Josie Cohen, biofuels campaigner

The residents of the 11 villages surrounding the Sun Biofuels plantation in Kisarawe, Tanzania, have today issued a formal, public invitation to Christopher Egerton-Warburton – one of the founding partners of Lion’s Head Global Partners and the representative of the owners of Sun Biofuels – to come and visit them.

The back story

Having lost more than 8,000 hectares of land to Sun Biofuels, the communities are desperate for Mr Egerton-Warburton to come to Kisarawe and meet with them so he can hear their grievances and see for himself the devastation that the Sun Biofuels plantation has wreaked on their lives. His visit would be the first step on the way to solving the problems caused by the Sun Biofuels’ land grab.

Sun Biofuels first came to Kisarawe in 2006 and promised local people full and fair compensation for their land and a range of social services including wells, schools and clinics. But, despite the fact that the company’s plantation has been operating for a number of years, none of these promises have been kept.

Christopher Egerton-Warburton's promise

Christopher Egerton-Warburton is part of a group of investors that bought Sun Biofuels in August 2011 and I was initially hopeful that he was going to work to right the wrongs committed by the company’s previous owners by paying local people for their land and delivering the social services the company had promised. However, we have now been negotiating with Mr Egerton-Warburton since November 2011 and, in that time, have made no progress.

Meanwhile, the people of the villages are struggling to make ends meet and feed themselves. Mr Egerton-Warburton had originally promised ActionAid that he would go to speak to the communities in Kisarawe, Tanzania, in December 2011 but this seems to have slipped his mind. Hopefully, a formal invitation from the communities themselves will help remind him that Sun Biofuels is operating on large amounts of land it hasn’t paid for and making the lives of the people in the villages surrounding his plantation a daily struggle.

As Amina Ali, a resident of Mhaga village, puts it, "We ask him to come to our village personally, so he can see for himself all the problems we have now in our lives because of Sun Biofuels."

Land grabbing for biofuels is becoming increasingly widespread. Already 37 million hectares of land has been grabbed for biofuels globally. This land grab is driven by the targets and subsidies of rich governments.

Sign the petition against biofuels now

James Blair, Activism Officer

Laura went along to a community event in Colliers Wood to collect ‘close tax loopholes’ petition signatures and not only signed up 72 local residents, including three local councillors, but also managed to meet her MP. Here’s Laura to explain:

"The community event in Colliers Wood went really well. I got to speak to lots of local people about tax havens and tax dodging. Many of them were concerned about the issue, but didn't really understand what was going on so I hope I was able to clarify things. I got 72 to sign the petition so I couldn’t have done too bad a job.

I was really encouraged by the three local councillors who signed the petition, two of them were particularly keen on the campaign. It was also good to meet my local MP Siobhain McDonagh who was there with the local Labour party. I’d already booked an appointment to meet her at her surgery next week so it was nice to show her that people in the community were concerned about the issue. I didn’t go into much detail with her I’ll save that for the meeting! It was a really good experience overall. I’m glad I managed to get a great number of petition signatures as well as meet some really important and useful local people."

Well done Laura - shows you never know who’s going to be at your local community event! Good luck when you meet Siobhan.

Laura is a Community Campaigner and has recently started campaigning on tax justice with ActionAid. If you’re interested in campaigning in your community (and maybe bumping into your local MP) get in touch on james.blair@actionaid.org or 0203 122 0743.

Chris Jordan, Campaigner

Is SABMiller beginning to see the light? Since we exposed how tax dodging by the beer giants in Africa could be costing 250,000 children a place in school, they have studiously refused to respond to our demands of greater transparency.

But is the tide turning? At a recent accountancy conference, SABMiller director and chair of their audit committee Helen Weir declared that "Transparency is going to happen, like it or not. But how are businesses going to use that trend to communicate better?"

Full marks to Helen for embracing the move towards greater transparency – but is her own company delivering? Unfortunately not.

SABMiller repeatedly inflate the amount of tax it claims to pay governments. The company conflates the amount of tax it bears (like corporation tax on its profits) with the tax that’s actually paid for by consumers, like export duty.

In Ghana, this leads to a situation where SABMiller claim to pay $22.2 million in taxes. However over 85% of this is excise duty, which is paid by customers each time they buy a bottle of beer!

If SABMiller was really serious about transparency, it would stop massaging the figures like this. But the real goal is transparency that would be able to see if they’re paying their taxes in the place they do business. This could easily be achieved if every multinational had to publish a basic set of accounts in every country they operate in - including tax havens. I wonder if Helen will lead the charge from her position on the audit committee?

Meredith Alexander, Head of Trade and Corporates

Here in the UK and certainly in Europe, the economy looks a bit shaky. This is a serious concern to anyone who cares about poverty. It is also worrying for those of us who want real action to reduce dangerous climate change. Some of the things we need to do to de-carbonise society cost. Many politicians and business leaders say we just can’t afford it.

So why is the government wasting your money on something that makes life harder for the world’s poor and fails to achieve its stated objective of reducing carbon emissions?

That is the finding of two reports out today from the Global Subsidies Initiative, summarised in this briefing. If the UK government carries on with its current biofuel plan, UK motorists will pay a total of between £10-14 billion more for their petrol and diesel between 2010 and 2020. Given that most biofuels actually cause more greenhouse gas emissions than the fossil fuels they are designed to replace, this is your money just going down the drain.

What’s worse, your money is funding a policy that harms the poorest people in the world. Using land to grow biofuels is pushing up food prices at a time when almost a billion people already can’t afford to buy enough food. Often the land itself is taken from poor farming communities with little or no compensation.

Biofuels are bad for the economy, for the climate and for the world’s poor. It’s time to end biofuel targets. You can be part of the solution by signing the petition here

Chris Jordan, Tax Justice Campaigner

Do you love tax justice? Do you love podcasts? If so, we’ve got a very special treat just for you!

Our friends over at Tackle Tax Havens have just released their very first TaxCast – bring you all the latest news and debates from the world of tax justice.

This edition discusses the implications of the Vodafone vs India landmark tax case, compares Bill Gates and Mitt Romney’s attitudes to taxation and visits the Occupy camp outside St Paul’s Cathedral in London.

Listen to it here:

James Blair, Activism Officer

Mary’s been supporting ActionAid for 30 years, most recently as a Community Campaigner, and last week she surprised her MP with news that the Government could be about to open a new tax loophole. Here’s Mary to explain what happened:

“I’ve never met Helen Grant, my MP, before. She became an MP at the last election, replacing the formidable Ann Widdecombe, so I wanted to make sure she was up to speed on the affect tax dodging is having on developing countries.

We discussed the loss of revenue to developing countries by company tax evasion and Helen was surprised that the Government might be considering relaxing the tax laws rather than reducing tax loopholes.

Helen was very positive in the whole meeting and said she completely supported our aims, asking that we "keep up the good work".

I was really pleased when she agreed to ask not one, but three questions of the Treasury, emphasising that tax law changes should not be detrimental to developing countries. She also promised to try to attend the debate on the Tax and Financial Transparency Bill on 9th March.

I saw Helen again a week later, where she confirmed the questions she’d ask and we agreed to keep in touch.”

Mary with her MP Helen Grant:

Nice one Mary! It’s great to hear that MPs are surprised by the Government’s proposals to open new tax loopholes.

Mary isn’t a tax expert. She went to see her MP because she’s really worried about tax loopholes causing poverty in poor countries. You too can lobby your MP and we’ll be running some informal training sessions in March to help you. More details to come but let me (James) know if you’re interested: james.blair@actionaid.org or 0203 122 0743