NGOs autopsy EСВ

Projects financed by the European Central Bank (ECB) in the third world are operated by companies registered in countries considered tax havens, shows an analysis of NGOs based on monitoring the activities of the bank.
It is worth developing countries millions of unrealized tax revenue and leads to reflux of capital and lack of transparency, claiming the organizations cited by Euobserver.
Group is formed by seven European non-governmental organizations which monitor the operations of the ECB. They managed the bank very lame so-called global loans – loans granted confidence to the largest banks in Europe, most often resort to offshore activities.
„The ECB did not have a great idea, then what will the banks do with money, but few of them earlier was said that conducted business through tax havens,“ said Marta Ruiz – author of the study.
This monitoring system of the ECB suggests that most banks and companies that receive loans, reported themselves to themselves, if zasekat signals dubious business.
Furthermore, sanctions against the ECB provides companies to hide captured taxes are not stringent enough, says the document. Companies who are denied funding are not made public and there is no ban on their participation in other projects of the ECB unless criminal conviction.
According to critics the ECB is the least known and most opaque of all EU institutions. One of the functions of the Bank is to implement the EU’s development cooperation.
For example the report gives credit to the ECB to leave Africa. Bank will give 2 billion for Africa in the next three years, mainly for investments in infrastructure and energy projects in the financial sector. Ruiz explained that often beneficiaries of projects funded by the ECB in Africa, is a multinational corporation, which opened a subsidiary in tax havens like Mauritius.
The company operates in a third country with which Mauritius has a tax agreement under which companies pay taxes on the island „home“ and not in the country where the project is based. Then, companies do not pay taxes unless the fee for listing an address in Mauritius and thus derive between 20 and 30 percent return on investment.
„This is like giving money to developing countries with one hand and then take them back with the other,“ says Ruiz.
Officer of the ECB said that the institution is not strange to work with major banks and other intermediaries such as investment funds. ECB provides direct loans only for projects requiring more than 25 million. To give a small loan, the bank uses intermediaries.
„But these are loans. We want the return of this money and therefore we are concerned to insist on a complete report by the investors to whom we provide funding, „he says, adding that the ECB is currently considering how to improve procedures for the inverse statement.