07/11/2017 Newsnight

Government 2017?

Another fine mess...

Or two.

The Government's coping,

or striving to cope,

with one mishap after another.

Is it really capable of driving

the country into a new Brexit era?

I think the problem is you've now

got five Cabinet ministers,

the former Defence Secretary,

the current Defence Secretary,

the Foreign Secretary,

the Development Secretary

and the First Secretary,

all now mired in serious

controversies of one

form or another.

We'll be asking if yet

another minister could be

gone by the morning.

Also tonight, Prince Charles

lobbied for a change

in carbon trading rules -

without pointing out that the Duchy

of Cornwall had invested

in a company that stood to benefit.

We'll ask a former Chairman

of the Committee of Standards

in Public Life why he thinks

that's a problem.

We'll have a special report

about what the Paradise Papers

have revealed in Angola.

Oil money, which might have been

used to help some of the poorest

people in the world,

has ended up making

one man super rich.

Although the border is only just

there, where those signs are,

a couple of hundred yards,

it's not an easy place

for journalists to go.

Particularly when the subject

of our investigation is the son

of the President and someone very

close to him.

Hello.

Accidents happen in government.

People slip on banana skins.

There are momentary lapses,

or arguments that spill

into the public domain.

Events can catch

Cabinets by surprise.

That's normal.

At a rate of one every few months.

But then there's this Government.

Since the election knocked

the confidence out of

the Prime Minister five months ago,

to many it has just lurched from one

self-inflicted wound to another.

Public arguments over

Brexit are half of it,

the harassment cases have piled

on the pressure.

But the coincidence of extra

missteps has given this

Government a whiff of decay.

And you're not meant to have

that until you've been

in power for a decade or more.

Two particular things

are exercising many MPs right now.

The Foreign Secretary giving

the unhelpful impression that

a British woman imprisoned in Iran

is guilty of crimes there.

And the other is Development

Secretary Priti Patel,

who clearly tried to mislead

the public about her

activities in Israel.

This is a far more intense

speculation this evening.

An unlucky government,

or a careless one.

Nick Watt reports.

Day by day, piece by piece, the

forces holding this Government

together are fracturing. There is an

unmistakable air of weakness and

fragility, as Theresa May struggles

to assert her authority.

You've now

got five Cabinet ministers - the

former Defence Secretary, the

current Defence Secretary, the

Foreign Secretary, the development

secretary, and the first Akrotiri,

all now mired in serious

controversies of one form or

another. And in each case, the Prime

Minister is unable to get a grip of

it and unable to provide a sense of

direction.

And today, Downing Street

was mopping up after not one but two

Cabinet ministers gave the Prime

Minister grief of a highly sensitive

security issues.

We are going to

work flat-out.

It took Boris Johnson

nearly an hour in the Commons

chamber to offer an apology for the

loose language which may have added

to the prison sentence in Teheran

handed down to the British-Iranian

woman Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe.

I'm

sorry if any words of mine have been

so taken out of context and

misconstrued as to cause any kind of

anxiety for the family of Nazanin

Zaghari-Ratcliffe, of course I am.

Of course I am.

Shortly before the

Foreign Secretary's appearance, one

of Prydie Patel's deputies had to

explain why she held a series of

official meetings in Israel during

her summer holiday without first

notifying the Foreign Office or

Downing Street.

The Secretary of

State has been very clear and

absolutely contrite in her statement

yesterday. She recognises that of

course she sure to have informed the

Foreign Office before the visit, but

she didn't.

Downing Street is doing

little to disguise its frustration

with the two wayward Cabinet

ministers. In the eyes of many

ministers, Boris Johnson and Priti

Patel have both lived down

expectations. The Foreign Secretary

has caused heartache for the family

of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe with

his careless language, whilst the

International Development Secretary

has shown that even in the world of

high diplomacy, she believes she can

live by her own rules.

The wider

question is, there is no sense of

direction, no sense of grip in any

of these controversies coming from

the Prime Minister, at a time when

we really need a functioning Cabinet

and this affects our reputation

around the world when we have such

important international negotiations

at stake. This is really damaging

for the whole country, not just for

the Conservative Party.

Even loyal

MPs believe this has not been the

Goverment's finest hour.

