Corruption, Democracy and Human Rights in Southern Africa

Corruption, Democracy
&
Human Rights
In Southern Africa
Summary Report on Corruption, Democracy and Human Rights
In Southern Africa organized jointly by the
Africa Leadership Forum and the
Transparency International
In Pretoria, South Africa
31 July – 2 August 1995
Complied & Edited
By
Ayodele Aderinwale

Typeset by: Ojo Abraham Taiwo

Contents
Chapter
Pages
1. Summary Report 1
Opening Session
2. Welcome Address
Beyers Naude 21
Opening Remarks
by Angelo Pangratis 29
Keynote Address
by Frene Ginwala 33
Session One
3. Background Paper – Corruption, Ethics & Accountability
in Africa: Toward a Responsive Agenda for Action
by Sadig Rasheed 43
Lead Comments 64
Session Two – The north and Corruption in Africa
4. Corruption in Africa: The Role of the North
by Lawrence Crockfort 73
General Comments 93
Session Three – Effects of Corruption in Africa
5. Effects of Corruption on Development
by Dieter Frisch 109
General Comments 116

Session Four – Mobilising Against Corruption and
Human Rights Abuses: Strategies from Africa
6. Parliamentarians, Corruption and Human Rights Abuse
by Alexander L. Boraine 127
Discussion Session 136
7. Legal and Judicial System and Corruption
by Ben Hlatshwayo 157
General Comments 163
8. Mass Media and the Campaign Against Corruption
by Allister Sparks 181
Mass Media and the Campaign Against Corruption 187
9. Civil Society and the Mobilisation Against Corruption
by Eric Molobi 205
Civil Society and the Mobilisation Against Corruption
By Beyers Naude 211
10. Transparency International and the Drive Against
Corruption
By Jeremy Pope 219
Appendix A – Press Release 233
Appendix B – List of Participants 235
Appendix C – Conference Programme 241
Background Note on ALF 245

1
Summary Report
Introduction:
The third and Southern African edition of the Africa Leadership
Forum/Transparency International seminar on Corruption, Democracy and
Human Rights, took place at the CSIR Conference Centre, Pretoria, South
Africa from 31 st July – 2 nd August 1995. This edition of the seminar, like the
earlier editions was also sponsored by the European Commission. The
seminar was attended by forty-one participants and observers cutting across
different sections of Southern African life. Among other participants at the
seminar were H. E. Dr. Pascoal Mocumbi, Prime Minister of the Republic of
Mozambique, Rt. Hon. Mr. D. M. Lisulo, former Primer Minister and former
Attorney-General of Zambia and Mrs. Frene Ginwala, Honourable Speaker
of the Parliament of the Republic of South Africa.
Welcoming participants to the Seminar on behalf of the ALF Chairman,
General Olusegun Obasanjo, former Head of state of Nigeria who is being
presently detained by the military authorities in his country Nigeria, Dr.
Beyers Naude of the Ecumenical Advice Bureau noted that the world is not
at the era of global connections and age of global citizenship. As such, the
enthronement of universally and age of global principles that guarantees
basic human needs and rights and prevents human suffering was the
collective responsibility of all global citizens. In her Keynote Address, Mrs.
Frene Ginwala observed the need to strongly promote and foster a culture of
resisting unwholesome governmental practices of corruption, human rights
abuse, tyranny and repression.
The Seminar agreed corruption should be given the attention of an
emergency situation on the continent. In addition it was also pointed out that
corruption is essentially a multi-dimensional, all-pervasive addiction leaving
no sector of economic, political and social activity untouched. It would be
instructive and rewarding for the analysis of the phenomenon to take into
cognizance the multiple manifestation and consequences of corruption on
the development process and democracy as well as the defence, promotion

