Campaigners Pressure G20 to Freeze Mubarak’s Assets

Seventy-eight campaigners maintained that they had signed a letter making recommendations to the G20 on each of the 11 points covered by the action plan.
Recommendations ranged from implementing international anti-bribery and anti-money-laundering laws such as the UN Convention against Corruption to providing protection for whistleblowers. China, Saudi Arabia, Germany and Japan from the G20 are still, however, to ratify the UN convention.

According to Gavin Hayman, director of campaigns at pressure group Global Witness and a signatory to the letter, the G20 Anti-Corruption Action Plan still lacks detail and a clear timeframe for implementation.

Protests which have overthrown the former presidents Ben Ali of Tunisia and Mubarak from Egypt had cited corruption and a lack of transparency in government corruption, theft, high food prices, unemployment and police repression.

Angela McClellan, a TI programme coordinator stated that so far countries are still not fulfilling their anti-corruption obligations, particularly in the area of preventing money laundering.

She noted that although banks are portraying themselves as ‘the good guys’ by freezing Mubarak’s and Ben Ali’s assets, it overshadows the fact that they should not have accepted these assets in the first place due to ‘know your customer’ regulations’.