The Data Room

ReconAfrica’s corruption of Namibian public officials and its crimes against the people of Namibia, 2022.

Executive Summary
A Canadian company has violated multiple Namibian laws and corrupted its offices and processes. ReconAfrica’s marketing displays a sophisticated awareness of best oilfield practices, but the company’s actions do not align with their stated ideals:

● Company founder Craig Steinke told the Globe and Mail that ReconAfrica consultations went above and beyond what is required by Namibia. Yet a lawsuit currently in the Namibian High Court details how Namibian families were “unlawfully and forcefully evicted from their ancestral land” without notice or compensation.
● ReconAfrica has repeatedly told investors they intend to frack and have shared revenue estimates from fracking while it has no license to use this method. ReconAfrica tells Namibians publicly they do not intend to frack but, when pressed, refuse to rule out using the practice in this water scarce nation.
● The company pledged to use best seismic practices and only survey along existing roads. Instead, the company made kilometres of new cutlines through pristine forest and did seismic thumping so close to people’s homes that it has “caused cracks and permanent structural damage to homes” in violation of their Environmental Management Plan.
● The company has not lined drilling waste pits in compliance with Canadian regulations, which require an impermeable liner. They have continued to focus on the makeup of their drilling fluid while dodging questions about potentially highly polluted back-flow from the down-hole drilling waste.
● A class action lawsuit was filed in New York on behalf of investors who claim that they were harmed by “false and misleading” statements made by the company. Independent geologists say that ReconAfrica is misrepresenting the geology.
The Globe and Mail reported in 2023 that ReconAfrica’s former Chairman of the Board and Director, Jay Park, while leading a team of lawyers from Calgary firm MacLeod-Dixon, was involved in suspicious payments in Chad while working for Griffiths Energy International, which was seeking petroleum rights. After paying two million dollars to the wife of the Chadian Ambassador, the lawyers claimed they thought they were paying “a long-standing consultant.” An RCMP investigation at the time led to a fine of over 10 million dollars for Griffiths, but Park was not charged or restrained.
In Somalia, Park, while ostensibly representing the Somali government, was head of an organization that took a half million USD payment from Soma, a British oil firm incorporated just months before. Park’s organization then awarded Somali concessions to Soma, a transaction later investigated by the UK’ serious fraud office.
Namibian businessman Knowledge Katti is known for making hundreds of millions of dollars in commissions from state resources and for his close relationship with Namibian politicians. Katti is so close to some politicians that his former business partners claim he bragged to them, saying he has Namibian Ministers in his pockets. Katti’s relationship with the president of Namibia is well documented, including the businessman footing the president’s medical bills. To most Namibians, Katti’s name is synonymous with corruption.
Park originally denied that ReconAfrica retained Katti, but his employment was later confirmed by a company spokesperson, drawing into question the possibility of potential serious fraud on the part of the company and related government officials, contravening Namibian law and the company’s stated anti-bribery policy.

Download or view the whole complaint here.