and protection of human rights in Africa. To enrich the understanding of
corruption it may be useful to undertake a broad survey of types and forms
of corruption across a broad spectrum of African political and public life.
The point was also made that corruption is neither an African malaise nor is
it a disease, that is, colour or race or culture sensitive. In a nutshell, it is a
global phenomenon. The important point to note is that its effects in Africa
have proven to be more deleterious, more damaging and completely
obstructive of the development process than elsewhere.
It was argued that while democracy may have its glaring and not so glaring
short comings it still remains the best form of government known to
humankind. It was observed that in operational terms democracy may be
expensive, in the short or medium run, considering the limited resources
available for most African countries and the competing claims for them.
However, it was argued that in the long run it is cheaper than any other form
of government. Even if it were to be expensive African countries must find
ways of footing the cost of democracy.
The seminar noted that drug trafficking, money laundering and abuse of
influential positions were some of the international aspects of corruption.
Dwelling on the effects of corruption on development, it was observed that
corrupt practices have contributed to the implementation of badly designed
projects which were not economically or commercially viable. Cost
escalations have resulted in pricing policies which have kept the services
beyond the reach of people who were expected to be the beneficiaries. In
many cases, projects have had to be abandoned and those which were
completed became part of the “cemetery of white elephant” or in the words
of one of the participants the “infamous Cathedrals in the desert” which have
become common place in most parts of Africa. All these factors have
contributed to perpetuate a vicious circle of underdevelopment while at the
same time mortgaging the future of coming generations.
The development process of most African countries have in the past and still
continue to be undermined by corrupt practices to such an extent that the
very existence and future viability of some states are at risk.
The seminar also pointed our that corrupt practices have negatively affected
the entrepreneurial skills of the African to the extent that concerns are for

projects of short term nature, and long term development investments are
rarely given serious and due consideration.
In addition to the wastage of scarce investible resources, the social fabric has
become strained with unemployment, rising costs of living, juvenile
delinquency and the disruption of family life adding to the myriad of sociopolitical
and economic tensions. This has culminated in a loss of confidence
in the political system, pessimism and cynicism about the willingness of the
political leaders to eliminate corrupt practices and an endemic instability
which has driven away potential investors.
Reviewing the causes and widespread nature of the problems of corruption
and human rights abuse in Africa, the seminar noted that the overbearing
nature and the overreaching powers and character of the post colonial state
in Africa, as well as lack of the required will on the part of leaders are part
of the of the causes of the pervasiveness of corruption. In addition to these is
the serious decline in ethical standards in African public service institutions.
The point was however made that corrupt practices are not an exclusive
preserve of the public service, as the private sector suffers from a similar
malaise. The seminar noted that part of the reason for the great decline in
ethical standards of public institutions has to do with the appointment of
office holders with little or no regard for merit.
It was realized that to give teeth to any action and to secure the commitment
of political leaders, the problem of corruption should be addressed from an
economic angle. The classification of the phenomenon as an economic crime
would make the issue a national priority and force governments to tackle the
problem at its root cause and in its multifarious facets. This classification
would also enable the legislature to formulate laws that would mete out
more severe punishment and thus, probably a stronger deterrent to potential
corruptors.
The seminar reasoned that in some instances, corruption occurs because the
public officials may lack sufficient understanding of the basic administrative
procedures or laws or policies they are supposed to implement. The seminar
also considered the possibility of greater decentralization of power, authority
and responsibility as a means of diffusing the scope for corruption. It was
noted that while decentralization was a possible and attractive option of
democratising society and involving a larger number of people in the
decision-taking process, it was also recognized that this delegation might

