Stealing Africa is informative documentary directed by Christopher Guldbrandsen that investigates the Glencore mining corporation in Zambia. Guldbrandsen dives into great depth into the control of the most abundant resource in Zambia, copper. Zambia contains large copper reserves that generate tremendous revenue but yet the country is enormously impoverished. On average the people of Zambia live on one dollar a day and the unemployment is a sky rocketing eighty percent. Guldbrandsen is flattered by his findings and wants to find out what exactly what is going on. The documentary starts out by showing the prosperity of the small village Ruschilikon in Switzerland. The village has a very low unemployment rate with citizens with rising incomes. …show more content…
It is estimated that the taxes Zambia could have collected was one hundred and fifty billion dollars, which is double the amount Zambia receives each year in aid. Greg Scott, the new vice president of Zambia was elected to attack this corporation for their practices. Zambia was struggling due to the low price of copper and was bailed out by the World Bank and the IMF on certain conditions. Zambia agreed to sell all of its copper mines far beneath the value of their assets. Unfortunately for Zambia, the price of copper sky rocketed after they sold off their mines. From 2001-2008 the price of copper quadrupled and MNC’s still paid no tax. Guldbrandsen concluded that these huge MNC’s can manipulate the price of copper by buying it at a low price and then sell it for a higher price without paying any tax. To fully understand Glencore’s business practices, this film dives deep into their past. Glencore was founded by Mark Rich, an American businessman in 1974. Mark Rich was indicted for tax evasion, tax fraud and for trading with Iran. He was apart of the biggest tax fraud ever recorded in the United States and plead guilty to his charges, resulting in his …show more content…
From the beginning, the director sets the tone of how he’s frustrated with the so called “cheating” Multi National Corporations are doing. In this case, Glencore is getting away with far too much, and this film did a great job by using strong evidence to attack the corporation for their wrongdoing. The director claims Glencore is stealing from Africa and is determined to uncover the mystery of the wealthy but yet impoverished country of Zambia. This film’s main strength was revealing the greediness and incivility of Glencore’s practices. The director points at how Ruschilikon, Switzerland is acquiring so much money that the city can’t even spend all the money that it is earning. He even eluded to the fact the residents of the village didn’t want to give any of the money back to Africa that is in desperate need of money. The impression people see is that Africa receives so much money in foreign and believe Africa just wastes it all. This film disputes that by using a strong fact, saying the amount of money flowing out of Africa is ten times the amount of money coming in from foreign aid. The main point of this film was to expose Glencore Corporation on how they have been cheating for years for not paying enough in taxes. The money they should be receiving on taxes would improve Zambia’s infrastructure significantly. I would have to say the main weakness in