The head of African football, Ahmad Ahmad, has been banned from football for five years by Fifa following an ethics investigation by world football’s governing body.
Ahmad Ahmad, from Madagascar, was found guilty of breaching his duty of loyalty, offering and accepting gifts and other benefits, misappropriation of funds and of abusing his position by the adjudicatory chamber of Fifa’s independent ethics committee. In addition to the ban, he was fined 200,000 Swiss francs (£164,000).
Ahmad was elected CAF president in March 2017, and last month submitted his candidacy to serve a second term in office, with elections due to take place next year.
Fifa had “sanctioned him with a ban from all football-related activity (administrative, sports or any other) at both national and international level for five years,” it said.
Former CAF general secretary Amr Fahmy, who died this year from cancer, had been dismissed after he made corruption allegations against Ahmad last year in a document sent to Fifa.
The document, sent on 31 March 2019 by Fahmy to a Fifa investigations committee, accused Ahmad of ordering his secretary-general to pay $20,000 (£15,000) bribes into accounts of African football association presidents. They included Cape Verde and Tanzania.
The document also accused Ahmad of costing CAF an extra $830,000 (£621,000) by ordering equipment via a French intermediary company called Tactical Steel. The company denied any wrongdoing and said it had won the contract on merit.
Furthermore, it accused him of harassing four female CAF staff, whom it did not name; violating statutes to increase Moroccan representation within the organization; and overspending more than $400,000 (£300,000) of CAF money on cars in Egypt and Madagascar, where a satellite office has been set up for him.
Senior CAF officials, speaking on condition of anonymity at the time of his dismissal, said Fahmy was fired in reprisal for compiling the document with the allegations against Ahmad.
CAF President Ahmed banned for five years
Ethiopian Letesenbet in the forefront to win Athlete of the Year Award
World Athletics announced five finalists for the Female World Athlete of the Year 2020. In spite of the many challenges presented by the global Covid-19 pandemic this year, the five athletes, who represent five countries and four area associations, have excelled, producing brilliant performances across a range of athletics disciplines in 2020.
The finalists are: Letesenbet Gidey, Ethiopia: Gidey set a world record of 14:06.62 over 5000m. She was second in the 5000m at the Wanda Diamond League meeting in Monaco.
Sifan Hassan, Netherlands: Hassan set a world record of 18,930m in the one hour run. She set a European record of 29:36.67 over 10,000m, the fourth-fastest performance in history. Peres Jepchirchir, Kenya: The Kenyan athlete won the world half-marathon title. She twice broke the world half-marathon record for a women-only race (1:05:34 and 1:05:16).
Yulimar Rojas, Venezuela: Rojas remained undefeated in four triple jump competitions indoors and outdoors. She broke the world indoor triple jump record with 15.43m. Elaine Thompson-Herah, Jamaica: The Jamaican remained undefeated in seven 100m races. She ran a world-leading 10.85 over 100m.
The male and female World Athletes of the Year will be announced live at the World Athletics Awards 2020 to be staged as a virtual event on December 5.
Big Tobacco wants African nations to do its bidding
There was a time when tobacco companies could market their deadly and addictive products with cartoon characters, svelte women and handsome Cowboys. Decades later, with growing evidence and public awareness of the harms of tobacco use, such unscrupulous advertising has been outlawed in many countries. Now, there is increasing evidence that the purveyors of cigarettes and other tobacco and nicotine products look hungrily at Africa, a region ripe for expanding demand for their products. The continent has low tobacco use compared to other continents. It has a growing, youthful population, fewer regulations and, importantly, increased disposable income. For Big Tobacco, Africa could be the goose that lays golden eggs for decades to come.
The only barrier to the industry’s ambitions is governments implementing strong policies to deter tobacco use and protect health, so the industry works to influence and, ultimately, undermine those policy decisions. This problem came into sharp focus with the recent release of the Global Tobacco Industry Interference Index, 2020 compiled by the Global Center for Good Governance in Tobacco Control from civil society reports, and published by STOP, a global tobacco industry watchdog. The Index looks at Big Tobacco’s efforts to sway policymakers around the world and evaluates governments’ progress, or lack of progress, in protecting policy. Nine of the 57 nations reviewed are in Africa.
From Nigeria and Ethiopia to South Africa and Uganda, the Index is a wake-up call to big tobacco’s tactics. This is an industry that often needles and cajoles African governments to get what it wants, while also sweet-talking policymakers through disingenuous corporate social responsibility initiatives. The goal is the same: to change policies, delay or weaken tobacco control laws, and to win lucrative financial incentives. The methods are insidious, and the examples are plentiful.
The tobacco industry embeds itself anywhere in the government where it can gain an advantage. In Nigeria, for example, the industry sits in the standard-setting organization for tobacco products while in Ethiopia, the National Tobacco Enterprise (NTE) is allowed to comment on tobacco control laws before they are passed. Japan Tobacco International, one of the world’s largest tobacco companies that is active in at least seven African nations, bought a controlling share of the NTE.
Likewise, the industry uses corporate donations and unnecessary interactions to establish cozy relationships with non-health government bodies. In 2019, Zambia’s Finance Minister officiated the opening of a new BAT factory, while in Sudan, the former President and the Minister of Industry were involved in a tobacco industry-sponsored scholarship program. More recently in Kenya, British American Tobacco (BAT) donated 300,000 liters of sanitizer to government agencies around the same time the government listed tobacco as an “essential product” during the COVID-19 pandemic. These activities provide positive media coverage for companies that sell deadly products.
