UK Royal Mint faces fraud probe
January 29, 2008 by credit4everyone
Filed under news
The Royal Mint, a centuries-old byword for financial integrity, has become a target of expanding efforts to combat alleged bribery by British companies overseas.
The Serious Fraud Office is probing claims of corruption relating to Nigeria, where the Mint has won business supplying coins as part of an effort to improve its financial performance.
The investigation is a sign of how Britain’s anti-corruption efforts – beefed up since the abortive investigation into BAE Systems – are putting an uncomfortable spotlight even on the behaviour of the government’s own departments.
The Mint, an executive agency overseen by the Treasury, said simply: “The Royal Mint is working with the Serious Fraud Office in its ongoing investigation.” It declined to give details of its contracts with Nigeria, citing commercial confidentiality.
In its latest annual report, the Mint said it had just fulfilled a “substantial” coin order from Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation. It has a continuing deal to supply it with “overseas blanks”, metal discs that are stamped to form finished coins. The Mint has won the deals even though coins are little used in everyday Nigerian transactions, as the smallest banknote has a value of only about 2p.
Asked why Nigeria needed the coins, the Mint said: “It’s supply and demand. The Royal Mint supplies coins where there is demand.”
Isaac Okorafor, special assistant to the Central Bank of Nigeria governor, said he was not aware of the SFO investigation. He said the Nigerian Mint had put fresh coins into circulation last year, although take-up had been poor because their low value made them impractical.
Mr Okorafor said it was “practically impossible” for corruption to have occurred in contracts struck under procurement safeguards put in place at the Nigerian Mint.
The SFO declined to comment on the investigation, other than to say the Royal Mint was co-operating.
The investigation is not the first time the Mint’s dealings in west Africa have attracted the SFO’s attention.