create a breeding ground for “decentralized” corruption, making prevention
even more difficult when phenomenon is organized at the lower echelons of
decision centers. The seminar also recognized that grand corruption is the
major threat to the development of fair and equitable economic systems.
However, this should not be used as an argument to condone petty
corruption on the ground that it accelerates processing time and causes
insignificant damage. Both forms and levels of corruption remain highly
unaffordable by Africa and Africans.
Participants agreed that the vicious circle of corruption and poverty needs to
be broken: a situation in which poverty encourages petty corruption and
makes the people vulnerable to the corrupt manipulation by the elite,
deepens corrupt practices and aggravates the poverty of the people. It was
pointed out that in most cases the ordinary African is too busy eking out a
living to be concerned about the problematics of democracy, human rights
and the crusade against corruption. This resulted in a culture of silence
which in itself facilitates/invites corrupt practices.
The seminar agreed that tackling the problem requires a root and branch
approach. Those at the receiving and giving ends are equally responsible for
the perpetuation of corrupt practices. The perpetrators need to be checked
and deprived of the resources that they accumulate to buy off favours or
exert influence on national priorities or policy decisions. A major consensus
among participants is the need to make corruption costlier to the perpetrator
and the rewards much less significant. It was also pointed out that in so far
as the likelihood exists that a corruptor may be able to escape with the illicit
proceeds of his activities, for so long would he or she feel encouraged to
carry on such destructive activities.
In terms of dealing with the problem, it was noted that there was the need to
be pragmatic and result oriented. Targets must not be set too high to avoid
raising expectations too high. On the part of the international community for
instance it was noted that the push should be more for concerted or
collective actions rather than to expect isolated actions from individual
countries of the North. In any case such isolated actions are bound to be
largely in-effective. It was also remarked that countries of the North have
gradually built a general consensus that international bribery rather than
accelerate and promote business overseas, especially in Africa, is counterproductive
to those countries who permit it.

The seminar recognized that the battle ahead is expected to be a tough and a
drawn-out one. The longer-term measures to be taken need to be examined
in a more global context and in consultation with the international
community. However, it is possible for individual countries to adopt
concrete, inexpensive remedial measures in the short – to – medium-term
which would at the same time make the operational economic environment
more performing and efficient.
One possible modality in this respect may be to utilize advanced technology
to streamline and expedite corruption-prone business activities. The example
was given of the Mauritius experience; where the processing of papers at
potential sources of corruption such as the customs or licensing departments
has been made impersonal and automatic. A system of rewards has also been
introduced for those public officials who identify, report and help secure
punishment for those who indulge in corrupt activities. In effect, the seminar
reasoned that as a fundamental step it is vital that governments become more
proactive in the crusade against corruption.
Information technology may also be put to good use in monitoring
fraudulent activities, keeping an updated database of people/institutions
involved in such activities and the sharing of such information between
countries or at an international level. The seminar noted that the existence of
efficient mechanisms and clear-cut procedures, specially in the allocation of
tenders for public works and procurement, would help to contain corrupt
practices. It was also important that tendering exercises be open to public
scrutiny and publicity and be monitored as well as before and during the
event. Above all, the seminar recognized that the integrity of persons in
important positions were the best safeguard against all forms of economic
crimes. The best system or legal framework would not be operational if the
people managing them are not clean and above board.
It was observed that governments in Africa must be encouraged and
persuaded to extend the conditions and standards that are applied in the
execution of the EC funded projects under the Lome Convention between
the EC and ACP countries to other Official Development Assistance projects
and should no longer be restricted to European Community sponsored
projects alone as is the current practice. The seminar noted that it would not
only be immoral but also patronizing for Western countries to continue with
policies of accepting lower standards of honesty on the African continent.
Given the global nature of the phenomenon and its impact on development

potential, the seminar noted that it was important to mobilize all available
resources, both nationally and internationally, to limit, and to eliminate to
the extent possible, the economic damage caused to developing countries.
While the countries of the North may assist in the process of reducing the
level of corruption in Africa, it is also necessary to have a South-South
cooperation. In this respect the experiences of other countries of the south
who have created institutions, status and other procedural mechanisms may
be instructive for other countries in the South who may be desirous of
initiating similar actions to combat such untoward practices.
The seminar noted that in most African countries including the Southern
African sub-region there are in existence laws that makes corruption a
punishable offence. The lamentable fact is that these laws seem not to have
served as a means of deterring people from carrying out such heinous
crimes. In a related manner, there are quite a number of constitutional and
conventional mechanisms and procedures designed to prevent undemocratic
conduct and violation of the fundamental human rights, yet governments
have been known to violate all of these. The point was made, that the legal
system can and has repeatedly been prevented from functioning as designed
because of the desires of the government to achieve a purpose totally at
variance with the expectations of the constitution. It was also note that in
several instances judicial activism and uprightness has not been up to the
required standard necessary to concretize the spirit behind the law.
The seminar therefore took the view that to reinforce the capacity and
capability of the legal system to deal more efficiently and effectively with
the problems of corruption, it may be necessary to consider designing legal
systems for “worst case scenario”. Participants took due cognizance of the
limitations of the laws and suggested that a wholesome regulatory
environment with the necessary checks and balances would be necessary to
complement this.
The seminar stressed that the existence of a good legal framework and the
strict adherence to the rule of law is a pre-requisite to containing and
punishing corrupt practices. It was also pointed out that the need to set up a
complex and expensive machinery can be avoided if the laws are clear,
precise and unequivocal in interpretation. The training of law enforcement
officers is of utmost importance to enable a proper and fair application of the

