Donald Trump’s commerce secretary is shown to have a stake in a firm dealing with Russians sanctioned by the US.

The leak, dubbed the Paradise Papers, contains 13.4m documents, mostly from one leading firm in offshore finance.

BBC Panorama is part of nearly 100 media groups investigating the papers.

As with last year’s Panama Papers leak, the documents were obtained by the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, which called in the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) to oversee the investigation.

Sunday’s revelations form only a small part of a week of disclosures that will expose the tax and financial affairs of some of the hundreds of people and companies named in the data, some with strong UK connections.

Many of the stories focus on how politicians, multinationals, celebrities and high-net-worth individuals use complex structures of trusts, foundations and shell companies to protect their cash from tax officials or hide their dealings behind a veil of secrecy.

The vast majority of the transactions involve no legal wrongdoing.
Other key stories being released on Sunday are:

• A key aide of Canada’s PM has been linked to offshore schemes that may have cost the nation millions of dollars in taxes, threatening to embarrass Justin Trudeau, who has campaigned to shut tax havens
• Lord Ashcroft, a former Conservative party deputy chairman and a significant donor, may have ignored rules around how his offshore investments were managed. Other papers suggest he retained his non-dom status while in the House of Lords, despite reports he had become a permanent tax resident in the UK
• How questions were raised about the funding of a major shareholding in Everton FC

The other media partners may be covering different stories affecting their regions.
How is the Queen involved?

The Paradise Papers show that about £10m ($13m) of the Queen’s private money was invested offshore.

It was put into funds in the Cayman Islands and Bermuda by the Duchy of Lancaster, which provides the Queen with an income and handles investments for her £500m private estate.

There is nothing illegal in the investments and no suggestion that the Queen is not paying tax, but questions may be asked about whether the monarch should be investing in offshore finance.

There were small investments in the rent-to-buy retailer BrightHouse, which has been accused of exploiting the poor, and the Threshers chain of off-licences, which later went bust owing £17.5m in tax and costing almost 6,000 people their jobs.

The Duchy said it was not involved in decisions made by funds and there is no suggestion the Queen had any knowledge of the specific investments made on her behalf.

The Duchy has in the past said it gives “ongoing consideration regarding any of its acts or omissions that could adversely impact the reputation” of the Queen, who it says takes “a keen interest” in the estate.

Embarrassment for Ross and Trump?
Wilbur Ross helped stave off bankruptcy for Donald Trump in the 1990s and was later appointed commerce secretary in Mr Trump’s administration.

The documents reveal Mr Ross has retained an interest in a shipping company which earns millions of dollars a year transporting oil and gas for a Russian energy firm whose shareholders include Vladimir Putin’s son-in-law and two men subject to US sanctions.

It will again raise questions about the Russian connections of Donald Trump’s team. His presidency has been dogged by allegations that Russians colluded to try to influence the outcome of last year’s US election. He has called the allegations “fake news”.

Where does the leak come from?
Most of the data comes from a company called Appleby, a Bermuda-based legal services provider at the top end of the offshore industry, helping clients set up in overseas jurisdictions with low or zero tax rates.

Its documents, and others mainly from corporate registries in Caribbean jurisdictions, were obtained by Süddeutsche Zeitung. It has not revealed the source.

The media partners say the investigation is in the public interest because data leaks from the world of offshore have repeatedly exposed wrongdoing.

In response to the leaks, Appleby said it was “satisfied that there is no evidence of any wrongdoing, either on the part of ourselves or our clients”, adding: “We do not tolerate illegal behaviour.”

What exactly is offshore finance?
Essentially it’s about a place outside of your own nation’s regulations to which companies or individuals can reroute money, assets or profits to take advantage of lower taxes.

These jurisdictions are known as tax havens to the layman, or the more stately offshore financial centres (OFCs) to the industry. They are generally stable, secretive and reliable, often small islands but not exclusively so, and can vary on how rigorously they carry out checks on wrongdoing.

The UK is a big player here, not simply because so many of its overseas territories and Crown dependencies are OFCs, but many of the lawyers, accountants and bankers working in the offshore industry are in the City of London.
It’s also about the mega-rich. Brooke Harrington, author of Capital Without Borders: Wealth Managers and the One Percent, says offshore finance is not for the 1% but the .001%. Assets of around $500,000 (£380,000) would just not meet the offshore fees the schemes would need, she says.

What is the effect on us and should we care?
Well, it is a lot of cash. The Boston Consulting Group says $10tn is held offshore. That’s about the equivalent of the gross domestic products of the UK, Japan and France – combined. It may also be a conservative estimate.

Critics of offshore say it is mainly about secrecy – which opens the door to wrongdoing – and inequality. They also say the action of governments to curb it has often been slow and ineffective.

