPTION, MBITA CHITALA, SEPARATION OF POWERS
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MDC-T stalwart quits
Monday, 25 April 2011 22:58
MASHAKADA
By Isdore Guvamombe
A BRITISH business tycoon who has been co-ordinating MDC-T funding and support in the United Kingdom since 2007 has made a last minute U-turn against supporting the party and its congress slated for Thursday.
Alan Fish (57), the powerful managing director of water cooler installation company Cool Water Direct described the party as a bunch of crooks "who cheat on their own elections".
He confesses coming to Zimbabwe twice to give financial, technical and moral support to MDC-T during and after the 2008 harmonised elections.
Fish was expected to arrive in the country yesterday, ahead of the party congress and was quoted in the media last week confirming that he would attend the congress before witnessing the epic "cheating on Saturday".
"I am going on April 25 to the MDC congress which they hold every five years. I will be there for just a week. I am hoping to get involved with the politics of MDC a bit closer."
Fish, also calls himself "MDC ambassador to the white British community" and is credited for sponsoring several MDC-T meetings in and outside the UK - including four recent meetings in Yorkshire - for a number of years.
Recently he sponsored an MDC rally attended by 50 people at his Smith Farm in High Flatts.
He has since communicated to the party in London that he was shocked by the party's cheating during elections held in the UK branch recently and conducted by party national chairman and Speaker of the House of Assembly Mr Lovemore Moyo.
Fish attended the elections.
" . . . the (UK) elections overtook everything.
"You have proved yourselves to be no better than Zanu. My support was total and an ambassador for you in the white British community but after what I witnessed on Saturday, I cannot support a party who even cheats at its own election."
The UK branch election in question was a sham election in which Mr Moyo openly allowed many non-qualifying people to vote, resulting in an outgoing leader Tonderai Samanyanga being controversially re-endorsed by Moyo as winner despite strong protests and request to have a vote recount.
Fish is one of the several MDC-T handlers in the United Kingdom and in 2008 he held an Anti-Mugabe rally at his farm in which he invited Kirklees Tory councillor Jim Dodds to speak alongside then MDC UK deputy leader Emily Madamombe.
He also claims to be very close to Economic Planning Minister Tapiwa Mashakada, whom Fish claims he helped win a seat in Hatfield in 2008.
Labels: CAMPAIGN FINANCE, MDC, MORGAN TSVANGIRAI
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Money destroying our party: Tsvangirai
by Staff Reporter
17/04/2011 00:00:00
PRIME Minister Morgan Tsvangirai has blasted senior MDC-T officials using money to manipulate voters and win senior positions as the party battles to contain internal strife ahead of its national congress to be held at Barbourfields Stadium at the end of the month.
Speaking in Masvingo where provincial election results had to be nullified as two warring factions fight for control Tsvangirai warned that officials using money to buy votes risked being thrown out of the party.
“Our party is being destroyed by some individuals who are abusing their financial muscles to buy loyalty of people thereby splitting our movement,” Tsvangirai said.
“Our party when we formed it had no money and was a party of the poor with a vision to represent the poor in the country but since the coming in of some people with money the party is dividing, money is splitting our party.”
[That was before they discovered the joys of neoliberal economics - deregulation, privatisation and free markets for transnational capital. - MrK]
The MDC-T leader said party structures needed to unite ahead of crucial national elections expected later this year and threatened to dismiss officials fanning factionalism.
“I want to warn all those who are using money to fane factionalism that they have no place in MDC. Any one who will be caught doing that will be expelled from the party because we do not have time to deal with people who want to pull back the struggle,” he said.
“We should be united and strengthen our party so that when we fight our enemy we will be very strong,” he added.
Elections results in several provinces had to be nullified after they were marred by violence between supporters of rival candidates.
State Enterprises minister Gorden Moyo’s victory in Bulawayo had to be cancelled following pitched battles between his supporters and those of his rival, Matson Hlalo, whom he piped by 10 votes.
Three party activists were arrested in the violent skirmishes which left a senior official hospitalised.
The MDC-T was also forced to roll back election results in Masvingo and Midlands North where more clashes took place, while an examination of the Manicaland results was being carried out.
Labels: BRIBERY, CAMPAIGN FINANCE, MDC, MORGAN TSVANGIRAI
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Rupiah asks for campaign funds from Zambian diplomats
By Chibaula Silwamba in Chisamba
Fri 15 Apr. 2011, 04:02 CAT
PRESIDENT Rupiah Banda yesterday openly asked Zambia’s Ambassadors and High Commissioners accredited to various countries to donate money to his and the MMD's campaigns in this year’s elections and commended them for funding the just-ended MMD convention.
And President Rupiah Banda disclosed that his first-born son, Andrew, was recalled from diplomatic service in the 1990s because he did not heed his advice not to get involved in gossip, warning envoys to be wary of engaging in false talks.
Addressing Zambia's Ambassadors and High Commissioners at the on-going conference at Protea Hotel, President Banda said the MMD convention was wonderful because of the financial support from Zambia's envoys and urged them to contribute more money towards his campaigns.
