Background
Similar to most countries, Kenya encourages international trade by granting tax-free status to commercial enterprises involved in the export of goods and sometimes subsidizes these exports. The Goldenberg scandal was based on the fact that exporters who deposited U.S. dollar earnings with the Kenya central bank received in exchange the equivalent in Kenyan shillings plus 20 percent.
However, gold mining represented a tiny portion of Kenya's GDP, with only one operational gold mine (at Kakamega). Goldenberg International therefore developed a scheme of smuggling gold into Kenya from Congo, so that it could legally export it more than the export price from the government.
Read more about this topic: Goldenberg Scandal
Famous quotes containing the word background:
“Pilate with his question “What is truth?” is gladly trotted out these days as an advocate of Christ, so as to arouse the suspicion that everything known and knowable is an illusion and to erect the cross upon that gruesome background of the impossibility of knowledge.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“Silence is the universal refuge, the sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts, a balm to our every chagrin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment; that background which the painter may not daub, be he master or bungler, and which, however awkward a figure we may have made in the foreground, remains ever our inviolable asylum, where no indignity can assail, no personality can disturb us.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I had many problems in my conduct of the office being contrasted with President Kennedy’s conduct in the office, with my manner of dealing with things and his manner, with my accent and his accent, with my background and his background. He was a great public hero, and anything I did that someone didn’t approve of, they would always feel that President Kennedy wouldn’t have done that.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)