The U.S. military’s African Center for Strategic Studies has a pretty interesting and detailed report on Sam Pa, his group of companies, and involvement in shady deals in the extractive sector in Africa. In Mr. Pa we have got the Hong Kong/Chinese equivalent of the shady Israeli billionaire Dan Gertler who’s playground is mainly the DRC (Global Witness has a thick dossier on Mr. Gertler; See also an FT piece on his partner, Benny Steinmetz, who recently got (figuratively) burned after a too-good-to-be-true deal went sour in Guinea).

Focusing on Mr. Pa and his business network in several African states, the ACSS report examines the networks and (corrupt) practices of the Hong Kong-based 88 Queensway Group. It outlines Mr. Pa’s business strategy as one based on:

Cultivating relationships with high-level government officials in politically isolated resource-rich states through infusions of cash, promises of billions of dollars in infrastructural development, and support for the security sector [….] Starting in Angola in 2003, Queensway has been engaged in the extractive industries in at least nine African countries, including Guinea, Madagascar, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe.

…… In many ways the prototypical predatory investor, Queensway frequently appears in resource-rich states in Africa where it can operate with high levels of opacity. In Angola and Zimbabwe, for example, few details from the contracts pertaining to Queensway’s investments—reportedly worth up to $9 billion in each country—have ever been disclosed to the public. In states where contracts have been unearthed, such as Guinea and Tanzania, the deals were revealed to be flagrantly unfavorable to the citizens of the host country. Having allegedly bribed African government officials and engaged in illicit arms trafficking and diamond smuggling, Queensway’s deals in Africa have often had a disastrous impact on governance.

You can download the full report here.

HT Financial Times