“I just want to take this opportunity to thank many of you who have sent whatever little assistance you have to the party. The Ambassador to the EU Inonge Mbikusita Lewanika was telling me that the convention was wonderful; it was wonderful because of those little monies that you sent to us,” President Banda said. “We spent all this money in order to ensure that our party has an open convention. I am saying little only as a description but we are so appreciative as the party that you sent us this support.”
President Banda said the MMD was able to hold the convention with the support of envoys and local party supporters.
“We still need your support as we go forward because of the elections which are there this year and we are going to need money for fuel to move, we are going to need money to feed our cadres, we are going to need money for materials for the campaign; we are going to need a lot of help, so whatever organisation you can make in order to support us we will really appreciate. Thank you very much for the support you have given us so far,” said President Banda.
President Banda also disclosed that he had continued to receive reports about squabbles in embassies.
“These squabbles are mainly emanating from a lack of team spirit and petty jealousies among embassy staff,” President Banda said.
And President Banda also said as a former diplomat, he had advised his son Andrew about how to behave while in foreign service, but he did not follow his advice, hence his recalling barely six months abroad.
“I remember my son, Andrew, he is now in Rome. I remember the first time he went to the diplomatic service to Canada, I was here and at that time I was not even in government. I sat him down to try and share with him my experience,” President Banda said.
“I am talking to you through him, I told him that 'where you are going, there is going to be a lot of gossip within the embassy. There is going to be groups, people say, we belong to this group either for tribal reasons or whatever reasons. Please my son don't take part in that because where you are going you are part of the whole family. You must be careful. You will be receiving phone calls or you will be making phone calls'.” President Banda said Andrew did not heed his advice.
“My son said, 'I have heard daddy'. But I know him well, he hears and then he forgets very quickly. It was immediately after the change of government from UNIP to MMD; it was very exciting time for anybody who had participated in the revolution and he was one of those people who helped to remove the UNIP government to which his father belonged, to which many of you belonged, maybe you left a little earlier than me because you were there also,” President Banda said.
“So he started listening to stories from these people and he started getting involved and of course the news started coming back. Before I could even digest the stories I was hearing, he was recalled. He was there hardly six months.”
And speaking on behalf of other envoys, Zambia's Ambassador to the EU and Belgium, Inonge Mbikusita Lewanika, in a vote of thanks, said Ambassadors and High Commissioners facilitate and bring back into Zambia enormous benefits in cash and kind.
Labels: AMBASSADOR, CAMPAIGN FINANCE, RUPIAH BANDA
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$1 campaign, MDC-T desperate for election funds
By: Samantha Chidzero
Posted: Friday, April 8, 2011 4:44 am
THE MDC-T party led by Morgan Tsvangirai is agitating for a delay in the general elections as it has no funds to finance a nationwide election campaign across the country, it has emerged. The party has been on a regional offensive to try a delay the plebiscite to buy time to raise funds.
Tsvangirai has also made various attempts at delaying the election by claiming that there is no "existence of electoral conditions that will not produce another contested outcome" and that the decision to hold elections is made by the prime minister and the president.
Ironically, Tsvangirai has also made claims that the inclusive Government is not functional.
He recently commented: "The inclusive Government has demonstrated over the past six months that it is dysfunctional that I can concede."
Last month Tsvangirai visited regional leaders in the run up to the Sadc Troika meeting in Livingstone (Zambia) and told them about unsubstantiated claims of political violence in Zimbabwe.
Tsvangirai has not brought up the issue in Cabinet meetings he attends weekly which are chaired by President Robert Mugabe.
Last month President Mugabe convened a Special Cabinet meeting in which he urged the MDC-T to present to him with a detailed report of all cases of Zanu-PF violence against MDC-T members. The party failed to present such a report or cite specific cases of politically motivated violence.
The party’s funding has dwindled as their allies in the west are no longer able to fund them at the scale they did in previous election periods as they are facing problems in their own countries.
Portugal’s government resigned after parliament rejected austerity measures. There are also problems in Ireland, Greece and Spain.
Britain's economic growth will lag behind five of the G7 countries in the second quarter of this year, only outperforming disaster-struck Japan, according to a report from influential western think-tank OECD.
Despite being illegal under the Political Parties Finance Act 1992 where there is no provision for the financing of political parties in Zimbabwe, the MDC-T has enjoyed huge funding from the US and Britain and other western countries.
The Act provides for state funding of political parties which hold 15 seats in Parliament or more.
The MDC-T has, however, resorted to other “desperate means” to raise funds, including the launching of an anti Zanu-PF website, which will be run by treasurer general, Roy Bennett. Bennett is calling for $1 donations to the MDC-T towards the next elections.
Bennett has also been been given a new role by the MDC-T under the so-called “global advocacy programme”, in which he will engage the US and EU ‘directly’ to raise funds.
Bennett recently revealed that he had to leave Zimbabwe as that would have left the MDC-T unable to raise funds for the elections.
He told a pirate radio station that “... sitting in prison in Zimbabwe ... will be of no use to anybody. I decided to remain in exile in South Africa.”
