The appointment of a new Anti-Corruption Champion, alongside additional funding for the National Crime Agency and further Global Anti-Corruption sanctions designations are hugely welcome signs of the UK government’s determination to tackle corruption.
Spotlight on Corruption welcomed the three announcements, which came out on International Anti-Corruption day. They included:
- The appointment of Baroness Hodge as the UK’s new Anti-Corruption Champion – a role which has been vacant for two and a half years since John Penrose resigned in June 2022.
- New funding of up to £36 million over five years for the National Crime Agency’s International Corruption Unit which will see a significant increase in the unit’s budget.
- Anti-corruption sanctions targeting several key players in the “Gold Mafia” at the centre of the illicit gold trade in Southern Africa.
Dr Susan Hawley, Executive Director of Spotlight on Corruption, said:
“It’s brilliant to see a heavy-hitting campaigner like Baroness Hodge appointed as Anti-Corruption Champion. This is a long-awaited and very welcome announcement. It’s also very encouraging indeed to see a new focus by the government on beefing up anti-corruption enforcement and imposing anti-corruption sanctions.
“As our research has highlighted, aid funding for law enforcement is critical to provide ring-fenced resourcing and needs to be long-term and sustainable. This new money is a potential game-changer. It is essential that the Home Office now gets on with tackling the NCA’s acute recruitment and retention challenges so that the ICU can build up and keep specialist expertise.”
The appointment of a new champion was announced in a written statement in Parliament today, followed by a press release. An ministerial statement in the House of Commons is expected today at 15.30.
New money for enforcement
- The NCA’s International Corruption Unit was established in 2016 and it’s remit is to investigate corrupt actors from developing countries who launder their loot through the UK; the UK professional enablers (bankers, solicitors, estate agents etc) who help them do it; and UK companies and individuals who bribe their way into business in developing countries.
- In Spotlight on Corruption’s report on the ICU’s work published on 29 August this year, we called for the FCDO to commit to long-term sustainable funding which includes investigations against enablers of corruption and tackles enforcement gaps involving SMEs paying bribes abroad. We also called for more funding for the Crown Prosecution Service to support this work and to engage with NCA investigators at an early stage to ensure speedier and more effective prosecutions.
- Current funding of the ICU only allows it to investigate 20 cases at any one time, despite receiving 600 intelligence packages in 2021/22 alone.
- The previous government committed in its 2023 White Paper to maintain a five-year rolling programme of support but no further details had been announced. The projected budget for the whole anti-corruption programme which includes funding for other enforcement projects for 24/25 was £6.7 million.
Sanctions designations
- Kamlesh Pattni – one of the new individuals sanctioned for his role in recent alleged bribery and money laundering, was exposed by Al Jazeera’s Gold Mafia investigation. He was previously accused of being the architect behind the Goldenberg scam that saw between $600 and $1.5 billion siphoned out of Kenya in the form of government subsidies for fictitious exports in the early 1990s. But despite a judicial commission of inquiry and a 13-year court battle in Kenya he – along with implicated political elites in Kenya – escaped proper accountability for a scheme which wiped out roughly 10% of Kenya’s GDP.
- Like the designations announced recently against corrupt figures from Ukraine, Angola and Latvia, these designations make use of a network approach to sanctions by targeting his wife, Minal Damji and enabler Mukesh Vaya. This is very welcome and will help ensure designated individuals can’t simply re-register frozen assets in the names of their close relatives or associates.
- Kamlesh Pattni and his wife are dual Kenyan and British citizens, and own considerable property in Dubai. Pattni has reportedly described Dubai as “the centre for Africa,” because “You don’t need to have the paperwork too much, it’s much easier.”
- This is a joint action with the US authorities who today designated 10 individuals and 20 companies associated with Pattni.
