Posted on July 11, 2022
by Sheri Laizer
UK’s Finance minister Nadhim Zahawi (R) sits next to Prime Minister Boris Johnson as he chairs a Cabinet meeting in the Cabinet Room after delivering his statement resigning as the leader of the Conservative Party, July 7, 2022.
Photo: No 10 downing Street/via Ekurd.net
Sheri Laizer | Exclusive to Ekurd.net
From Boris to Worse?
No evidence has been produced that the Zahawis had any political problems with the Iraqi Ba’ath government and if they did they may not have been political in nature. Most editors drop in the line about Zahawi’s background that the family is Kurdish and fled from Iraq but no real details are given.
He claims they fled in 1976 from Saddam Hussein but Saddam Hussein was not in power then. Saddam was only vice president to Ahmad Hassan al-Bakr. Nadhim Zahawi was a child of nine years old at the time and his recollections are not based on his experience but on the propaganda circulated by the opposition against Saddam Hussein from the time of the Iran-Iraq war as many groups were backed by Iran. The Spectator gives a variant age of 11 for the time that the Zahawi family were accepted in the UK as migrants, not refugees. At this time, the UK had very good relations with Iraq and maintained them until the debacle over Kuwait in August 1990. A pro-Zahawi article published in the Spectator, taking him at his word, accordingly gets its Iraqi history wrong.
It also notes that Zahawi had received a Spectator award, so it can be considered to be a promo feature. Zahawi has paid the former strategist of Boris Johnson, Mark Fullbrook of strategy firm, Crosby Textor Fullbrook Partners, for the past three years to secure him the top job according to a recent article by James Cusick in Open Democracy.
Zahawi himself said they arrived penniless yet he was schooled at public schools, Ibstock Place, followed by an Eton group school, King’s College School in Wimbledon. He went on to University College, London. His sister received similar tuition. Although he claims the family arrived from Iraq (long after the Ba’ath coup) and without any money his grandfather (after whom he was named) was Nadhim Zahawi, the governor of the Central Bank of Iraq (CBI). The official is even named on Iraqi dinar banknotes.
His father, Hareth managed to earn quite a sum in order to declare himself bankrupt between Nadhim’s arrival in the UK aged 9, and his eighteenth birthday. A variant on the penniless refugee story that emerged in 2013 claimed Zahawi grew up on a Sussex farm with horses and when a boy had wanted to become a jockey before moving to London with his family. A disclosure under the Waxman Inquiry states that his father, the CEO of IPBD contractors, received $40 million in kickbacks from the US government.
UK government data does not show the full data on his son, Nadhim, at GKP and at Afren, from which he derived additional undisclosed millions. Zahawi had also worked with DNO for two years before he became an MP. He has been closely linked with Ashti Hawrami, the former head of the Kurdistan Ministry of Natural Resources, blasted for corruption and missing millions of oil revenues diverted into private pockets. He now owns race horses and has a livery in the UK and is rumored to enjoy stables in Dubai.
Nadhim Zahawi was not known to be among the Kurdish opposition active in exile in London. He had been propelled into the spotlight using the “Kurdish” tag by Jeffrey Archer in May 1991 (who had nicknamed him Lemon Kurd and his friend and future brother-in-law, Brusk Saib, as Bean Kurd).
The Kurdish community was astonished when Archer secured the keynote address for Zahawi at the Simple Truth concert televised live seeking funds for Kurdish refugees stranded on the mountains after the failed 1991 uprising in the name of the Red Cross.
A British Kurdish millionaire Nadhim Zahawi appointed as new UK finance minister on July 5, 2022. Photo: No 10 Downing Street/via Ekurd.net
Zahawi had not represented Kurdish political interests in any public capacity before the Simple Truth. The proceeds never reached the people for whom the money was raised and most was “accounted for” as administration costs.
A more recent association of Nadhim Zahawi with Kurdistan has been one that is far more profitable rather than it is charitable. In 1994, Archer had given Zahawi a further hand up helping him to secure a position on Wandsworth Council. Archer’s penthouse overlooking the Thames is situated within Wandsworth Borough near the MI6 ziggurat. In return, in 1998, Zahawi ran Archer’s mayoral bid, that did not succeed. His own bid for re-election as a Conservative candidate for Stratford-on-Avon secured him a position as an MP in 2010, which he held through three successive elections through till 2019. It is reported that in 2013 he also became a member of Number 10’s Policy Unit.