He added that the MDC-T party “held a workshop in South Africa where it was decided that I would be based in the UK where I would set up a ‘global advocacy programme’ ... to assist in raising funds.”
Bennett also revealed that the MDC-T party will hold a “Free Zimbabwe” concert in South Africa to raise funds “towards the next elections”.
Bennett’s revelations will put to rest MDC-T claims that it raises its funds for election campaigns via efforts within Zimbabwe.
The party has since revived its deeply divided UK and Ireland Province which had been in hibernation for the last two years, in order to raise funds for the election period. The MDC-T’s National Chairman, Lovemore Moyo and Women's Assembly chairperson, Theresa Makone, were deployed to oversee the revival of UK structures in Leeds on Saturday April 2 2011.
MDC-T spokesman Nelson Chamisa is on record saying that their election campaigns are financed via membership fees and other in-country fundraising efforts.
Labels: 2011 ELECTIONS (ZIMBABWE), CAMPAIGN FINANCE, MDC, MORGAN TSVANGIRAI
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NAPSA $15m deal is shrouded in corruption, says Chongwe
By Patson Chilemba
Mon 07 Mar. 2011, 04:01 CAT
THE NAPSA land deal from Meanwood is shrouded in corruption, says Dr Rodger Chongwe. Commenting on the National Pension Scheme Authority (NAPSA) claim that President Rupiah Banda did not influence the sale of 1,500 acres of land at an exorbitant price of US$15 million (about K75 billion) from Meanwood Properties Development Limited without following tender procedures, Dr Chongwe, who is a Lusaka-based lawyer, said that was insulting the intelligence of Zambians.
He said the same land could have been bought at a reasonable price from the Ministry of Local Government and Housing and the Ministry of Lands.
Dr Chongwe said there was no need to blame The Post for revealing the scam because the newspaper was only performing its duties.
He said the NAPSA board was subservient to the appointing authority and initiated what they were instructed.
“We know the legal procedures which are supposed to be followed by government, by parastatals, and that procedure was not followed. And therefore the whole process is marred in corruption,” he said.
Dr Chongwe said the shoddy deals were symptomatic of a failed state where state institutions did not function according to the law.
He said Zambians were literally running their own affairs because of the failed state and that the country was now on auto-pilot.
He said Zambians should go for the officials at NAPSA since the Republican Constitution exonerated the President from criminal prosecution.
“But those who act under his orders are not immune. We can go for them. Yes, we know who runs NAPSA. Let people like Hichilema Hakainde and Michael Chilufya Sata deal with Mr Banda at the highest political order,” said Dr Chongwe. “But at the level of Zambia let us go for those people, NAPSA and Meanwood.”
Some senior MMD officials recently expressed concern over the “scandalous” transaction at NAPSA, which President Banda is using to raise campaign funds for the MMD.
Labels: CAMPAIGN FINANCE, CORRUPTION, NAPSA, ROGER CHONGWE
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Hillary’s Bush Connection
By Russ Baker and Adam Federman on October 18, 2007
Research support for this story was provided by the Investigative Fund of The Nation Institute. Published in conjunction with The Nation.
IN THE CLINTONS’ PURSUIT OF POWER, there is no such thing as a strange bedfellow. One recently exposed inamorata was Norman Hsu, the mysterious businessman from Hong Kong who brought in $850,000 to Hillary Clinton’s campaign before being unmasked as a fugitive. Her campaign dismissed Hsu as someone who’d slipped through the cracks of an otherwise unimpeachable system for vetting donors, and perhaps he was. The same cannot be said for the notorious financier Alan Quasha, whose involvement with Clinton is at least as substantial – and still under wraps.
Political junkies will recall Quasha as the controversial figure who bailed out George W. Bush’s failing oil company in 1986, folding Bush into his company, Harken Energy, thus setting him on the path to a lucrative and high-profile position as an owner of the Texas Rangers baseball team, and the presidency. The persistently unprofitable Harken – many of whose board members, connected to powerful foreign interests and the intelligence community, nevertheless profited enormously – faced intense scrutiny in the early 1990s and again during Bush’s first term.
Now Quasha is back – on the other side of the aisle.
Operating below the radar, he entered Hillary Clinton’s circle even before she declared her candidacy by quietly hiring Clinton confidant and longtime Democratic Party money man Terry McAuliffe at one of his companies. During the interregnum between McAuliffe’s chairmanship of the Democratic Party and the time he officially joined Clinton’s campaign, Quasha set McAuliffe up with a salary and opened a Washington office for him.
Just a few years earlier, McAuliffe had publicly criticized Bush for his financial dealings with Harken, disparaging the company’s Enron-like accounting. Yet in 2005 McAuliffe accepted this cushy perch with Quasha’s newly acquired investment firm, Carret Asset Management, and even brought along former Clinton White House business liaison Peter O’Keefe, who had been his senior aide at the Democratic National Committee. McAuliffe remained with the company until he became national chair of Hillary’s presidential bid, and O’Keefe never left. McAuliffe’s connection to Quasha has, until now, never been noted.