I've got to

be honest about it, neither of these

scenarios are ideal. Prydie Patel,

from what I can gather, did inform

the Foreign Office, albeit whilst

she was in Israel on this visit. But

in relation to the Foreign Secretary

Cosme comments, I'm not here to

defend those comments. I think, you

know, it is tricky and difficult to

do that. What I think we should

remember, though, is that the real

criminals here are the Iranian

regime who are holding somebody, you

know, against all natural justice,

for the average over foreign

countries.

-- for the average.

Battered by events and headstrong

Cabinet ministers, Theresa May's

Government limps on. For the moment,

it is intact. But the damage is

taking its toll. Nick Watt there.

Accidents don't happen, they are

caused, the old phrase goes.

Nick Watt is with me now.

Next, it's been a bad day for Boris

Johnson. But a much worse one for

Priti Patel, we gather, this

evening. Quite a lot of speculation

about her future.

That's right. She

is still the international developer

and secretary. She recently arrived

in the next few hours to Africa for

a long planned trip. But some very,

very serious questions are being

asked in the heart of Government

about Priti Patel and what actually

she declared for this trip to

Israel. And Priti Patel will be

very, very lucky if she is still in

the gambit micro by the end of this

week. I think the thinking is -- if

she is still in the Cabinet. If new

details emerged about this visit,

perhaps elements of this trip that

she didn't declare fully to the

Prime Minister, I think she will no

longer be a member of the Cabinet.

That information has not yet been

presented, it is not yet there are,

as I understand it, at the highest

levels of Government. But they are

thinking that if there is more

information that wasn't the Clare...

Can use tag a Cabinet minister

whilst they are overseas on official

business, what happens? -- can you

sag a Cabinet minister.

There would

be a discussion between said, by

criminals than the premise that, as

I understand it. That information is

not sitting in Downing Street, and

it may not get there, but bit by bit

more information is coming out. For

example, the Prime Minister did not

know, until our BBC colleague James

Landale revealed on the today

programme this morning, that Priti

Patel tried to change Government

policy on the Golan Heights. She saw

the work that the Israeli defence

forces are doing in helping Syrian

refugees who come onto the Golan

Heights. The UK Government says the

IDF is doing very, very serious

work. But of course, as Alistair

Burt, her ministerial colleagues,

said in the Commons today, the UK

can't help the Israeli defence

forces because the UK has never

recognised the Israeli annexation of

the goal of heights. That sort of

thing, there is more information

that comes out, then it will be very

difficult for her -- the annexation

of the Golan Heights.

In a few minutes, we'll talk

to Labour's Tulip Siddiq.

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe

is her constituent.

She is currently in jail in Iraq,

very important set of questions for

Boris Johnson -- in Iran.

But first, the Conservative MP

Nadhim Zahawi is here.

He is a member of the Foreign

Affairs Select Committee.

Good evening to you. I'm assuming

you think it's not possible to

remain a Secretary of State if you

have lied and misled the public on

this matter was ill and Priti Patel

was on a family holiday paid for by

herself.

She met ministers as well

as many charities and some very

interesting start-ups who are, you

know, working in Africa, which she

is passionate about. She is in

Africa now.

She took a working

break.

She is a workaholic, that is

what she is like. The Foreign Office

knew that whilst the trip was

ongoing... The white they found out

that she would does -- she was

visiting... I think are apology, she

was contrite about not going through

the right procedures. Because you

need to make sure that you do that.

I didn't focus on the offence of

breaking the ministerial code by

going to Israel and conducting your

own foreign policy, I was focusing

on the misleading of the public. She

said, Boris knew about the visit.

The point is, the Foreign Office did

know about this, Boris knew about

the trip. In fact, yesterday we were

told he did become aware of it, but

not in advance. Now, wouldn't you

say that she was misleading the

public, or even lying, when she said

that Boris did know about the trip?

Well, that was her interview with

the Guardian. The Guardian

subsequently corrected that

published every interview that she

had.

There was another set of

misleading... She said, the stuff is

out there, the stuff that is out

there is it as far as I'm concerned.

She hadn't at that stage mentioned

that she had met the Israeli Prime

Minister on her holiday, you know,

as one does. Did that slip her mind,

or was she trying to mislead when

she said that the stuff that is out

there is it as forestry is concerned

with the well, I think what we know

already is that

she had those

meetings, the Foreign Office knew

during her trip that those

meetings...

