The world is to launch a global plan to recover stolen asset at a meeting that will hold in United States in 2017.
Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron made the announcement at a global anti-corruption summit in London on Thursday. The Global Forum for Asset Recovery will bring together governments and law enforcement agencies to discuss returning assets to Nigeria, Ukraine, Sri Lanka and Tunisia.
President Muhammadu Buhari at the London summit yesterday said the international community must come up with ways of getting rid of safe havens and ensuring a better return of assets. “When it comes to tackling corruption the international community has looked the other way for far too long,” he said.
There has been concern recently that the United Kingdom, particularly London, had become a place where rich foreigners could buy properties but hide their true ownership. Mr Cameron said that to stop that happening, foreign firms which own property in the UK must declare their assets in a public register. Downing Street said Mr Cameron’s plans would include those who already owned UK property as well as those seeking to buy it.
It said the register would mean “corrupt individuals and countries will no longer be able to move, launder and hide illicit funds through London’s property market, and will not benefit from our public funds”.
It said foreign companies owned about 100,000 properties in England and Wales and that more than 44,000 of these were in London. Five other countries including France, Kenya, the Netherlands, Nigeria and Afghanistan have also pledged to launch public registers of true company ownership. Australia, New Zealand, Jordan, Indonesia, Ireland and Georgia announced initial steps towards similar arrangements.
The London summit also has the World Bank, OECD and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in attendance.
