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Madagascar |
CORRUPTION
A strong suspicion of money-laundering on Bin Laden’s behalf,
through the
importation of rice, hangs over Madagascar.
Political expediency has obliged
President Ratsiraka to deny this,
despite his family being implicated in
this racket
Per capita, Madagascar is the world’s largest consumer of rice. It has always imported rice from Pakistan, but this year its volume has seen a very important and unprecedented rise. At the beginning of 2001, it had gone up from 180,000 tons, in normal times, to more than 310,000 tones.
These figures are supplied by Alphonse Ralison, president of the rice-trader’s association. Moreover, this rice is being sold at a price well below what the current Malagasy market can bear.
According to the best information available, the price of rice as it leaves the docks varies between 1,800 MG.Fr (0.27 EU) and 1,900 MG.Fr a Kilo. Merchants question how some traders can sell it at merely 1,300 MG.Fr as it leaves the dockside.
Professional rice dealers ask why this cut-price rice doesn’t pass through their hands but through Pakistani jewellers with respected establishments in the centre of Antananarivo.
Since the end of 2000, the President of the Republic has personally set up in working-class areas of the capital, cheap restaurants which offer the disadvantaged cheap meals for a pittance, at 250 MG.Fr a helping.
Actually, he has always done this with the approach of elections. But who supplies these eateries? «Generous donors», is given as the answer, without further precision. Public opinion holds that the Indo-Pakistani community are the main financial backers behind Malagasy politicians, and everyone suspects the Pakistani rice importers supply the President’s eateries (which are run by his daughter).
Bin Laden?
Several months before the attack on the United States, an Indian news agency revealed Madagascar as one of the countries where Bin Laden used Pakistani rice for his money-laundering. After 11 September, faced with both national and international questioning, and with controversy spilling over his national borders, the President had to take up his cudgels to deny these allegations.
President Ratsiraka goes on to try and prove there are no grounds for saying Bin Laden launders his money in Madagascar through Pakistani rice. He maintains that the cost of cut-price rice here is a simply a question of supply and demand. «At any rate, you can check; the cost of Pakistani rice arriving here is around $60 million — that’s a mere drop in the ocean of Bin Laden’s fortune». This has raised many an eyebrow.
Madagascar’s bankers, for their part, maintain that at present there’s not enough evidence to prove Bin Laden is using the island for money-laundering. But, they add, it’s difficult to keep a check on money-laundering if there is any, given that a large part of the economy is quite informal. It’s only at the 4th or 5th stage that the banks become involved.
The consequences
The consequences of all this are many. At the international level, if these rumours prove to be the truth, one can expect sanctions from the Western powers who are the main fund providers.
At the national level, Madagascar’s rural economy is in a deplorable state for the peasants won’t be able to dispose of their products on the local market. Having no other choice, they will have to sell at a cut-price. However, Madagascar is an agricultural country, with 75% of its inhabitants being peasants. And since rice is the staple food, traditionally all the peasants grow rice.
Unfortunately, Malagasy politics have always aimed to curry favour with the urban masses, ever ready to topple the government if they are discontented and determined enough. Rice has always been a political lubricant. The peasants, for their part, count for little except during elections when their numbers can sway the vote.
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