I'm talking about the

way that she tried to mislead the

public. Do you think misleading the

public is a sackable offence or not

Brazil and she apologised to the

Prime Minister, and corrected all of

that

with a statement. You know, I

think those things...

Hang on, she

apologised or corrected herself

after it was discovered. She didn't

correct it and say, by the way, I've

accidentally misled you. If

effectively, she came out when it

was all in the public domain.

Doesn't that mean what she was doing

was trying to get away with

minimising her breach of the

ministerial code, quite a serious

one, and then, when she is caught,

she says, sorry, I miss spoke. That

is a sackable offence, isn't it?

Beverley Hughes in 2004 went through

a similar thing. Peter Mandelson in

the Hindu decays, you didn't like he

was is, rated, -- he didn't lie, he

was exonerated, but people thought

that he had lied and he had to

resign.

You are talking about these

cases. Israel is one of our closest

partners. This is not an enemy state

that she was somehow having

clandestine meetings with. The

Foreign Office knew during this trip

that she was having these visits.

She has admitted the mistake of not

following procedure and apologised

for it. I somehow feel that some of

this stuff is being drummed up

because both Priti Patel and the

Foreign Secretary of big beasts in

the Brexit campaign and there are

remembers if you think, if we can

take out these people and Israel by

-- derail the government...

I will

bring in Tulip Siddiq on this one.

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is a

constituent of yours. How damaging

the comments that Boris Johnson

made?

Extremely damaging. My

constituent has been imprisoned in

Iran for 18 years now. She's been in

solitary confinement, separated from

her baby daughter and denied access

to medical treatment. Boris Johnson,

in front of the Select Committee,

even though I have raised this case

countless times in the last 18

months, and repeatedly said that my

constituent was on holiday in Iran,

said that she was training

journalists. I would expect our

Foreign Secretary to know that basic

facts of a very important case.

His

actual words were, he said, she was

simply teaching people journalism,

as I understand it, at the very

limit. His defence is, he was

saying, at the worst she was

teaching journalism and even that

doesn't justify putting him in jail.

I wonder if those words at the limit

get him off, because he was meaning

to say something along the lines of,

you know, that's not my view, that's

the view, and is not a dust of a

geisha.

That is absolutely not a

good defence in my opinion. --

his words have been seized upon by

the Iranian judiciary system. If you

look on their website, they have

said that this shows clearly that

this woman was not on holiday in

Iran. As a result, she could be

facing fresh charges against her. We

on this side of the world,

especially the Foreign Secretary,

should be getting our constituent

back here at home in West Hampstead,

not increasing the charges against

her.

I'll tell you what I'd like,

we've only got another minute, I'd

like to get a comment from you both

on whether this multiple sort of

issues around harassment, Boris

Johnson, the Foreign Secretary,

Priti Patel, is telling us there is

some decay in this Government.

Tulip, is it a bigger vulnerability

for this Government?

I think it

shows the Government is weak. The

Prime Minister needs to take action

quickly. But my focus this week is

bringing my constituent back home,

and the Foreign Secretary needs to

retract his statement, fly out to

Iran, meet her, and bring her back

to her house, where she belongs.

A

lot of people, even friends of the

party, they are saying, we can't

have five years of this, this just

can't go wild.

I think the Prime

Minister has been very thoughtful in

her speech to the CBI this week --

this can't go on. It was well

received by the CBI. On Boris, he

has apologised and called his

counterpart and sought reassurances.

His words weren't in any way

affecting Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe.

I'm glad julep wants to focus on

higher, we should put her front and

centre of this. I'm sad that the

front bench on the other side were

giggling as soon as Emily Thornberry

finished her speech. You know,

making political hay out of this.

This will only encourage the IR GC,

who was a real culprits, remember

who the culprits are. They will

enjoy this.

The man is Foreign

Secretary of our country. He should

not be repeating them mendacious

comments made by the Iranian

Revolutionary guard, which is what

he was doing in the Select

Committee. He should know better.

We

need to leave it there. Thank you so

much. We could talk a great deal

longer about this.

A former member of the Welsh

Government who resigned last week

in light of allegations made

against him has been found dead.

He is understood to have

taken his own life.

Carl Seargent lost his job

as Cabinet Secretary for Communities

and Children last Friday.