Zahawi went on to co-found YouGov with Stephan Shakespeare (Kukowski)and remained Chief Executive until February 2010. When YouGov was set up, one of its biggest shareholders was Zahawi’s Balshore Investments, based in tax haven, Gibraltar.
As the Guardian recorded: “Last year (2016) Balshore received around £112,000 in dividends from YouGov. The current tax on dividends for higher rate taxpayers in the UK is 32.5%. There is also no liability to tax on dividends paid by a Gibraltar company to a person who is not resident in Gibraltar…”
Therefore, when Zahawi claims currently to be a ‘victim’ of a smear campaign in being investigated for dubious financial dealings, it is owing to doubts about his accountability overall and not just his declared income for tax purposes.
The Mirror published a preliminary probe in November 2021 observing: “Mr Zahawi was co-chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Kurdistan in 2015 when he landed the job with Gulf Keystone, which has an oil field in Kurdistan and which paid him more than £1,000 an hour. His Gulf Keystone income was declared in his register of interests, but his total second job earnings are not known thanks to Parliamentary rules allowing him to advise companies through Zahawi & Zahawi Ltd, a consultancy he set up with his wife… Alex Runswick, of Transparency International UK, said: “Any new controls on MPs’ second jobs need to focus on potential conflicts of interests, not just the hours worked or additional earnings.
“Any company owned by an MP risks becoming a shell behind which the extent of the work and these conflicts remain hidden.” A caption noted he received almost £300,000 in bonus payments from Gulf Keystone.
Oil corruption in Kurdistan – lawsuits threaten the future
Sheri Laizer | Exclusive to Ekurd.net
From Boris to Worse?
No evidence has been produced that the Zahawis had any political problems with the Iraqi Ba’ath government and if they did they may not have been political in nature. Most editors drop in the line about Zahawi’s background that the family is Kurdish and fled from Iraq but no real details are given.
He claims they fled in 1976 from Saddam Hussein but Saddam Hussein was not in power then. Saddam was only vice president to Ahmad Hassan al-Bakr. Nadhim Zahawi was a child of nine years old at the time and his recollections are not based on his experience but on the propaganda circulated by the opposition against Saddam Hussein from the time of the Iran-Iraq war as many groups were backed by Iran. The Spectator gives a variant age of 11 for the time that the Zahawi family were accepted in the UK as migrants, not refugees. At this time, the UK had very good relations with Iraq and maintained them until the debacle over Kuwait in August 1990. A pro-Zahawi article published in the Spectator, taking him at his word, accordingly gets its Iraqi history wrong.
It also notes that Zahawi had received a Spectator award, so it can be considered to be a promo feature. Zahawi has paid the former strategist of Boris Johnson, Mark Fullbrook of strategy firm, Crosby Textor Fullbrook Partners, for the past three years to secure him the top job according to a recent article by James Cusick in Open Democracy.
Zahawi himself said they arrived penniless yet he was schooled at public schools, Ibstock Place, followed by an Eton group school, King’s College School in Wimbledon. He went on to University College, London. His sister received similar tuition. Although he claims the family arrived from Iraq (long after the Ba’ath coup) and without any money his grandfather (after whom he was named) was Nadhim Zahawi, the governor of the Central Bank of Iraq (CBI). The official is even named on Iraqi dinar banknotes.
His father, Hareth managed to earn quite a sum in order to declare himself bankrupt between Nadhim’s arrival in the UK aged 9, and his eighteenth birthday. A variant on the penniless refugee story that emerged in 2013 claimed Zahawi grew up on a Sussex farm with horses and when a boy had wanted to become a jockey before moving to London with his family. A disclosure under the Waxman Inquiry states that his father, the CEO of IPBD contractors, received $40 million in kickbacks from the US government.
UK government data does not show the full data on his son, Nadhim, at GKP and at Afren, from which he derived additional undisclosed millions. Zahawi had also worked with DNO for two years before he became an MP. He has been closely linked with Ashti Hawrami, the former head of the Kurdistan Ministry of Natural Resources, blasted for corruption and missing millions of oil revenues diverted into private pockets. He now owns race horses and has a livery in the UK and is rumored to enjoy stables in Dubai.