clauses. It is also important to sensitise the population to legal enactments in
order to enable them understand their rights and responsibilities as citizens.
Dwelling on the legal and judicial systems as part of the antidote against
corruption, it was noted that while good intentions on the part of lawmakers
and the constitutions may be a basic starting point, experience over the years
have shown that this may not be adequate. Legislation alone may not be
effective in limiting corruption unless there is the evolution of a political
social culture that is anti-corruption.
One major remedy is the effective sensitization of the citizenry through
political education. As part of this process, it is also necessary to build
strong coalitions against corruption both nationally and internationally.
Participants agreed that it is crucial to involve business and commercial
interest in developing such a coalition against corruption. In this regard, at
the national level, a partnership has to evolve between the state and the
institutions of civil society. This was considered fundamental if the required
political culture which eschews corruption and undemocratic forms of
governance is to be developed. It was pointed out that the war against
corruption would not be an easy one because the tradition of corruption has
created systems which benefit people who are not likely to forgo or work
against the system easily. The problem at this point it was pointed out is in
terms of devising the most practical modality for transmitting a value system
which does not condone corruption. The effectuation of this requires in
addition to a number of other factors, a vibrant free independent and
responsible media.
Reviewing the political structures and process in Africa, the seminar pointed
out that over the years in Africa, the powers of the executive appear to have
grown exponentially at the expense of the legislature. Undoubtedly, a weak
legislature facilitates abuse of human rights, undermines the entrenchment of
the democratic process and provides the executive with the added impetus
and encouragement to be corrupt.
Another worrisome aspect of the process is the quality and character of
parliamentarians themselves. Experience with in and outside the region
suggests the overwhelming presence of parliamentarians who do not
sufficiently appreciate and understand the crucial role and responsibility of
this arm of government in a democracy, and also of parliamentarians who
are more concerned about the spoils of office. In other instances, too many

parliamentarians are also members of executive. This to course limits and
affects the checks and balances and the ability of the parliament to
effectively check the executive.
In yet other instances there are either insufficient parliamentarians or limited
resources at the disposal of the parliamentarians. The international
community may help parliaments in Africa through the provision of some
basic infrastructure that would remove some of the basic constraints on the
ability of the parliament to serve as an effective watchdog. It was pointed
out that parliamentarians require research capacity and ability to keep in
touch with constituents.
It was observed that what Africa needs at the moment are not necessarily
super leaders or angels as leaders. What is required at the moment are
transparent administrative processes that can encourage and allow people to
participate, influence and control their governance.
The problematics of financing political parties raised once again issues about
the cost of democracy. The seminar acknowledged that it is important that
some of the constraints of new democracies be taken into consideration. It
was observed that without adequate financing political parties are vulnerable
to corrupt overtures from the well-funded interests.
In view of the problems of raising necessary funds for legitimate political
party activities such as electioneering campaigns, it was observed that some
political parties are in the habit of securing the funding by making promises
of future benefits to individuals and corporate bodies in society at large if
and when they win such elections. In effect, the seeds of future corrupt
practices would have been successfully planted if and when such a party
wins an election. If there are only few men and women of character and
integrity in parliament what may be available is just the shell of democracy
and not much else. Such a development also has very severe consequences
for the rule of law structure which in fact is quite fragile in most parts of
Africa.
In dealing with the problems of political corruption, which is basically an
abuse of political power and authority, it is essential if not imperative that a
demonstrable commitment to constitutional ideals as well as greater integrity
on the part of political leaders is undertaken. In view of the above
shortcomings of the legislature and the legislators themselves, the seminar