He was suspended from Labour

after the First Minister,

Carwyn Jones, learned of a number

of alleged incidents

involving women.

The death has obviously been

a great shock to members

of the Welsh Assembly,

who suspended proceedings

this afternoon.

Chris Cook reports.

There was rare consensus today in

Cardiff Bay and throughout Labour.

Sadness at the death of Carl

Sargeant who is believed to have

taken his own life. The former Welsh

Cabinet minister left his post last

week pending an investigation into

his conduct.

Shocked, horrified and

deeply sympathetic to his family and

the statement they put out was that

he was the glue that held them

altogether and I can only think for

the moment of the stress and horror

they are going through. He was

somebody who represented our party,

worked hard to represent community

and my deepest sympathies are with

them.

Carl Sargeant held a range of

post since being elected in 2003

culminating in a Cabinet post for

communities and children.

He had

been a member of the Welsh

Government for ten years, he served

as Chief Whip and then held a

variety of sensitive political roles

and I think it is fair to say that

half the legislation roughly passed

in the last six years would have

been passed through his hands, some

quite ground-breaking stuff around

domestic violence and future

generations.

Last week Carl Sargeant

agreed to stand down from the Welsh

Cabinet while Labour investigated

allegations about his behaviour.

Carwyn Jones, the First Minister,

explained I asked by office to speak

to the women involved to provide

details of those incidents. As a

result of the conversations I felt I

had no choice but to refer the

matter to the party.

The family

asked me to speak on their behalf

today.

They do not want to dwell on

the allegations that were made

against him but clearly those have

had an impact on his mental state in

recent days and all of us who have

been in contact with him have been

worried.

Friends, comrades, first of

all a big thank you...

We have heard

concerns from high up within Welsh

Labour about the treatment of Carl

Sargeant why the claims were

investigated. Friends say that this

morning he only knew the outline of

the allegations. Carl Sargeant is

survived by a widow and two

children. Chris Kirk.

Over the last few days, we've had

stories about Lewis Hamilton,

Lord Ashcroft and the Queen,

all thrown up by the leak

of the so-called "Paradise Papers" -

documents which were obtained

by the German newspaper

Sueddeutsche Zeitung and shared

with the International Consortium

of Investigative Journalists.

The reporting has been led

in the UK by BBC Panorama

and The Guardian newspaper.

There is no doubt as to which of

today's Paradise Papers stories

is getting most of the attention:

It is the one about Prince Charles,

an undisclosed investment

in a sustainable forestry company,

and some active campaigning

for its interests.

Now, in contrast to the revelations

about the Queen's investments

in Bermuda, there was here

a potential conflict of interest

in the public work of the Prince,

and the private holdings.

It was February, 2007 that the Duchy

of Cornwall bought shares

in a Bermuda company called

Sustainable Forestry Management,

SFM, for $113,500.

It sold the shares 16 months later

for almost three times the price.

Nothing wrong with that, it was

clearly a lucrative investment.

It was also an unsurprising

investment, since the Prince himself

is said to be actively involved

in running the Duchy.

One of his best friends,

the late Hugh Van Cutson

was on the board of the company

and it touched on a subject

that was obviously dear

to his heart, but interestingly,

it was all kept very hush-hush.

The board unanimously agreed

that the subscription by the Duchy

of Cornwall can be kept confidential

except in respect of any

disclosure required by law.

Documents say.

OK, so no one wanted

to publicise his involvement.

There followed a number of public

interventions, including this.

The immediate priority, I believe,

is the need to develop

a new credit market,

which will give a true value

to carbon and the ecosystem services

that rainforests provide the rest

of the world.

Other speeches went further,

specifically on an issue that

mattered to the company, SFM.

It's complex, but it was

whether the market in carbon credits

created under EU rules

and the Kyoto Protocol

should recognise pay-outs

for the preservation

of tropical rainforests.

Not only did this matter to SFM,

but the company prepared lobbying

papers for the Prince.

Who spoke to the European Commission

and the European Parliament,

obviously no MEP listening to him

would have been allowed to make such

a pitch without disclosing

the financial interest in it.

No MP here would be either.

Should the Prince be able to?

Should his investments be

kept secret and should

he be lobbying anyway?

In response to the story,

Clarence House said...