Nadhim Zahawi was not known to be among the Kurdish opposition active in exile in London. He had been propelled into the spotlight using the “Kurdish” tag by Jeffrey Archer in May 1991 (who had nicknamed him Lemon Kurd and his friend and future brother-in-law, Brusk Saib, as Bean Kurd).
The Kurdish community was astonished when Archer secured the keynote address for Zahawi at the Simple Truth concert televised live seeking funds for Kurdish refugees stranded on the mountains after the failed 1991 uprising in the name of the Red Cross.
A British Kurdish millionaire Nadhim Zahawi appointed as new UK finance minister on July 5, 2022. Photo: No 10 Downing Street/via Ekurd.net
Zahawi had not represented Kurdish political interests in any public capacity before the Simple Truth. The proceeds never reached the people for whom the money was raised and most was “accounted for” as administration costs.
A more recent association of Nadhim Zahawi with Kurdistan has been one that is far more profitable rather than it is charitable. In 1994, Archer had given Zahawi a further hand up helping him to secure a position on Wandsworth Council. Archer’s penthouse overlooking the Thames is situated within Wandsworth Borough near the MI6 ziggurat. In return, in 1998, Zahawi ran Archer’s mayoral bid, that did not succeed. His own bid for re-election as a Conservative candidate for Stratford-on-Avon secured him a position as an MP in 2010, which he held through three successive elections through till 2019. It is reported that in 2013 he also became a member of Number 10’s Policy Unit.
Zahawi went on to co-found YouGov with Stephan Shakespeare (Kukowski)and remained Chief Executive until February 2010. When YouGov was set up, one of its biggest shareholders was Zahawi’s Balshore Investments, based in tax haven, Gibraltar.
As the Guardian recorded: “Last year (2016) Balshore received around £112,000 in dividends from YouGov. The current tax on dividends for higher rate taxpayers in the UK is 32.5%. There is also no liability to tax on dividends paid by a Gibraltar company to a person who is not resident in Gibraltar…”
Therefore, when Zahawi claims currently to be a ‘victim’ of a smear campaign in being investigated for dubious financial dealings, it is owing to doubts about his accountability overall and not just his declared income for tax purposes.
The Mirror published a preliminary probe in November 2021 observing: “Mr Zahawi was co-chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Kurdistan in 2015 when he landed the job with Gulf Keystone, which has an oil field in Kurdistan and which paid him more than £1,000 an hour. His Gulf Keystone income was declared in his register of interests, but his total second job earnings are not known thanks to Parliamentary rules allowing him to advise companies through Zahawi & Zahawi Ltd, a consultancy he set up with his wife… Alex Runswick, of Transparency International UK, said: “Any new controls on MPs’ second jobs need to focus on potential conflicts of interests, not just the hours worked or additional earnings.
“Any company owned by an MP risks becoming a shell behind which the extent of the work and these conflicts remain hidden.” A caption noted he received almost £300,000 in bonus payments from Gulf Keystone.
Oil corruption in Kurdistan – lawsuits threaten the future
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson (R) meets Iraqi Kurdistan Prime Minister Masrour Barzani for a bilateral meeting in 10 Downing Street, London, April 19, 2022. Photo: No 10 Downing Street/ via Ekurd.net
Shell companies abound in Kurdistan and its oil and fledgling gas sector lacks transparency. KRG President, Nechirvan Barzani, Massoud Barzani’s nephew, has been making generous promises on Kurdistan’s future gas delivery (to Turkey) but Kurdistan does not even possess the infrastructure to deliver gas.
Kate Dourian writing for the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington (AGSIW) stressed recently hat there is also no Kurdish gas to spare. “Shortly after the February 24 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Masrour Barzani, the KRG’s prime minister, spoke at an energy conference in Dubai where he declared that the Kurdistan region could become an important source of energy to its immediate neighbors and the world. On recent visits to London, Doha, and Ankara, he conveyed a similar message.
The problem is that Iraq’s Kurdistan region currently has no natural gas to spare, and its oil production has stagnated…”
KDP media outlet, Rudaw, claimed business partner and neighbor Turkey was after its gas whether via Barzani or Baghdad. Erdogan said, “Although Nechirvan Barzani is from northern Iraq, we are also discussing and we have discussed with him [issues related] to central Iraq. Our friendship with Nechirvan Barzani is very very different and our relationship is at a high level.”
