The island, which has become an uninhibited tax haven, is weakening African economies, from which it siphons off the income
Rock, philanthropy and business, the winning trio? For Irish singer Bob Geldof, Africa is everything
that at once. If the continent has long been reduced to tragedies for him, it has above all become a territory
"extraordinary business and investment opportunities", in his words.
The adventure begins in 1985 when famine rages in Ethiopia. Transformed into an activist, the former leader of the
Boomtown Rats brings together a handful of rocker friends in July for a charity concert, the Live Aid,
broadcast by televisions around the world, which brought in 212.5 million dollars (190 million euros)
donations. Queen Elizabeth II knighted him the following year.
But "Sir Bob" will change its rhetoric over the years. Rather than "saving Africa", he worries about "
contribute to the economic development" of the continent. To do this, the former rockstar co-founded
London in 2012 a “private equity” fund, 8 Miles, which he chairs without managing it. the rocker
aims to invest nearly $224 million in African agribusiness, health,
education, real estate and telecommunications.
Front companies
And if 8 Miles willingly communicates on the environmental and social virtues of its
holdings – from 15% to 45% in African companies – for a total amount of nearly 150 million
million, if he insists on his desire to "improve transparency, decision-making and
accountability", Bob Geldof's group communicates less about the fact that it operates from Mauritius,
uninhibited offshore finance platform.
In Port-Louis, capital of this African island in the Indian Ocean, the glass towers have pushed the latter
decades, as quickly as the cane fields withered, deserted by a youth who understood that the
sugar, for a long time the main resource of the country, now represents only 1% of the gross domestic product (GDP),
against 50% for the financial sector.
In the business district, Cyber City, multinationals, African companies and world investors
worldwide have mailboxes, front companies and other virtual head offices, in the absence of
offices and employees. All benefit from the political stability of this republic of 1.3 million inhabitants
tax advantages and secrecy guaranteed by consulting firms, banks and the government. "From
by its reputation, Mauritius is used by many private equity funds, defends 8 Miles.
The African companies in which we invest pay all their taxes in their country
origin on the continent. »
However, according to an exchange of internal emails contained in the "Mauritius Leaks", if the head office of the fund
of Bob Geldof was discreetly established in Mauritius, it is all the same "for tax reasons",
among others. This investigation coordinated by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ)
and twenty media partners, including Le Monde, is based on a leak of 200,000 confidential documents
from the Mauritius office of the prestigious international law firm Conyers Dill & Pearman.

Founded in Bermuda in 1928, this firm has established itself as one of the world's specialists in finance
offshore and worked in Mauritius from 2009 to 2017. His clients therefore include 8 Miles, but also the
Genevan commodity trading giant, Trafigura. The multinational has used the services of
Conyers Dill & Pearman for a 200 million dollar transaction with the Mauritian subsidiary of a
Indian company, relating to a delivery of gasoline, in January 2014, or, to facilitate the payment
purchase of ferronickel from an Emirati company.
$1 Million Citizenship
To sell Volkswagen brand vehicles in Malawi, Kenya, Zambia and Zimbabwe, the
French retail group CFAO also called on the firm's expertise to create, in May 2014,
a subsidiary in Mauritius. As well as the Kazakh-based mining group Eurasian Natural Resources Corp, which
granted that same year a loan of 30 million dollars to a Mauritian front company operating a
coal mine in Mozambique.
So many legal operations which aim, for the most part, to facilitate and obscure transactions on the
continent. While enjoying top-notch service and tax benefits – like a rate
tax on income from foreign companies oscillating between 0% and 3% – offered by the former
Dutch colony, then French, before becoming an English possession.
Mauritius has become a kind of Luxembourg of Africa, registered on the "grey list" of tax havens
established by the European Union. To the great displeasure of the economies of the African continent weakened by
the evaporation of the income of local and foreign economic operators in maze of circuits
financial. Circuits that often lead to the island in the Indian Ocean, where an investor can acquire the
citizenship against 1 million dollars paid to a Mauritian sovereign wealth fund, or a passport, against 500
000 dollars, had indicated, in June 2018, the Prime Minister, Pravind Kumar Jugnauth, during his presentation
of the budget before Parliament.
Mauritius, whose GDP amounts to 13 billion dollars, is multiplying services and innovations to attract
companies around the world. Their assets on the island are now valued at over $630 billion.
“Offshore jurisdictions, including Mauritius, contribute greatly to dispossessing African countries of
their profits," says Alexander Ezenagu, researcher at the International Center for Taxation and
development. Tax evasion as well as optimization cause every year in Africa
losses estimated at $50 billion by the Organization for Cooperation and Development
Economics (OECD). Perhaps double that, according to the United Nations Economic Commission for
Africa. That is more than all the development aid poured into the continent.