Another strong link between Quasha and Clinton is Quasha’s business partner, Hassan Nemazee, a top Hillary fundraiser who was trotted out to defend her during the Hsu episode – in which the clothing manufacturer was unmasked as a swindler who seemingly funneled illegal contributions through “donors” of modest means.
In June, by liquidating a blind trust, the Clintons sought to distance themselves from any financial entanglements that might embarrass the campaign. Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson argued that the couple had gone “above and beyond” what was legally required “in order to avoid even the hint of a conflict of interest.” But throughout their political careers, Bill and Hillary Clinton have repeatedly associated with people whose objectives seemed a million miles from “a place called Hope.” Among these Alan Quasha and his menagerie – including Saudi frontmen, a foreign dictator, figures with intelligence ties and a maze of companies and offshore funds – stand out.
“That Hillary Clinton’s campaign is involved with this particular cast of characters should give people pause,” says John Moscow, a former Manhattan prosecutor. In the late 1980s and early ’90s he led the investigation of the corrupt Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) global financial empire – a bank whose prominent shareholders included members of the Harken board. “Too many of the same names from earlier troubling circumstances suggests a lack of control over who she is dealing with,” says Moscow, “or a policy of dealing with anyone who can pay.”
Ideology does not seem to be the principal issue driving either Quasha or Nemazee. Nemazee backed the likes of archconservative Republican senators Jesse Helms, Sam Brownback and Al D’Amato before moving aggressively into the Democratic camp. Quasha, frequently identified as a Republican fundraiser, gave to both Bush and Al Gore in 2000 and so far in the 2008 race has given to Republicans Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani as well as Democrats Barack Obama and Chris Dodd, in addition to Hillary Clinton. But Quasha’s concerted efforts to get into Clinton’s inner circle are reminiscent of his relationship with a pre-Governor Bush.
A student at Harvard’s business school at the same time as Bush, Quasha was a little-known New York lawyer when he took over the small Abilene-based Harken Oil in 1983, using millions from offshore accounts held in the name of family members. Quasha’s now-deceased father, Manila-based attorney William Quasha, was known for his close friendship with Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos and his ties to US intelligence; he was also a member of the “Eagles Club” of major GOP contributors.
In 1986 Alan Quasha embraced a struggling George W. Bush, rescuing his failing Spectrum 7 oil company, folding it into Harken Energy and providing Bush with a directorship, more than $600,000 in stock and options and a consulting contract initially valued at $80,000 a year (which was raised in 1989 to $120,000). The financial setup allowed Bush to devote most of his time to the presidential campaign of his father, a former CIA director who as Vice President was the Reagan Administration’s overseer of a massive outsourcing of covert intelligence operations, and who had his own warm relationship with Marcos.
Harken’s financials were famously complicated. Reporters from top publications like the Wall Street Journal, Time and Fortune went at Harken with zest, but they ultimately failed to unravel all its labyrinthine activities. In 2003 Harken was described in the trade publication Platt’s Energy Economist as “a toxic waste dump for bad deals, with a strong odor of US intelligence spookery and chicanery about it.” Indeed, the company was kept afloat by an all-star cast of financiers with ties to BCCI, Saudi intelligence, the South African apartheid regime, Marcos and the Shah of Iran. The company perennially lost money for ordinary investors while benefiting insiders like Bush, Quasha and Nemazee. Indeed, Harken has lost money nearly every year since Bush’s days there, piling up cumulative losses in the hundreds of millions.
Nevertheless, in 1990, when the Dallas Times Herald ranked Harken fifth on its list of worst-performing local firms, the tiny oil refiner beat out the giant exploration company Amoco for an offshore drilling contract in Bahrain that was potentially worth billions. As George W. Bush biographer Bill Minutaglio wrote, “Oil analysts were stunned that bottom-feeding Harken…could hook such a meaty international contract…not only hadn’t Harken drilled overseas, it had never drilled in water. Speculation immediately surged that it was because Bahrain wanted to do business with the son of the U.S. president.”
Bush appeared to benefit from insider trading when he sold two-thirds of his stock in Harken at a peak price after the Bahrain deal – and just before news emerged that the company had failed to find oil and its share price plummeted. He also failed to report his sale of company stock on time, leading many to believe that he had something to hide. Immediately after a 1991 Wall Street Journal article detailing Bush’s involvement with Harken, the SEC launched an investigation, but unsurprisingly, with George H.W. Bush in the White House, it came to nothing. The Journal article speculated that there was more to the picture:
What does emerge is a complex pattern of personal and financial relationships behind Harken’s sudden good fortune in the Middle East, raising the question of whether Bahrainis or others in the Middle East may have hoped to ingratiate themselves with the White House. Even more intriguing, there are numerous links among Harken, Bahrain and individuals close to the discredited Bank of Credit & Commerce International, a banking empire that used Mideast oil money to seek ties to political leaders in several countries.
Thanks to his income from Harken, Bush was able to become managing partner of the Texas Rangers – a glamorous and highly visible sinecure that would eventually earn him nearly $15 million and make him a credible front-runner for the Texas governorship. This rescue and makeover of a ne’er-do-well son was a key step in W.’s path to political power.
