Western “green” funds used for “merrymaking with ministers” while forests are cut down Amid hundreds of millions paid by donors to the Ugandan government for forest-saving projects, a powerful logging syndicate linked to the same government continues the desertification. In Nigeria, also despite much “green” funding, the government itself clears out the trees. Forest communities are impoverished in the process. Selling out the trees and the poor Forests in Nigeria and Uganda disappeared faster...
Western “green” funds used for “merrymaking with ministers” while forests are cut down Amid hundreds of millions paid by donors to the Ugandan government...
72 ministers, mayors, members of parliament and businessmen from Cameroon, Gabon, Chad, Congo and the Central African Republic, a devastatingly poor central region on the African continent, owned high-end properties in posh neighbourhoods in Dubai, United Arab Emirates in the 2019-2020 period. These findings are the result of an eight-month long search, ending in February 2023, of the database of the Center for Advanced Defense Studies (C4ADS), a US-based organisation that “combats illicit networks...
72 ministers, mayors, members of parliament and businessmen from Cameroon, Gabon, Chad, Congo and the Central African Republic, a devastatingly poor...
How the ‘tobacco system’ keeps farmers in poverty During a check on multinationals who pay tax in various locations, we come across a Malawian tobacco company, Alliance One Tobacco Malawi (AOTM). It belongs to an American multinational corporate chain and boasts of being one of the chain’s top revenue providers . The company makes its profits from raw tobacco exported from the small African country, whose population of 20 million is not much bigger than that of the Netherlands. Yet, it pays...
How the ‘tobacco system’ keeps farmers in poverty During a check on multinationals who pay tax in various locations, we come across a Malawian tobacco...
Embark on an eye-opening journey with four fearless African investigative journalists as they unravel the truth behind the uprising against kleptocratic regimes. In 2023, Emmanuel Mutaizibwa, Ngina Kirori, Theophilus Abbah, and Elizabeth BanyiTabi visited the Netherlands to shed light on the tumultuous protest movements sweeping across Africa. Their groundbreaking 'Cry Freedom' investigation unveiled gripping accounts of citizens rallying for change in the face of oppression. You can now join their...
Embark on an eye-opening journey with four fearless African investigative journalists as they unravel the truth behind the uprising against kleptocratic...
How an investigative editor continues his work while on the run Gregory Gondwe, founder and editor of Malawi’s Platform for Investigative Journalism, and currently on the run from the Malawian military, still cannot figure out how his country’s president, once-vocal opposition and anti-corruption activist Lazarus Chakwera, is now seemingly unable or unwilling to reign in the bloodhounds. “You ask yourself: who is this person? Is this the same person that I met when he was on the campaign trail and...
How an investigative editor continues his work while on the run Gregory Gondwe, founder and editor of Malawi’s Platform for Investigative Journalism, and...
On 31 January, the same day that the Network of African Investigative Reporters and Editors called out Africa’s oppressive kleptocrat regimes , Malawian investigative editor Gregory Gondwe received note that the Military Police in that country were looking for him. The reason why the security forces had set out to take him in ‘for a chat’ at military barracks, he heard, was an article he had published two days before, on January 29th. The article had published documents showing that the military...
On 31 January, the same day that the Network of African Investigative Reporters and Editors called out Africa’s oppressive kleptocrat regimes , Malawian...
How dedicated officials help the public from within corrupted systems In many countries in Africa, public services are inadequate or dysfunctional. Yet some public servants manage to provide effective healthcare, public transport, emergency assistance, or necessary paperwork, despite corrupt or mismanaged systems. But why are these practices ignored, or sometimes even deliberately side-lined, rather than used as examples for emulation, by the authorities? Why do good civil servants so often seem to...
How dedicated officials help the public from within corrupted systems In many countries in Africa, public services are inadequate or dysfunctional. Yet...