wondered if it is actually possible to talk of legislative initiatives for anticorruption
measures
Participants therefore enjoined parliamentarians to also demonstrate stronger
commitments to openness and accountability. Poorly performing parliaments
it was noted encourage voter lethargy as well as cynicism on the part of the
people.
While the power of the parliaments to control the executive must be shored
up and increased, it is also important to subject the parliament itself to
increasing and greater control by institutions of civil society. It was also
pointed out that a Constitutional court can be created as a means of checking
on parliament. Such a court can be empowered to interpret laws and bill of
rights objectively. The seminar reasoned that the creation of a Constitutional
Court would further underscore the realization and acceptance that while the
parliament is democratically-elected and the court is not, nevertheless the
supremacy ought not to be totally vested in parliament alone but be shared
with the courts. The judges are themselves accountable to the law, to the
legislature and to the people. Within the legislature itself, democratic
accountability is enhanced through public debate, open criticism and free
and regular elections. Institutional aids to assist the legislature in the
enforcement of public accountability include the us of parliamentary
committees which are open to the public, the appointment of a Public
Protector or Ombudsman and state auditors who must be unshackled and
free to report fully and openly to the legislature and through it to the public.
At the same time political education of voters must be carried out as a
supplement to enhance the ability of the society to reject and remove leaders
who may be persuaded to act against the larger interest of the society. To
this end public information on the dynamics of corruption and similar antidemocratic
actions of public office holders must be seen as a crucial weapon
in confronting these challenges headlong.
The role of women throughout societies, as politicians and in business and
the professions as well as mothers sisters, daughters and wives are very
important both in entrenching the democratic process as well as in
combating corruption. Women as the purveyors of culture constitute a strong
agent in the socialization process. The seminar, therefore, enjoined women
and women NGOs to see it as part of their added and sacred responsibility to

take the front seat in eliminating the negative aspects of the African
development process.
The mass media was identified as a crucial institution of civil society in the
campaign against corruption. It was reasoned that perhaps the strongest real
safeguard against corruption is an informed public. The media must be
involved in promoting vigorous public debate.
The seminar observed it is not enough for the media to merely report
instances of corruption, it must also package such a report in a way that it is
intelligible to the people. The information must be easily digestible by the
people it is meant for. At the same time it is important to do this without
becoming unnecessarily sensational. The effective execution of this
responsibility is a function of the degree, nature and extent of freedom of the
press. As a means of defending and effectively exercising press freedom, it
is vital that there should be adequate professional training as well as decent
remuneration packages for all categories of media practitioner. These are
also crucial if high professional standards are to be met and kept. The major
issue that flowed from this was the issue of ownership of the media. It was
pointed out that one major problem confronting media practitioners is the
operational environment. This was defined to include the professional
hazards such as frequent arrests and detention, poor pay structure job
security and the need to achieve commercial success and viability by media
organizations. More damaging over the years has been the desire to make
media organizations commercially viable resulting, in some instances,
otherwise responsible media organizations resorting to sensationalism. The
point at issue at this stage therefore is the issue of media survival without
alternative or additional financial support.
Given the above dilemma, participants wondered if the ability of the media
to assist other institutions of civil society in the campaign against corruption
is not in serious jeopardy It was argued that much as the media may be
vulnerable to sensationalism and somewhat irresponsible journalism, it
would be more damaging for any media organization to accept financial bail
out by governments. It was also hoped that in the years ahead, tradition of
qualitative journalism would be built but within the realism of demands of
the market forces as dictated by the preference of the consumer of media
products.
The seminar identified technology as a possible saving grace.