Quasha’s Clinton play began in 2003, when he bought Carret Asset Management, a once-revered private equity investment firm that manages nearly $2 billion in assets. Its founder, Philip Carret, a Wall Street legend and hero of Warren Buffett, died in 1998; the firm was sold twice before Quasha bought it for a song. Some were troubled when they learned the identity of the new owner. “I was horrified that he was going to hide behind my family’s name,” says Renee Carret, a longtime executive at the firm whose grandfather started the company in 1963. When Quasha took over, she resigned. “I just personally didn’t want to be affiliated with him. There were too many questions that were left unanswered.”
As his co-chair in the private firm, Quasha chose his old friend Nemazee, a fellow Harken investor. By the time of the Carret acquisition, Nemazee, a founding member of the Iranian-American Political Action Committee whose family was close with the late Shah of Iran, had become a significant fundraiser for the Clintons and the Democratic Party. In 1995 he raised money for the DNC. In 1998, in the midst of the Lewinsky affair, Nemazee collected $60,000 for Bill Clinton’s legal defense fund in $10,000 increments from relatives and friends. Clinton subsequently nominated Nemazee as ambassador to Argentina but withdrew the nomination after an article in Forbes raised questions about Nemazee’s business dealings in the 1980s and ’90s – which noted that the American-born Nemazee magically became “Hispanic” by acquiring Venezuelan citizenship because of a requirement that certain California public pension funds be run by minorities.
Failure to be named ambassador did not, however, hamper Nemazee’s rise within the Democratic Party. By 2004 he was New York finance chair for John Kerry’s campaign, and in 2006 he served under Senator Chuck Schumer as the national finance chair of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) – a period during which the committee raised about $25 million more than its Republican counterpart. This past March Nemazee, at the behest of McAuliffe, threw a dinner for Hillary at Manhattan’s swank Cipriani restaurant, which featured Bill Clinton and raised more than $500,000.
The exact nature of McAuliffe’s duties at Carret is unclear, and Quasha, Carret and McAuliffe all declined to answer The Nation’s questions on this matter. But McAuliffe seems to have served, at least occasionally, as a good will ambassador for Quasha’s business operations. He brought Wang Tianyi, head of a formerly state-owned Chinese firm and a business associate of Quasha’s, to meet with Bill Clinton. And Quasha has visited the ex-President at his Harlem office over the past several years, according to Joe Wozny, former president of a Carret affiliate. Wozny recalls that Quasha “was up there quite a few times, meeting with Bill Clinton.” As for that Washington office, the Carret website says only that it specialized in providing “information regarding products and services for institutions.”
But the office seems to have benefited McAuliffe – and Hillary Clinton. When McAuliffe stepped down as DNC chair in February 2005, he said he planned to hit the lecture circuit and spend more time with his family. He may have done both, but he did so as vice chair of Carret from the new company office on the seventh floor of the venerable McPherson Building, once the home of the John Kerry campaign and just off K Street’s lobbyist gulch. Simon Rosenberg’s New Democrat Network, where Mark Penn, chief pollster and strategist for Hillary’s campaign, has served as a fellow, was housed next door to McAuliffe and O’Keefe.
While there, McAuliffe found time to pen his memoir, What a Party!, his paean to the Clintons and his role in raising record amounts of money for them and the party. Yet the memoir itself, for which he earned a seven-figure advance, makes no mention of Carret or his role as its vice chair.
Three people working in nearby suites said they remembered McAuliffe and O’Keefe working out of the office, but none of them remembered the Carret name. Nor did any of them have any idea what McAuliffe was doing as Quasha’s vice chair. One person who visited McAuliffe in the suite recalled that he was working on his book but said he was unaware of the official function of the office. “Terry holds his cards pretty close on his business activities,” he said.
According to another visitor, McAuliffe was using his time to lay the groundwork for Hillary’s long-anticipated presidential bid. With McAuliffe leading Clinton’s ravenous fundraising operation, the possibility that Carret’s Washington office was opened up, at least in part, to serve just such a function is bolstered by the fact that Carret opened the office only after hiring McAuliffe – and closed it down once he left. During that period, though no Clinton campaign committee yet existed, there were signs that he was already operating on her behalf. In 2005 he appeared on CNN’s Crossfire, where the former Democratic chief did not bother to feign neutrality in the primaries: “Personally, I hope she runs,” he said. “We would be lucky if she did run, I’ll tell you that.” In 2006 he kept one foot in Clintondom as a member of the Clinton Global Initiative, an organization whose membership is primarily by invitation to elite business leaders. Wang, whose China International Industry and Commerce partnered with Carret soon after McAuliffe joined the company, was also named to the initiative in 2006.
Meanwhile, during McAuliffe’s employment at Carret, Quasha himself donated large sums to the DSCC. He gave $26,700 in June 2006 and $25,000 that October and also personally contributed $4,600, the maximum allowed, to the Hillary Clinton presidential exploratory committee.