In many cases cited in the Global Tobacco Index 2020, Big Tobacco’s interference has stalled or derailed tobacco control policies, while tax incentives flow freely. In 2019, there were no tax increases on tobacco in Ethiopia and Tanzania. The Global Index is based on detailed country reports. South Africa’s country report notes that interference led the South Africa Revenue Service to extend the deadline for the country’s proposed Track and Trace system, that would help to reduce illicit tobacco. The tender has since been cancelled. Civil society also records attempts to influence policy that were ultimately unsuccessful: Uganda’s country report notes that BAT Uganda pressed upon the Minister of Trade to modify one of the region’s strongest tobacco control regulations. After the research for Nigeria was completed and amidst a global pandemic, civil society witnessed Philip Morris International using media interviews to request tax and regulatory breaks for its heated tobacco products, even though these products are not duly proven to be safer than cigarettes.
The message throughout this research is clear. The industry will use every tactic at its disposal to grow sales in Africa. The profits from this growth will flow back to wealthy transnational tobacco companies, while Africans are left to pay the price of tobacco’s harm.
The Index also highlights a strategic roadmap to halt the harm in Africa. Article 5.3 of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Framework Convention on Tobacco Control calls on governments to safeguard public health policies from industry influence and these efforts must cover the whole of government. In a positive example, Uganda rose to rank in the top three nations globally for acting to prevent industry interference and passed one of the region’s most stringent tobacco control laws in the face of heavy tobacco industry pressure.
There is a lot of hope for Africa. We can stop the tobacco epidemic before it gains a bigger, deadlier foothold, as it did in Europe, Asia and the Americas, if governments act now to stop Big Tobacco’s interference. It will require vigilance, transparency, and the demonstrated will of policymakers to push back the industry. It is time to put the African people and tobacco control policies before the tobacco industry’s vested interests.
Leonce Dieudonné Sessou is Executive Secretary of the African Tobacco Control Alliance (ATCA)
The demise for right-wing populism
The decisive victory of the New Zealand Labour politician, Jacinda Arden, in her country’s recent general election confirms a significant global political trend away from the nationalist anti-immigrant right. Prime Minister Jacinda Arden is the antithesis of President Donald Trump, Prime Minister Boris Johnson and other “loud-mouth” immigrant-bashing rightwing populists. She channels a desire for a more balanced politics which seeks to include. Her approach stands in stark contrast to the “exclude and divide” mantra, which is the right-wing populists’ way of generating voter support via hostility to minorities, foreigners and international rules.
Also consider Thailand, where young voters are demanding change to a more tolerant, inclusive politics and are evidently no longer afraid by the military regime. There is also outrage in Poland at the hyper-cynical way in which the populist nationalist government abuses its political might, as well as its unconstitutional moves to control the judicial branch, to suppress the right of women to decide on what terms they might give birth to a seriously ill, deformed baby.
Denis MacShane, former UK’s Minister and the author of “Brexiternity: The Uncertain Fate of Britain” stated that since Joe Biden, the last 1968 generation politician still standing for high office who, at least in an American context, is progressive, defeats President Donald Trump, the ill spirits of the 2016 election will be well and truly exorcised. Of course, a President Biden would be demonized by all Trump Republicans and cast as a left-wing politician. He receives that charge just because he is a believer in government and committed to international rules and institutions.
According to Denis MacShane, for the last decade, populists have been in the saddle in quite a few countries. And in some of them, notably in Brazil, India and Turkey, they still are. At the time, academic commentators issued dark alarms that a new illiberal, anti-immigrant, even post-democratic politics was about to take over.
In 2018, Professor Matthew Goodwin, of England’s Kent University, proclaimed that “National populism is unstoppable. His influential book “National Populism: The Revolt Against Liberal Democracy” was not alone. All over Europe and the United States, political scientists were sounding the tocsin for any balanced, values-based politics.
Ludger Kuhnhardt, Director of the Center for European Integration Studies (ZEI) at the University of Bonn, Germany stated that there was endless talk about Marine Le Pen in France, Matteo Salvini in Italy, Geert Wilders in the Netherlands, the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) in Germany, Golden Dawn in Greece and the Austrian Freedom Party. To the extent that they did not implode on their own through scandals, the establishment parties have sharpened their game to ensure that they stand up more effectively to the lures of the right-wing populists.
In Germany, the AfD’s support has shrunk considerably. And in France, Marine Le Pen herself saw to it that hard right-wing and neo-fascist elements were thrown out of her party. The Austrian nationalist populists of the Freedom Party were thrashed by the Austrian socialists last month in a key election in Vienna to control their nation’s capital city.
According to Ludger Kuhnhardt, Matteo Salvini hoped to make a breakthrough in Italy’s regional elections last month but lost out badly to moderate left and centrist parties. Leaders of Greece’s Golden Dawn immigrant-hating nationalist populists are now in prison, after key figures in the party were convicted in an Athens court of promoting violence.
Sensible middle-of-the-road politicians govern in the EU’s three Nordic member states of Sweden, Denmark and Finland as prime ministers. They are all social democrats, but offer a balanced political approach. The pandemic has exposed the hollowness of both of the populists’ punchiest suggestions.
They argued that, nations were submerged by immigrants and, that by adopting 1930s-style orthodox fiscal economics and deregulation, the economies would do much better. The world has seen foreign immigrant doctors and nurses putting their lives on the line to look after patient in hospitals. This includes Britain, with care homes in nearly every country is completely dependent on immigrant workers.
The EU has stepped up to the plate with a massive Keynesian spending program to combat the pandemic’s economic effects. As a result, the line from Marine Le Pen and Geert Wilders that all would be well in France or the Netherlands if only the EU did not exist has fewer and fewer adherents. Even in Britain, only 39% of those polled any longer think cutting links with Europe is a good idea.
To conclude, a defeat for President Trump will bury the populists’ spirit of 2016. Even if he wins a 2nd term, the good news is that the era of hard populism is fading. The political scientists and commentariat will have to put their thinking caps on to define the new politics.