Baghdad for its part has for some months being trying to take the Kurdistan regional government to court over its suspect oil contracts in violation of the Constitution. The Kurdistan oil sector has become known as among the most corrupt in the world.
Iraqi Kurdistan Prime Minister Masrour Barzani (R) met with UK Secretary of State for Education Nadhim Zahawi on April 21, 2022. Photo: Barzani’s Twitter
On July 6, al-Hurra reported, based on an earlier report by AFP, that Baghdad had ruled that the contracts of four foreign oil companies operating in the Kurdistan region were void. The ruling on July 4, reportedly affected Western Zagros, DNO, HKN Energy, and Genel Energy. The court found the contracts in question to be in violation of the February 15 ruling by the Federal Supreme Court against oil operations in the Kurdistan region, according to an unnamed senior Iraqi oil official.
Earlier contracts pre-dating that of HKN are, however, also in violation. HKN arrived on the scene comparatively late in the day. For example, Prime Natural Resources with Turkish Petoil and Heritage with Oryx Addax. If DNO contracts were to be voided this would have a knock-on effect on voiding Gulf Keystone, Shamaran, Hunt Oil and MOL of Hungary, among others.
With paper tiger Kurdish president of Iraq, Barham Saleh, still in position in Baghdad, justice is hampered anyway as Saleh sits astride two horses. As one Kurdish commentator preferring to remain anonymous rightly asked, “Where else do you have a country with two presidents and two legal codes?”
Halliburton is among the first IOCs now agreeing only to work with Baghdad setting a trend that other IOCs are likely to follow as support for the Kurdish kleptocracy withers. The Iraq Oil Report ran a heading dated June 29, 2022, claiming Halliburton pledges to obey blacklist policy against KRG oil sector noting: Three major U.S. oil services companies have now told the Oil Ministry they will comply with new restrictions stemming from February’s landmark court ruling against Kurdistan. It went on: U.S. oil services giant Halliburton joined Schlumberger and Baker Hughes in notifying Iraq’s Oil Ministry that it will comply with a Federal Supreme Court (FSC) rulling invalidating the legal foundations of Iraqi Kurdistan’s energy sector…Halliburton’s letter came in response to a set of circular letters — one from the Ministry of Oil to the Iraqi National Oil Company and one from the Basra Oil Company — instructing “all lead contractors and sub-contractors” to sever their contractual engagements with the KRG within three months or risk being blacklisted by Baghdad.
Gulf Keystone, Zahawi’s former flying carpet, has been getting lower payments than they did five years ago despite oil prices being higher than ever and reaching over $100 a barrel with more oil being produced. They are also being paid months late. How can that be?
So, if the contracts should be voided by Baghdad what will happen to Kurdistan – and its British, American and other ‘friends’ with their fingers in the pie? Baghdad accuses the region of delay tactics in its lawsuit against an initial seven oil companies.
The KRG’s notorious Ministry of Natural Resources reportedly filed a tit-for-tat lawsuit in Erbil’s court of criminal investigation against several Baghdad Oil Ministry chiefs. Each can unravel the other and expose where some of the missing billions has gone…and is still going.
Zahawi and the oil boom in Kurdistan
As I wrote in my article, Iraqi Kurdistan-Sold Out, III: In 2010, Zahawi took up his position in the UK Parliament with former head of Talisman, John Manzoni [8], after the sale of PSC contracts to Gazprom and Repsol. Manzoni became Chief Executive of the UK Civil Service and Permanent Secretary of the Cabinet Office on 2 July 2015. Zahawi was previously the advisor to Talisman (and to the now defunct Afren) and declared Talisman to be a registered client of his consultancy, Zahawi and Zahawi Ltd. in 2014.
As I wrote in my article, Iraq-The Cynical Swindle: In 2013, Gulf Keystone Petroleum (GKP) [London-listed oil company registered in Bermuda], argued with one of its investors, M&G, and murky details were revealed in the UK press. Its AGM was held in Bermuda. GKP often made the news in Kurdistan…as Nadhim Zahawi, had been receiving substantial amounts of money every month (some sources say £1000 a month) as well as bonuses.