Since his start as a young fundraiser on Carter’s 1980 re-election campaign, McAuliffe has consistently melded politics, policy and private enterprise. By the time he was 30, he had launched a dozen companies, his own law firm and numerous venture capital companies. Perhaps his most controversial association was with the telecommunications company Global Crossing, where McAuliffe managed to turn a $100,000 personal investment into an $18 million windfall. After McAuliffe sold his shares and got out, the company collapsed; nearly 10,000 employees lost their jobs, and investors lost $54 billion. McAuliffe defended the firm’s top executives, who were close with both the Bushes and Clintons, but went on to attack President Bush for similar patterns at Harken.
At a DNC meeting in Las Vegas in 2002, McAuliffe spoke about the recent collapse of Enron and questioned whether Bush could “restore confidence to Wall Street when he has engaged in the same practices he condemns today,” a reference to Bush’s Harken profiteering. That same year, associates of McAuliffe, fronted by a fake grassroots organization, released an aggressive ad campaign seeking to highlight the Harken-Bush connection.
It is not surprising, then, to learn that neither McAuliffe’s connection to Carret nor Quasha’s role in the firm have been widely publicized. Carret employees said they were surprised that when Quasha acquired the prestigious firm he did not choose to publicize his coup, instead keeping it quiet. In fact, the company’s website does not reveal his role as chair – or much of anything about the firm. The company’s chief financial officer, Marco Vega, said he was unable to provide details on Quasha’s role in the company, or even to confirm his current title.
The silence is deafening. Repeated requests for interviews on this topic were ignored or rebuffed by the offices of Hillary Clinton’s campaign, Bill Clinton, Alan Quasha, Hassan Nemazee, Terry McAuliffe and Peter O’Keefe. McAuliffe’s spokeswoman, Tracy Sefl, who works for the Clinton-connected communications firm the Glover Park Group but represents McAuliffe informally, said that McAuliffe would not grant an interview or respond to detailed e-mailed questions on these matters. Sefl minimized McAuliffe’s involvement with the company, claiming he was only “an adviser to Carret – as he was to many other companies.”
But a vice chair is much more than just an adviser, and Carret’s opening an office off K Street was not a casual gesture. Notably, though the DC office was closed after McAuliffe left for Hillary’s campaign, McAuliffe protégé O’Keefe has stayed on as Carret’s managing director for marketing – providing Quasha with an ongoing pipeline to the Clinton operation.
With an international man of mystery like Quasha, it’s nigh impossible to definitively identify his endgame. But one thing he seems to have a stake in is free rein for hedge funds – and preservation of the low rate at which their profits are taxed.
In 2005, while McAuliffe was on his payroll, Quasha traveled to Bermuda to speak at the MARHedge World Wealth Summit, which addressed the topic “Hedge Fund Management in a Perilous Investment Climate.” McAuliffe, too, weighed in on the well-being of hedge funds as the featured speaker at a 2006 investors’ conference of the Carret unit Brean Murray, Carret & Co., where, according to advance publicity material, he planned to address the “current political debate in Washington, DC and its impact on Wall Street and the status of potential further hedge fund regulation.” Also indicative of an interest in influencing hedge fund policy is the presence on Carret’s International Advisory Board of Philippa Malmgren, who served as George W. Bush’s liaison to the financial markets, and who often speaks and writes on politics and policy related to hedge funds.
According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Hillary Clinton, whose daughter, Chelsea, works for a hedge fund run by a prominent Democratic donor – came in second only to Joe Lieberman in cash raised from hedge fund managers during the 2006 election cycle. She has belatedly and reluctantly joined other presidential candidates in calling for a change in the law so that fund managers would pay taxes at the same rate as everybody else. Clearly, her supporters among hedge fund figures have much to gain by electing a President who feels Wall Street’s pain.
Whatever Carret’s overall objectives, the company is on the march. “We’ve taken the Brean Murray and the Carret platforms and expanded them into China, India, Eastern Europe and Russia, and we will be doing so in Latin America as well,” Nemazee said in a 2006 interview with Leaders magazine.
While Quasha & Co. keep an eye on hedge fund regulation, they also appear to be helping the repressive Chinese government keep an eye on its own people. Brean Murray, Carret recently acted as the sole placement agent in an $8 million deal with the Shenzhen-based China Security and Surveillance Technology. China Security won a contract last year from the quasi-governmental Shenzhen Cyber Café Association to install video monitoring systems for more than 1,000 local Internet cafes, popular outlets for criticism of the regime. A Brean Murray, Carret press release celebrates its cooperation with the clampdown: “the estimated 2.19 million registered entertainment halls in China must purchase video-monitoring systems covering entrances, exits and main corridors. The Company is actively pursuing similar opportunities within the other provinces of China.”
Is there cause for concern over Alan Quasha’s apparent efforts to gain influence with a potential President of the United States? Amazingly, to reassure the public on the integrity of its operation, the Clinton camp has rolled out none other than Quasha’s business partner Hassan Nemazee. In an interview with the New York Times on the implications of the Hsu affair, Nemazee, who describes himself as an economic policy adviser to Hillary but was identified by the Times as a “fundraising bundler for Mrs. Clinton, as Mr. Hsu had been,” declared, “The Clinton campaign has done as much if not more than any campaign to protect itself from situations such as this, and none of the other campaigns, other than hypocritically, can point a finger at the Clinton campaign on fundraising problems.”