Zomba Mental Hospital (ZMH), 70 kilometres north of Malawi’s business capital Blantyre, used to be a place where mental health patients were brought to die. While mental conditions led to suicide, violent actions, trauma from beatings, and infected wounds caused by having been tied up by desperate relatives, untreated HIV, malaria, diarrhoea, and TB also played their part. Up to 2006, out of a total average patient population of 400, the death toll averaged 60 per year. In 2021, the death toll for...
Zomba Mental Hospital (ZMH), 70 kilometres north of Malawi’s business capital Blantyre, used to be a place where mental health patients were brought to...
In front of a teeming crowd at the family medicine department of the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital in Nigeria, a young nurse bravely tries to sort out piles of patient files for the day. She does not get very far: besides the myriad patients in line to get tags for medical attention, doctors are also on strike, meaning that even those with tags may have to go home unattended. The enormity of the workload is apparent in the family medicine records office, where thousands of files are...
In front of a teeming crowd at the family medicine department of the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital in Nigeria, a young nurse bravely tries to...
Ghanaian journalist Enimil Ashon had it on good authority, he wrote in the Daily Graphic on 25 November 2022, that the President of his country had thought that a new candidate applying to head the then moribund State Transport Corporation (STC) in 2017 “needed a mental examination.” The subsequent presidential decision to give the job to that very candidate, a former MP called Nana Akomea, was therefore probably informed by the fact that no one else wanted it. State appointments in Ghana are often...
Ghanaian journalist Enimil Ashon had it on good authority, he wrote in the Daily Graphic on 25 November 2022, that the President of his country had...
In June 2020, in a rare move ahead of upcoming, and contested, elections in 2021, President Museveni fired the then-Executive Director of the National Identification and Registration Authority (NIRA), Judy Obitre-Gama. Obitre-Gama had been under investigation for corruption and incompetence since 2018, over failing to account for the Uganda Shilling equivalent of over US$700,000. Formally budgeted to pay for a project to register children in schools, and for laptops and batteries, the money had...
In June 2020, in a rare move ahead of upcoming, and contested, elections in 2021, President Museveni fired the then-Executive Director of the National...
The story of the fire brigade in Kenya’s eastern Tharaka Nithi county shows that it is perfectly possible to maintain a successful public service – and not only put out fires but also inspire hope in citizens – in a rural region classified by the World Bank as “very poor.” It also shows that competency, combined with political will, are enough to achieve success. The question that remains, however, is why other, equally poor counties in Kenya fail so dismally to do the same. And why is the governor...
The story of the fire brigade in Kenya’s eastern Tharaka Nithi county shows that it is perfectly possible to maintain a successful public service – and...
Executive summary Do-it-yourself mining in rural areas could trigger grassroots development, say policymakers, community leaders and NGOs. Sadly, those in power often continue to enable crude exploitation of the villages with wealth beneath their feet. Shady officials, ruling party members, at least one “impersonator”, a war veteran and, in Zimbabwe, a government-linked mafia, obtain mining rights in communities where mineral wealth is found, then partner with foreign companies to get rich...
Executive summary Do-it-yourself mining in rural areas could trigger grassroots development, say policymakers, community leaders and NGOs. Sadly, those...
In spite of government policies supposed to assist community-based mining, villagers who had hoped to explore “the wealth beneath their feet” were “cheated” out of their concession again. The third and final instalment of our investigative series on small-scale mining in southern Africa looks at how a ruling party says one thing, yet does another, in Cabo Delgado, Mozambique. According to Mozambique’s Ministry of Natural Resources and Mining, community-based artisanal mining “is an activity that...
In spite of government policies supposed to assist community-based mining, villagers who had hoped to explore “the wealth beneath their feet” were...
In Zambia, top government officials covet mining rights and enter partnerships with foreign companies, to the detriment of artisanal mineworkers: the second instalment in a three-part investigative series on mining in southern Africa. Deep within Zambia’s artisanal mining sector lies a captivating web of intrigue, where high-ranking Ministry of Mines and Minerals Development officials, together with foreign entities, capture coveted mining rights. This clandestine alliance, together with the...