To attract investors, Mauritius has multiplied the signatures of non-double taxation treaties on
a transaction. She uses and even abuses this process to promote the obvious advantages of her
taxation. Forty-five countries, including fifteen in sub-Saharan Africa, have ratified these agreements despite
imbalances which offer an exemption from double taxation. "Since our model agreement
is based on OECD or UN standards, so we believe that our treaties do not contain any
detrimental element, ”insists a spokesman for the Mauritian government.
However, these tax treaties are increasingly contested by the African States themselves, which
consider themselves aggrieved by Maurice. “We regret having signed this treaty [in 1997], thus entrusts to ICIJ a
responsible for the Lesotho tax administration, involved in the ongoing tough renegotiations. alone
companies are taking advantage of it and it's driving people crazy. The same goes for Namibia and Uganda.
In June, the Senegalese President, Macky Sall, also firmly demanded that his treaty be discussed again, without
exclude the possibility of breaking it, with Maurice, responsible for losses estimated by his administration at
approximately $257 million over the past seventeen years. “Of all the treaties signed by
Senegal is the most unequal,” notes Magueye Boye. This Senegalese tax inspector participated
discussions with his Mauritian counterparts in 2018 and regrets that the investment promises
marvelous, particularly in the textile industry, have never seen the light of day. This respected specialist in
taxation compares the agreement to "a gigantic pipeline for tax evasion".
Corruption drifts
A topical metaphor for this West African country which has announced the start of the exploitation of
hydrocarbon deposits from 2022. President Sall wants to avoid the excesses of corruption –
whose first scandal recently splashed his younger brother – and prevent the agreement with Maurice
to suck up future petrodollars. On the Mauritian side, it is admitted that "renegotiations are underway with six
country ".
“It is exciting to see the reaction of several African countries who realize how much the conventions
negotiated with a tax haven like Mauritius compromise their tax sovereignty, notes, for its
hand, the economist Jason Rosario Braganza, a specialist in tax issues on the continent. An immediate impact should not be expected, as these renegotiations and their ratification take time. Objectively,

the countries of the African continent have no interest in concluding a new agreement with Mauritius. »
A recent study by the International Monetary Fund backs him up, concluding its analysis of 41
African economies between 1985 and 2015 with a clear observation: "Signing treaties is not
associated with additional investments and tends to lead to lost revenue not
negligible. »
For 8 Miles, Bob Geldof's private equity fund, this is all just a matter between states: "
We comply with these agreements, but we do not make them", they insist, even if, for between
others to benefit from double taxation exemptions, a Mauritian management company, Eight Africa
Management (Mauritius) Limited, was established in 2013 by Conyers Dill & Pearman.
African businessmen also take advantage of the scheme. And not least. Patrick Bitature is one
of Uganda's wealthiest oligarchs. With his conglomerate, Simba Group, he orchestrates an empire
East African economy active in the sectors of telecommunications, energy, media,
education... He manages the largest thermal power plant in Uganda with one of his companies,
Electro Maxx. This is presented on its website as "the first and only producer
independent electricity company in Africa with a capacity greater than 20 megawatts (MW), created and financed by
of Africans”.
According to the "Mauritius Leaks", Patrick Bitature benefited in 2011 from a personal loan in the amount of 2.5
million dollars granted by a company domiciled in Bermuda through another company based in
Mauritius, African Frontiers. The latter also proposed an investment of 17 million dollars
in Electro-Maxx and took care to benefit from the advantages of the non-double taxation treaty sealed between
Mauritius and Uganda, where his income would have been subject to a 30% tax. Financially linked to
a company hosted on the Indian Ocean island, Electro-Maxx can continue to claim its Africanness.
Just like the Nigerian investment company Venture Garden Group, which specializes in
development of technological solutions for the financial industry. In Lagos, the economic capital of
giant of West Africa, it is considered a heavyweight in the bubbling ecosystem
digital. It also runs an innovative and collaborative space called "Vibranium Valley", in reference
to the precious metal that abounds in Wakanda, an imaginary African country in the hit film Black Panther. "
Transforming Africa through technology”, such is the motto of Venture Garden Group.
“Continent of the future”
This holding, which counts among its clients the vice-presidency of Nigeria, established in 2015 its complex and
opaque financial architecture in Mauritius, with the help of Conyers Dill & Pearman. That same year, the
leaders of this flagship of the Nigerian "tech" scene also discuss the transfer of all rights
intellectual property of the group during a confidential meeting, the sound recording of which appears in
the “Mauritius Leaks”. However, the group's legal team disputes this: "It's not a
fraudulent mechanism or tax evasion, but you should know that this was not discussed or carried out. »
Venture Garden Group co-founder and CEO Bunmi Akinyemiju was awarded in 2017 by the
British Parliament for its contribution to transparency and good governance through the new
technologies. It is the visible face of the marvelous world of the scramble for Africa. A way to do
forget about large-scale tax evasion. Sometimes out of necessity both the infrastructure and the
financial systems are fragile or failing in some countries. But always to the detriment of what the
investors publicly designate as the "continent of the future" whose symbol of success is, for
some, embodied by Maurice.