Labels: CAMPAIGN FINANCE, CORRUPTION, HILLARY CLINTON
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Sata reveals source of his $100,000
By Patson Chilemba
Wed 01 Dec. 2010, 04:04 CAT
MICHAEL Sata yesterday revealed the source of his US $100,000 to the DEC. In an interview soon after he was questioned at the Drug Enforcement Commi-ssion (DEC) offices in the morning, Sata, who is Patriotic Front president, said he had revealed the source of his money and insisted that former president Frederick Chiluba should also disclose the source of his US $8 million in the Zamtrop account.
"We have told them the source, but I can't tell you the source. They will tell you themselves," said Sata, who had earlier promised that he was going to show leadership by revealing the source of his US $100,000.
And reacting to DEC’s earlier statement announcing that they had recorded a statement from him and that it was unfortunate some people had deliberately chosen not to support the fight against money laundering, Sata wondered how the DEC could issue a statement before they talked to him.
He said it was clear the DEC was working under instructions from President Rupiah Banda. Sata denied involvement in any money laundering activities.
"If that statement from DEC public relations manager John Nyawali is correct, can they tell us where did Chiluba get the US $8 million?" Sata asked.
"They wanted to rely on Section 27 of the DEC that 'I am not going to tell them the source'. Now having told them they cannot prosecute."
Sata said he was ready to meet DEC and President Banda in court.
"It was a much cleaner transaction than Rupiah Banda's Kasaba Bay, Zamtel deals. If I was not helpful, I would have taken US $100,000 to Action Auto and nobody would have known anything about it. But I was considerate. That is why I went through the bank," he said.
Sata said the complainant claimed that he Sata gave the US $100,000 to Fr Frank Bwalya to de-campaign the MMD, but DEC did not ask him anything on the matter.
Earlier in the morning, Nyawali stated that they recorded a second statement from Sata in connection with the transaction. He stated that this was followed Sata's failure to answer some questions when he appeared before the investigators last week.
Nyawali stated that politicians should not mislead people by insinuating that DEC was working under instructions to investigate and persecute people perceived not to be in good standing with the government.
He stated that some people had chosen not to support the fight against money laundering and drug trafficking by attempting to frustrate efforts aimed at protecting Zambians from such vices.
Labels: CAMPAIGN FINANCE, DEC, MICHAEL SATA
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I’ll explain source of $100,000 - Sata
By Patson Chilemba in Choma
Mon 29 Nov. 2010, 04:02 CAT
MICHAEL Sata says he is ready to disclose the source of his US$100,000 and Frederick Chiluba should equally explain how he obtained his US$8 million. In an interview, PF leader Sata said the source of the US$100,000 was well-known and was ready to speak on the matter.
Sata said the law enforcement agencies like the police and the Drug Enforcement Commission (DEC) applied double standards. He wondered why the DEC were quick to question him and yet former president Chiluba had US$8 million in a government account.
“On Tuesday tomorrow, I will show leadership by telling Zambians the source of my US$100,000 and I challenge Rupiah Banda to tell us where Chiluba got his money,” said Sata on Saturday.
“There is the US$20 million given to Katebe Katoto for the arms. And then there is the US$8 million unexplained money in the Zamtrop account. There is a total of US$28 million and the DEC fear Chiluba like hell. They wag their tails at him and they fear him because of his connections to Rupiah Banda.”
Sata said President Banda incited the DEC to humiliate him and yet a named Cabinet minister had procured 40 trucks in unexplained circumstances.
“DEC wants me to take my vehicles to them as if I stole them,” Sata said.
Sata said there seemed to be nothing wrong with first lady Thandiwe Banda using money which was not budgeted for to buy votes across the country but everything wrong with his purchasing a vehicle for his wife.
“I will in due course raise an official complaint not as sour grapes but something that is well founded. In fact, I will write my complaint to the DEC commissioner and copied to Rupiah Banda,” Sata said.
He also congratulated magistrate Jones Chinyama over his appointment as Industrial Relations Court deputy chairperson.
He said magistrate Chinyama’s appointment was expected following his acquittal of Chiluba.
On veteran politician Sikota Wina’s assertions that some politicians speaking on the Barotseland Agreement were hoodwinking the people of Western Province to win votes, Sata said there was nothing tribal about the agreement.
Sata said Wina made the remarks on the Barotseland Agreement to protect his job at the Energy Regulation Board (ERB).
And officially opening the Southern Province PF conference in Choma on Saturday, Sata said Zambia would be celebrating 47 years heading into next year’s general elections with very little to show to citizens in areas of social and economic development.
He said the MMD had shown that it was not accountable to the Zambian people.
Sata said while Zambians were buying a 25 kilogramme bag of mealie-meal at K60,000, the same quantity of the commodity was costing K30,000 equivalent in Zimbabwe and Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
“President Banda was on Monday in Mumbwa, launching the planting season, yet the government has not distributed to the peasant farmers and it has not paid all the farmers it has collected maize from,” he said.