The radio in particular represents the most effective means of disseminating
information in the rural areas where the majority of Africans live. Current
statistics suggest that the number of radio sets in Africa has increased tend
times from a mere seven million in the mid-1960s to over 76 million radio
sets today. It was recognized that government owned electronic media
appears to be greatest providers of information. However the problem is the
issue of the quality of the information, the packaging of the information and
the ground rules under which such organizations operate. The seminar
argued that the important point therefore is the need to actualize the public
ownership of government media organizations as against the operation of
such organizations as government property used mainly for propaganda
purposes by the government.
Regardless of the above operational and environmental constraints, it was
noted that the media has a dual role to play it must assist in fostering a
culture of accountability as well as serving as a strong purveyor of the need
to prevent corrupt practices. In this regard, it was pointed our that since
corruption are acts which are shrouded in secrecy the media should serve as
the purveyor of the required light that makes such dark deals difficult if not
impossible to consummate. In addition, the mass of the people and other
institutions of civil society must also have knowledge of the concrete actions
required on their part in case of exposure of corruption in the media. Part of
this is the creation and nurturing of a vibrant body politic. As part of the
means of achieving this goal, national chapters of Transparency
International must involve the media in its activities.
Recommendations:
After an exhaustive deliberation of all the issues raised above participants at
the seminar adopted the following recommendations and suggestions
charging, institutions of civil society, individuals national governments as
well as organization within the international community with specific
responsibilities.
General:

Given the global nature of corrupt practices, the seminar agreed that there
was a need for an enhanced collaboration between the North and the South
to implement programmes that would help to:
a. build a consensus on the negative consequences of corruption in
Africa
b. Formulate a comprehensive framework to combat corruption in all
its aspects;
c. Set up mechanisms and procedures that would make business
dealings more transparent and open to public scrutiny;
d. Choose and implement project programmes according to
established priorities and criteria; and
e. Monitor the utilization of aid resources.
National Level:
1. That the development of the Southern African sub-region and Africa
in general lies basically in the enthronement of democracy, but most
essentially in the prevention and elimination of corruption through
transparency in the leadership with equal and adequate access of the
citizens to popular and informed participation.
2. Aspirants to leadership in Africa should not only demonstrate their
commitment to transparency and human rights, as standard
qualifications to compete for public office, but must make an
undertaking to ensure and realize the creation and active existence of
popular mechanisms that would serve as instruments in the right
against corruption, and they would undertake to submit themselves to
these mechanisms, irrespective of their personal positions of
involvements.

3. There is need to heighten public awareness of the destructive effects
of corruption and restore the confidence of the people in government
by exemplary leadership both of which would create and reinforce the
capacity to combat corruption.
4. The independence of institutions such as the media, the judiciary and
other institutions that play the role of regulating the operation of
public policies should be established and safeguarded under the
constitutions and public officers should not only be made to sign an
undertaking to safeguard this independence, but also facilitate their
operations through cooperation and encouragement.
5. All tenderers to public procurement should undertake to disclose
details of all amounts and commissions paid for the purpose of such
tenders.
6. It is important that adequate support should be given to all those
whose public duties charge them with monitoring and enforcing laws
against corruption, so as to ensure that the rule of law is followed and
applied firmly but fairly to all, regardless of their position.
7. All political candidates should be obliged to sign an undertaking to
support civil service and administrative reforms at all levels which
will effectively combat corrupt practices wherever these can occur
(e.g. establishing viable procedural mechanism which limited the
scope for abuse of discretionary powers vested in members of the
executive and the public service).
8. Assist in ensuring that public procurement procedure is fair and open,
assuring the public of the best value for money, and with those
tendering for major projects obliged to disclose the names of
recipients and the amounts of all commissions paid.
9. As part of the measures in this regard it is necessary to have and in
independent functioning office of the Auditor-General responsible
directly to the parliament.
10. Public office holders must declare their assets before assuming and
after office. Such declarations must be given as wide a dissemination
as possible. While also instituting a process that encourages any
member of the public to challenge the declaration if such an
individual has facts and figures that contradicts the declaration.