Brooke Harrington says if the rich are avoiding tax, the poor pick up the bill: “There’s a minimal amount the governments need to function and they recoup what they lose from the rich and from corporations by taking it out of our hides.”

Meg Hillier, UK Labour MP and chair of the Public Accounts Committee, told Panorama: “We need to see what’s going offshore; if offshore was not secret then some of this stuff just couldn’t happen… we need transparency and we need sunlight shone on this.”

What is the defence of offshore?
The offshore financial centres say that if they did not exist, there would be no constraint on taxes governments might levy. They say they do not sit on hoards of cash, but act as agents that help pump money around the globe.

Bob Richards, who was Bermuda’s finance minister when Panorama interviewed him for its programme, said it was not up to him to collect other nations’ taxes and that they should sort themselves out.

Both he and Howard Quayle, the chief minister for the Isle of Man, who was also interviewed for Panorama and whose Crown dependency plays a big part in the leaks, denied their jurisdictions could even be considered tax havens as they were well regulated and fully conformed to international financial reporting rules.

Appleby itself has in the past said OFCs “protect people victimised by crime, corruption, or persecution by shielding them from venal governments”.

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Source: BBC

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Bernard is joined by Portia Sonia Adoley Gabor of TV3, Kate Baaba Hudson of Daily Graphic, and Jubal Kwaku Amedetor, also of TV3.

The 3-day press trip to Denmark for the selected Ghanaian journalists, is in preparation for the visit of the Danish Queen to Ghana, on November 23 – 24, 2017.

The press trip from October 30 to November 2, 2017, comes with a comprehensive program, including a unique opportunity for a press conference with Her Majesty the Queen.

It will also include visits to businesses and cultural locations in Copenhagen and its surroundings.

Background

At the invitation of President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, Denmark’s Head of State, Her Majesty the Queen, will visit Ghana from 23 – 24 November on an official State Visit.

The State Visit will emphasize and consolidate the long-standing and well-established relations between Ghana and Denmark, while at the same time marking the gradual transition of the relations from aid to trade.

The Queen will be accompanied by a Danish business delegation within three focus sectors, namely food & agriculture, sustainability, maritime, infrastructure and railways.

The visit by the Queen was first announced in a statement issued by the Danish Embassy  in September, 2017.

Ghana and Denmark have enjoyed strong commercial ties over the years, and this visit by the Queen, is expected to strengthen those bonds.

“During many years, Denmark through the Danida Development Cooperation has played an important role in developing key sectors and institutions in Ghana” the Embassy said.

It noted that “With Ghana’s graduation to a middle-income country, and the prospects of sustainable economic growth, Denmark is gradually transitioning from development cooperation to trade cooperation in line with the visions by the Government of Ghana,” the Embassy said.

The Danish Queen is expected to attend the opening of the conference and pay visits to several local business and cultural institutions.

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By: Ebenezer Afanyi Dadzie/citifmonline.com/Ghana

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The monthly inflation rate was 0.7 percent.

The utilities sub-sector recorded the highest year-onyear producer price inflation of 56.9 percent followed by the mining and quarrying subsector with 37.3 percent.

The manufacturing subsector recorded inflation rate of 27.1 percent.

Trends

Between June and August 2013, the rate declined continuously to record 4.7 percent in August 2013. In September 2013, however, the rate inched up to record 5.8 percent. Subsequently, the producer price inflation rate increased consistently over the last eight months to record 33.1 percent in June 2014.

“This rate is the highest since January 2010,” Dr Philomena Nyarko, Government Statistician noted. Manufacturing Sector Five out of the 16 major groups in the manufacturing sub-sector recorded inflation rates higher than the sector average of 27.1 percent.

Manufacture of machinery and equipment recorded the highest inflation rate of 76.0 percent whilst producer
prices in the manufacture of wood and wood products except furniture; manufacture of articles of straw and plaiting materials recorded the lowest producer price inflation rate of 2.3 percent over the one-year period.

Petroleum

The inflation rate in the petroleum sub-sector increased consistently to record 33.6 percent in September 2013.

The rate fluctuated between October and December 2013, after which it increased to record 56.1 percent in February 2014.

The rate then declined to record 44.7 percent in March 2014 but started rising in April 2014 to record 48.2 percent May 2014.

In June 2014, the rate declined to record 44.7 percent as a result of the basis drift effect from the increase in the prices of petroleum products in June 2013.

The monthly changes in the producer price index indicated that manufacturing recorded a monthly inflation rate of 0.8 percent while mining and quarrying recorded 0.7 percent.

The utilities sub-sector recorded the lowest monthly rate of 0.2 percent.

Source: Daily Guide

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