Sata said the government acted with impunity by implementing things Zambians objected to such as the National Constitutional Conference (NCC), the sale of Zamtel and the removal of the abuse of office clause from the Anti-Corruption Commission Act.
Sata said once again, Zambians' dream to enact a legitimate constitution had been shattered by the regime in power.
Labels: CAMPAIGN FINANCE, MICHAEL SATA
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‘SMEs don’t know requirements for accessing finance’
Written by Mwila Chansa in Ndola
Thursday, August 27, 2009 3:52:52 AM
THE inability by most micro, small and medium enterprises to prepare business plans is a hindrance for them to access finances from lending institutions, Zambia Development Agency (ZDA) Copperbelt provincial officer Innocent Melu has observed.
And Ndola district commissioner Moses Mumba said the survival of any business largely depends on the availability of markets.
In an interview during a workshop on facilitating access to markets and finance training for micro, small and medium entrepreneurs in Ndola on Monday, Melu said finance was critical to the survival of any business.
“Most SMEs don’t know the requirements for accessing finance from banks or from the Citizens Economic Empowerment Commission and this is why we have invited institutions to explain various financial products or requirements,” Melu said.
“And the other thing is that these SMEs lack knowledge on preparation of business plans. Quite alright they have the concepts but they can't put them on paper to suit the requirements of financial institutions.”
He advised entrepreneurs to be vigilant and have their ears to the ground for them to remain updated on various issues related to business.
Melu said small enterprises were supposed to complement the government's efforts in creating employment, strengthening domestic markets and contributing to the growth of the Gross Domestic Product but that this could not happen if they failed to access markets for their products or finances to grow their businesses.
And Mumba said the only sure way of survival for any enterprise was the availability of guaranteed markets.
The objective of the workshop was to help entrepreneurs understand various practical business processes, procedures and requirements when dealing with financial institutions and when sourcing business from corporate companies and large organisations.
Labels: CAMPAIGN FINANCE, CEEC, MOSES MUMBA, SMEs, WORKSHOPS, ZDA
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Politics have taken a toll on my money - HH
By George Chellah
Wednesday March 14, 2007 [02:00] P
OPPOSITION UPND president Hakainde Hichilema has admitted that his joining politics has taken a toll on the financial resources of the family. And Hichilema said his K23 billion declaration of assets was disgraceful if his next-door neighbour could not have a meal or take children to school. Meanwhile, Hichilema said UPND does not believe in political rewards by allocating plots to cadres.
During a Muvi-TV's ‘Eyeball to Eyeball’ programme on Sunday evening, Hichilema - who was asked whether his joining politics had made him a K1,000 or K1 billion less - responded: "We need to change the way we fund political parties. It takes a toll on financial resources of the family. Not just on us but other people in the party as well. Otherwise, I am fortunate my family has been very supportive."
Hichilema continued: "The answer is yes, you've got to spend. In our view, political parties represented in parliament need to be funded, this is what will strengthen democracy. So it's bound to happen that we will spend resources here and there but it's not just us, other people as well. The answer is yes, but that's not the most important thing." Hichilema said it was not easy to run an opposition political party. "We have already talked about funding and commitment," he said. Asked to reveal the secret to his wealth, Hichilema said it was a cultural issue for him. "It was sad that we had to make the declaration. That was a legal requirement so we did it. Otherwise we are humble people," Hichilema said. "I am not proud to say this is what Hakainde and family have."
He expressed sadness at one of the situations he encountered in Western Province where he found people eating boiled mangoes. "Hakainde's asset declaration is something... yes it happened. But it's disgraceful. Hakainde's declaration is useless if the next-door neighbour can't have a meal, can't send children to school. My declaration is useless," Hichilema said. He said he had been extremely busy and that public life was very demanding. Hichilema also said he had no regrets about joining politics because he made a conscious decision. "We expected very difficult processes, especially in the way we do politics in this country," he said.
He said he had begun to drift public opinion from negativity to decency by not responding to political attacks. "If I was to react negatively to such issues, the people of Zambia will not know the difference. They will think we are like the old stock of politicians," Hichilema said. He said he did not think that he was as young as people thought. "Dr Kaunda was 40 when he became president, John F Kennedy (former US president) was 44. Forty is the time to give your best. I am 44, I was 43 last year," he said. "We should have a situation where we are drifting to politics of skills. The measurement of modern era to manage the economy has changed. It's not just that somebody has been in politics for 40 years then they qualify to be president."
On the house demolition exercise in Kalikiliki, Hichilema said UPND does not support illegality.
"Let's try to operate in a legal way. We also don't believe in political rewards by allocating plots to cadres. First of all, who was allocating those plots? If there was proper monitoring and control, the houses should never have been there in the first place," he said. He also said corruption was a cancer that needed to be fought before it consumed the nation. Hichilema said the UPND was in a development mood. "I am travelling a lot. We are in a buoyant mood at the grassroots level. We are very clear in our minds that this is what needs to be done," said Hichilema.
Labels: CAMPAIGN FINANCE, HAKAINDE HICHILEMA, LAND
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