They added...

Joining me now from Leeds is

the former Chairman of the Committee

on Standards in Public Life,

Sir Alistair Graham.

Good evening to you. Can you explain

the conflict of interest you

referred to earlier today as regards

this case?

I believe the conflict is

that if any public official or in

this case a member of the Royal

Family decides to lobby on an issue,

then they should have a duty to

declare any financial interest they

have in the issue that they are

lobbying about, which did not happen

in this case.

I think a lot of

people would say that Prince Charles

would very likely have lobbied on an

issue like that because he takes

such an interest in things like

sustainable forests and it is

perfectly logical that he would

lobby out without having a financial

investment.

I do not see why a

member of the Royal Family should be

different from any public official

who signs up to the seven principles

of public life, which very clearly

spell out that if you have got a

financial interest, you have to

declare that. There has to be total

transparency about your interests in

a matter that you are trying to

influence public policy, so I don't

see why a member of the Royal Family

should be different to any other

public official. If they want to

seek to change government or

international policy.

Would you like

the code to be extended to members

of the Royal Family or

would you rather say, we should not

need a code for the Royal Family,

they should just know this kind of

thing of what works and what does

not and they should be automatically

above all that anyway?

You would

expect members of the Royal Family

to have the highest possible ethical

standards in these matters and of

course normally most members of the

Royal Family do not get involved in

public policy issues, however,

Prince Charles has a history of

doing that and I personally have no

objection in that, but if in fact he

wants to continue, then I think he

does have to meet the standards that

are required of every other public

official and that means I accept

that he does not direct what his

financial investment is, but before

he speaks on a policy, he should

check with his officials with the

Duchy of Cornwall about whether they

have any investments that would put

him in an embarrassing conflict

situation.

We do not know whether he

knew he had money invested in this

company but we do know that his

friend who was a director had

written to him with some of this

lobbying material that was making

the case for this change in carbon

trading. Even if he did not know he

had the investment, merely on the

grounds that his friend had given

him some lobbying material without

the conflict of interest in itself?

I think a potentially could be,

because you're open to the charge or

the perception that you are pursuing

someone else's argument rather than

necessarily your own. But I do think

the crucial thing in this particular

instance was not the lobbying

documents but the timing of the

lobbying was shortly after the

investment. And therefore, there was

bound to be, if the information

became public, a perception of a

conflict of interests. And I would

have thought Prince Charles being a

man of highest integrity would have

seen that that would be an

embarrassing situation and he should

have checked whether there was any

investment that produced a potential

conflict.

Thank you for joining us.

Now, without diminishing any

revelations contained

in the Paradise Papers relating

to the Royals, the super rich,

TV stars or VAT-avoiding

racing drivers, it may be

that we are giving too little

attention to another side of this

world of offshore finance.

It's one that has massive

implications for the citizens

of countries far poorer than ours,

because in this leak of documents

we can see how it's possible to take

revenues or resources that belong

to poor nations and expropriate

them for private use.

Our reporter David Grossman has been

one of the international team

of journalists examining

the Paradise Papers,

and has been looking specifically

at the management of Angola's

sovereign wealth fund.

It is designed help develop

the country and provide a future

income when the country's oil

reserves run out.

It appears though that the level

of management fees charged

and the choice of investments

is making one individual close

to the Angolan regime

a great deal of money.

MUSIC.

Angola manages a curious double.

Its capital, Luanda,

is officially the most expensive

city in the world to visit.

But the country is

one of the poorest.

One reason for this is corruption.

Investigating the financial

interests of Angola's rulers

is usually an impossible task.

Although the border's only just over

there where those signs are,

a couple of hundred yards from here,

it's not an easy place

for journalists to go,

particularly when the subject

of our investigation

is the son of the President

and somebody very close to him.

Fortunately, though, we've got

a huge pile of leaked data -

sensitive financial information that

throws a window open

into that closed world.

Although Jose Eduardo dos Santos

stood down as President after 38

years in the summer,

it was to his chosen successor.

Many believe the move was more

about preserving power,

not handing it over.

In Angola, power comes from money,

and money comes from oil.

And while he was in office,

President dos Santos ruthlessly

controlled that well.

His daughter, Isabel,

known as Africa's richest woman,

with an estimated wealth

of $3.5 billion, was,

at the stroke of her father's pen,

made head of the state oil company,

Sonangol.