Over a two-year period, GKP paid Zahawi a £2.5 million package, as listed in his parliamentary declarations. He also acquired £25 million in property. [Sourced from UK parliamentary records. It is not apparent how much Nadhim Zahawi’s other companies may or may not have received, including Zahawi Zahawi Company and what it may have been paid from IPBD Limited, established by his father.]
In January 2016 when GKP was owed $500 million by the KRG, Nadhim Zahawi and Mark Denning called in chapter 11 to restructure the company, which was advantageous to them both. Zahawi had in fact been appointed to GKP, via Denning, the Portfolio Manager of Capital, who answered to Philip May [73], during David Cameron’s term in office as Prime Minister. But the chapter 11 was dealt with during the appointment of Philip May’s wife, Theresa, as British Prime Minister following the Brexit referendum, that is still a fiasco…Mr and Mrs May were involved in five different oil companies in Kurdistan and connected with Bafel Talabani of the PUK and Federal Petroleum… The Capital Group held significant shares in Western Zagros…”
From Boris to Worse?
It is difficult to finger Zahawi because he employs top lawyers like those used by Dubai’s ruler, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoom to protect his name and keep critics at bay. Maktoom launched Emirates airlines and owns property in the UK worth more than £100m. Emirates stadium, P&O Ferries and Thames port London Gateway are all linked to the Sheikh. He is close to the Queen and was helped by New Labour. Zahawi would fly to the UAE regularly each year, meeting the horse race set around Sheikh Maktoom, and his accountant. Money was routed through several companies, as financial regulators monitored from the Parliamentary register.
The Independent has published a telling photograph of Zahawi with the grin wiped from his face referring to an HMRC probe against him. However, it is not just HMRC, but also the Serious Fraud Office (SFO), the National Crime Agency and the Labour opposition. Last year the Labour Party demanded an official probe into Zahawi’s £100m property empire at a time when he was business minister and Boris Johnson also made him vaccines minister.
A self-interested player, this is not the type of man the British need as their next Prime Minister after the demise of his mentor, Boris Johnson.
The Mirror last year cited Sir Alastair Graham, the former chairman of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, saying “How are we to perceive a conflict of interest if we don’t know where the Zahawis are investing these vast sums? Ministers are expected to show leadership in applying the seven principles of public life. This looks like a total failure of leadership.”
In an update to the questions hanging over Zahawi, Mirror Investigations Editor, Nick Sommerlad, asked where the £30m loan came from to fund Zahawi and wife’s property empire.
Will it go from Boris to worse?
Sheri Laizer, a Middle East and North African expert specialist and well known commentator on the Kurdish issue. She is a senior contributing writer for Ekurd.net. More about Sheri Laizer see below.
The opinions are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of Ekurd.net or its editors.
Read more about Nadhim Zahawi
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Nadhim Zahawi: Who Really is The New UK Chancellor? 11.7..2022
Nadhim Zahawi pockets fortune from second job at Iraqi Kurdistan-focused oil company 16.11.2021
Nadhim Zahawi’s £100m property empire revealed, Labour demands probe…5.8.2021
Iraqi Kurdistan – “Sold Out!” – Part III – 17.5.2021
Iraq – The Cynical Swindle 24.11. 2018
Kurdish-British MP Zahawi ‘closely linked to tax-haven-based companies’ 7.1.2017
Gulf Keystone’s Nadhim Zahawi owns property worth more than £25 million 3.1.2017
Nadhim Zahawi stands to make £1.5m from Iraqi Kurdistan oil company sale 15.12.2016
How Zahawi made £370k from Gulf Keystone while small investors suffer a share price crash 6.10.2016
Ashti Hawrami’s Kurdistan activities with international oil companies and banks 4.8.2016
Millionaire British-Kurdish MP Nadhim Zahawi gets £20,000 salary from Gulf Keystone 13.11.2015
Bust oil firm advised by Tory MP Nadhim Zahawi faces fraud probe 19.11.2016
Tory millionaire Nadhim Zahawi in talks over Iraqi Kurdistan oil role 13.6.2015
Kurdistan delegation led by Tory millionaire Nadhim Zahawi raises concerns that British MPs… 13.5.2014
British PM’s advisor, Zahawi used offshore tax haven to buy £1m mansion in his own constituency 25.11.2013
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Read more about Corruption in Iraqi Kurdistan
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