Hedingen
donates some of its 'commodity million' from Glencore back to countries where
the company is accused of exploiting people and resources for mining
The Guardian, Rupert Neate, Monday 23 September 2013
 |
| Ivan Glasenberg paid Rüschlikon village 360m Swiss francs (£246m) in taxes linked to Glencore's flotation in 2011. Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images |
A Swiss
village has voted to donate 110,000 Swiss francs (£75,000) of taxes paid by
Ivan Glasenberg, the billionaire chief executive of GlencoreXstrata, to
charities in countries where the London-listed mining and commodity trading
company is accused of exploiting people and resources.
The people
of Hedingen, a village near Zurich, voted 764 to 662 in favour of donating the
money in a "clear sign of solidarity with those suffering the consequences
of the extraction of raw materials". The village will donate 10% of the
"commodity million" Swiss francs it received out of taxes paid by
Glasenberg in relation to Glencore's flotation in London in 2011.
Samuel
Schweizer, a member of the citizens' committee that proposed the donation, said
the villagers felt obliged to give back some of the "extraordinary wealth
to the people who should have received it in the beginning".
He added:
"It is extraordinary that our small community got more than 1 million
francs of extra tax money from Glencore extracting raw materials in a number of
very poor countries, where it is accused of polluting, abusing labour and not
paying much in taxes. We had a unique opportunity to raise public awareness. We
felt we must share this with the people who are suffering from the operations
of Glencore."
The money
will be paid to non-governmental organisations working on humanitarian projects
in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Colombia and Bolivia.
Glasenberg,
who is worth $6.7bn according to Forbes magazine, paid 360m Swiss francs
(£246m) in taxes linked to the flotation to the village of Rüschlikon, where he
lives, in 2011. The money has since been redistributed between Rüschlikon,
Hedingen and other communities in the Canton of Zurich.
Five of the
villages are following Hedingen's lead and voting on whether to donate the
money to charity over the next three months.
Schweizer
said pressure is building on Rüschlikon, which kept 50m Swiss francs of
Glasenberg's taxes, to donate some of the money to charity. Residents of
Rüschlikon, already dubbed "the richest village in Switzerland", last
year voted down a motion to give some of the money to an African charity.
Instead
villagers voted to cut the local tax rate by 7%.
Schweizer
added that if other villages follow Hedingen's lead, Rüschlikon "will be
pressured into reconsidering its decision". "We wish that Rüschlikon
would act in the same way [as Hedingen].
"We
hope that people will open their eyes to the danger that raw material
extraction will be the next reputational time bomb for Switzerland," he
said. "Political leaders have not learned anything from the disaster of
[Switzerland's role at the heart of the] banking industry."
The Berne
Declaration, a non-governmental organisation campaigning against Switzerland's
role in hosting global commodity companies, said: "While the decision
makers in the capital Berne consider our commodities industry still only a
political reputation risk, the landmark decision in the rural-conservative
Hedingen shows that on the ground Glencore and their competitors already have a
real reputational problem in this country.
"Remarkably
and correctly, the people of Hedingen assume that tax money is not
automatically white, clean or legitimate. As citizens, they take responsibility
for that which the government still shies away from."
A Glencore
spokesman said: "We believe that Glencore's global presence and economic
strength have a predominantly positive impact on the communities in which we
operate. We seek out, undertake and contribute to activities and programmes
designed to improve quality of life for the people in these communities. In
2012, Glencore spent over $200m investing in the sustainable development of the
communities in which it operates.
"Glencore's
tax strategy and payments play a vital role in our intention to achieve
long-term sustainable development. We are committed to full compliance with all
statutory obligations, full disclosure to tax authorities and reporting
transparently in the tax payments that we make to the governments of the
countries in which we operate."
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