His son, Jose Filomeno dos Santos,

known as Zenu, was appointed

to another position -

again, by the President.

$5 billion of oil money was placed

in a sovereign wealth fund,

the Fundo Soberano de

Angola, or FSDEA.

And Zenu was put in charge.

The process was not transparent

according to normal standards

anywhere in the world.

But what was transparent

for the people of Angola

was that the only criteria why

he was selected, it was because he

was the son of the President.

He had no training, no experience,

no special qualifications.

The fund appointed a company called

Quantum Global to manage its money.

It is majority-owned

by Jean-Claude Bastos,

a Swiss-Angolan businessman

who is a close friend and at that

time was a business partner of Zenu.

We see only one asset management

firm in charge of the vast majority

of the fund's assets.

That's unusual.

And it's unusual for

a number of reasons.

And the principal one is that funds

want to hedge the risk.

You don't want to put

all your eggs in one basket.

You want to spread your eggs over

a number of baskets.

In general, the Angolan fund,

and I think this is true of a lot

of the funds that sort of score

poorly on transparency

and accountability indicators,

one of the things that they have

in common is the lack of rules

around who the managers are,

how the managers are chosen,

and what assets the fund can invest

in and what it can't invest in.

We asked FSDEA how Quantum Global

was selected as the main

investment manager.

No one wanted to be interviewed

for this programme.

But in a statement, they said...

Mr Bastos also told us...

Mr Bastos first applied to manage

the money from Jersey.

But the authorities there thought

he was too close to the President's

son to be independent.

We've seen the internal report

into his application,

which also noted...

Mr Bastos turned to another island

to manage the fund's investments.

Where it once farmed sugar,

Mauritius now farms money.

It's an offshore tax haven.

And it's here that Mr Bastos left

three of the $5 billion to invest

in seven funds he created.

Using the services of the law firm

Appleby, based in this

building in Port Louis,

Mr Bastos set up Quantum Global

Investment Management.

Appleby, as you may have seen

in the news, suffered a huge data

leak of highly sensitive

information, revealed this week.

The leak was obtained

by the German newspaper

Suddeutsche Zeitung,

who shared it with the

International Consortium

of Investigative Journalists.

The BBC has been researching it,

along with the Guardian newspaper.

For the last nine months,

we've been putting together

information from the leak

with publicly available sources,

and talking to insiders.

As a result, we have managed

to piece together much of what's

going on inside the management

of the sovereign

wealth fund's money.

The first thing to look

at is the management fees

Quantum Global was paid for managing

the seven Mauritius-based funds.

Between 2% and 2.5%

of the $3 billion every year.

In just 20 months, the company

was paid $92 million.

Over this time, most of that

money was not invested,

but sat in bank accounts.

At the end of 2015,

QGIAM had invested just

$407 million of the $7 billion.

At the end of 2016, that figure had

gone up to $433 million.

In other words, during 2016,

an additional $26 million

was invested by the seven funds.

Over this period, Quantum Global

was paid around $70 million in fees.

So, what we see in that case...

Is that unheard-of?

No.

The question I'd be asking is,

is the Angolan fund getting

its value for money?

If you are making...

If you're paying those

types of management fees,

you must be getting extraordinary

service for that.

And if I were the Angolan fund

managers, I would be asking,

are we getting an extraordinary

service or not?

Both Mr Bastos and the funds say

the management fees are reasonable.

What happened to them,

though, may, in according

to industry insiders,

be an indication that

they were set too high.

Because of the leak,

we can see that $41 million

of the $92 million of management

fees was paid out as dividends.

In other words, it was profit.

It went to a company called

QG Investments Limited

in the British Virgin Islands.

This is owned by White Nite Limited,

also in the British Virgin Islands.

Which is owned by Green Trees

Incorporated, in the Seychelles.

And this company is

owned by Mr Bastos.

Of the rest, $34 million

was paid to another company,

Quantum Global Alternative

Investments.

Part of the Quantum Global Group

of which Mr Bastos

is the majority owner.

So, the documents that I saw reveal

a complex financial structure.