In Zambia, top government officials covet mining rights and enter partnerships with foreign companies, to the detriment of artisanal mineworkers: the...
Over a hundred of Zimbabwe’s artisanal miners, who produce close to seventy percent of that country’s abundant gold wealth, died last year, reveals the first of a three-part investigative series on mining in southern Africa. A deep scar runs down Chenje Musimwa’s left shin: an injury the 33-year-old artisanal gold miner suffered while working in a deep tunnel in eastern Zimbabwe's gold rich Penhalonga area. It is only one of the scars he has all over his body; most are injuries from sharp and...
Over a hundred of Zimbabwe’s artisanal miners, who produce close to seventy percent of that country’s abundant gold wealth, died last year, reveals the...
In a court case involving damage claims paid out to victims of sexual abuse on Malawi’s tea plantations, well-known Malawian NGO figure Godfrey Mfiti has been acquitted of fraud charges. The Blantyre Magistrate’s court cleared Mfiti of swindling compensation money from victims on grounds that the state failed to prove his wrongdoing beyond reasonable doubt. In an earlier article , ZAM detailed how Jacqueline Makiyi, one of 36 women who received a damage pay-out from their former employer, Eastern...
In a court case involving damage claims paid out to victims of sexual abuse on Malawi’s tea plantations, well-known Malawian NGO figure Godfrey Mfiti has...
On the morning of 25 May 2005, as winter was fast approaching, 41-year-old Edson Madya, his wife Sharon, and their baby boy, woke up in their rented backyard room in Chitungwiza, 25km south of Harare, to people yelling, “Riot yauya, riot yauya!” meaning that the riot police was around. His fellow tenants were swiftly gathering their property, ferrying it outside. “Every illegal structure must be demolished without fail,” a municipal hailer echoed. Operation Murambatsvina (“remove the dirt”)...
On the morning of 25 May 2005, as winter was fast approaching, 41-year-old Edson Madya, his wife Sharon, and their baby boy, woke up in their rented...
Editor’s note: This is an abridged excerpt from the book “Investigative Journalism in Africa: A Practical Manual,” written by the award-winning Ghanaian investigative journalist, Manasseh Azure Awuni. It is republished with permission and has been edited for style. In 2007, two reporters of The Washington Post, Dana Priest and Anne Hull, investigated and comprehensively reported how bureaucracy and administrative lapses at the Walter Reed Army Medical Centre resulted in the poor treatment of...
Editor’s note: This is an abridged excerpt from the book “Investigative Journalism in Africa: A Practical Manual,” written by the award-winning Ghanaian...
Building collapses, and the tragedy of groups of survivors digging through rubble and shoving broken concrete beams to unearth relatives, friends and neighbours, have long been a familiar sight in places like Nairobi, Lagos, Dakar, and Accra. There have been hundreds of such disasters that weren’t prompted by an earthquake or flood, but were simply due to sloppy construction. Data is sparse, but the number of victims, from deaths to severe injuries to people who lost homes and livelihoods, likely...
Building collapses, and the tragedy of groups of survivors digging through rubble and shoving broken concrete beams to unearth relatives, friends and...
The Columbia Journalism Review recently published a report on the ZAM and NAIRE 'Arizona Project' that investigated the murder of journalist Martinez Zogo in Cameroon. With the CJR's permission, we are republishing it below: In January, Martinez Zogo, the director of the Cameroonian radio station Amplitude FM, was found dead near Yaoundé, the capital . His body reportedly showed signs of torture: his foot was broken, several of his fingers had been cut off, and his tongue was deformed. A few weeks...
The Columbia Journalism Review recently published a report on the ZAM and NAIRE 'Arizona Project' that investigated the murder of journalist Martinez...