But they reveal a complex financial

structure which doesn't,

on the face of it, seem illegal,

but highly opaque, that allows

somebody who wants to hide gains

that they are making,

perhaps inappropriately,

shall we say, rather than illicitly,

hide those gains and hide who owns

what company and who is

receiving what payments.

The videos on Mr Bastos's personal

YouTube channel portray

a dynamic entrepreneur

with many financial interests.

Go out as you are a dreamer

and follow your dreams.

Be courageous, and do not give up.

So, what did Mr Bastos

invest the sovereign

wealth fund's money in?

During the 20 months

covered by the leak,

we can see evidence that he made six

investments in hotels

and infrastructure.

But three of the investments

were in projects in which Mr Bastos

has a personal stake.

For example, there is a $157

million hotel complex

in Angola's capital,

Luanda.

It is to be built on land

owned by Mr Bastos,

and by a company owned by Mr Bastos.

We have spoken to an insider

with knowledge of the deal,

who told us that Quantum Global

appointed independent analysts

to go over the deal.

They concluded it wasn't a good one

for the Angolan people's money.

The projected returns were too low,

and the costs too high.

And yet, the investment

was approved.

So, the difference between private

equity and venture capitalism...

Mr Bastos clearly knows

a lot about making money.

But what's not clear is why a man

who was prosecuted in Switzerland,

a man with a web of complex

financial interests,

was given the opportunity

to make what appears,

from this leak at least,

to be so much money

from the Angolan people's fund?

This is a balance of cash

being carried into bank

accounts in Switzerland.

This is fees being charged here,

earnings being made there,

to benefit, it would appear,

one particular individual.

Why is he in this favoured position?

What connections does he have?

Where does the money go onward

from him and from his companies?

At this stage, certainly

from documents I've

seen, we don't know.

But there will clearly be some other

connection that justifies him

being in the position that he is in.

Mr Bastos, though,

insisted that the hotel

investment was viable.

He denied there was any conflict

of interest, saying...

The FSDEA told us...

Meanwhile, in Luanda,

where a man skims a flooded crater

for the mosquito larvae which causes

yellow fever, malaria and Zika,

it's not hard to see

where the money could be spent.

This hospital in Cazenga

is overwhelmed by patients.

Some have had to buy their own drugs

and equipment from hawkers outside.

These are the people the Angolan

sovereign wealth fund

is supposed to be helping.

David Grossman joins me now.

David, you've been working a couple

of months on that piece from the

Paradise Papers. But evidence that

this isn't the only story of this

kind. This angle the case.

No,

indeed. We focused a lot on these

jurisdictions and the impact on the

super-rich, when actually it may be

that they have more impact on the

Super Bowl, particularly in

developing countries that maybe,

like Angola, resource rich but lack

of expertise and capital to exploit

those resources. In many cases, they

invite in multinationals, and those

companies find that multinationals

are very good at shifting profit out

of the company so they do not pay

tax, and into offshore

jurisdictions. I visited Namibia as

part of an investigation for the BBC

World Service assignment programme

and Radio 4, and I found that even

though it has the richest fishing

waters in that part of the world and

on the planet, the Finance Minister

told me they cannot make enough on

taxing fishing to pay for the

furniture of the fishing industry,

the regulation, the patrol boats.

One of the people that we met told

us there is a vast sinkhole down

which Africa's tax revenues are

disappearing, that is the

jurisdiction of Mauritius.

Thank

you.

Time now for Viewsnight -

where we give original thinkers

the space to get something

off their chest.

And in the run up to

Remembrance Sunday,

tonight's contributor,

Prospect Magazine's

Stephanie Boland, has this

on wearing the poppy.

Stephanie Boland for Viewsnight.

Let's take a quick look with Nick on

the latest on Priti Patel, what is

the latest?

The International

Development Secretary will be having

a very awkward phone conversation

with the Prime Minister in the

morning. As I understand it, there

is a feeling in Whitehall that there

was at least one extra meeting that

Priti Patel did not tell the Prime

Minister she had had with Israeli

officials after she came back from

Israel in August. She did not, it is

alleged, told the Prime Minister

about this on Monday when she met

her. The feeling from number ten is

that if more information comes out

and they will have to take a very,

very careful look. A very difficult

conversation tomorrow morning, I'm

told.

Clearly a moving story there.

That is all we have time for

tonight. I suspect that we will

return to that tomorrow. In the

meantime, good night.