11. Concrete legislations should be promulgated to protect those in
employment of government or in the private sector and who expose
corruption. The protection of the “whistle blowers” would serve as the
necessary armour for those who may be in a position to act.
International Level:
1. It was proposed that measures supporting transparent and
accountable management of public resources become a priority
area under the Second Financial Protocol of the Lome IV
Convention. This would enable governments to embark on national
anti-corruption programmes and address other forms of economic
crimes. A similar action should be undertaken at the regional level
for a more effective collaboration between the police/anticorruption
authorities of the region.
2. It was also suggested that the Transparency International examines
the actions needed to check the flow of funds from the South and
develop a reporting system that could shed further light on stolen
monies from the south kept in various banks in the North. The
index of corruption develop by the transparency International is a
good effort and may be a useful guide in aiding the focus on the
specific issues involved in corruption as well as the aid envelope.
3. It was suggested that the creation of a political prize for exposing
corruption need to be considered as an added weapon in the battles
ahead.
4. On the part of the countries of the North, it was resolved
immediately to do away with tax deductibility of bribes and to
criminalise such practices.
5. Donor agencies should increase support for civil society
institutions to play a critical role in curbing the endemic spread of
corruption by supporting activities which increase the awareness
on the devastating effects of corruption on development. This was
identified to include seminars such as these as well as publications,
etc.

In rounding off deliberations, participants at the seminar discussed the
continued incarceration of General Obasanjo and agreed to issue a statement
which would convey their feelings and position about the continued
detention of General Obasanjo to the representative of the Federal Republic
of Nigeria who was at the seminar for onward transmission to the Nigerian
military authorities. A press statement to this effect was issued and it is
attached as an annexure to this report.

Opening Session

2
Welcome Address
by
Beyers Naude
Introduction:
I welcome you all to the CSIR Conference Centre, venue of the Seminar on
“Corruption, Democracy and Human Rights in Southern Africa”, On behalf
of H. E. General Olusegun Obasanjo, GCFR, Former Head of State of
Nigeria and Chairman of the Africa Leadership Forum, who I daresay is
avoidably absent, I thank all of you for honouring the invitation to be here.
Under normal circumstances, General Obasanjo should have been here today
to personally welcome you in his characteristic expansive, warm and
engaging manner. Unfortunately the circumstances are far from normal in
Nigeria his country today. General Olusegun Obasanjo is at the moment
jailed while the world watches and prays for his speedy release. His current
incarceration is one of the symptoms and consequences the outcome of this
seminar is designed to help remove from our sub-region and by extension
from the rest of Africa.
Permit me on his behalf to give a little of the background to this seminar.
General Olusegun Obasanjo during the first quarter of 1994 initiated the
concept of three sub-regional seminars on Corruption, Democracy and
Human Rights in Africa. He had hoped, among other things, as your letter of
invitation reads that:
…the seminar will be devoted to an analysis of and
modalities for combating corruption and abuse of
human rights as essential pillars for sustaining the
process of democratization in the sub-region.

…The objective of the seminar is to further expose the
destructive effects of corruption, human rights abuse
and related negative practices and tendencies,
particularly in government and business circles as
impediments to development in Africa with the aim of
devising means to drastically reduce these practices
and promote the development of Africa with particular
emphasis on significant improvement in the meaning
and quality of life and living for Africans…
In active collaboration with the Transparency International and the kind
sponsorship of the project by the European Commission, the first and the
West African edition of the seminar was held in Cotonou from the 19 th – 21 st
September 1994. The second edition designed to cover the East and Central-
African Sub-region was also held in Entebbe, Uganda from the 12 th – 14 th
December, 1994. Both editions of the seminar were very instructive in their
conclusions and recommendations. This edition of the seminar therefore is
the third in the series and it is designed to cover the Southern African subregion.
It is my fervent hope that our deliberations, conclusions and
recommendations here would match earlier deliberations in content and as
well as in spirit.
As the preparations for the 21 st century gathers momentum the pursuance of
the global commons has become increasingly obvious and highly
unignorable. In fact, a recent UN publication titled States of Disarray: The
Social Effects of Globalization by the UNRISD state in part that this is the
ear of global connection. We are here not to discuss just the affairs of a
nation state but the affairs of a sub-region as part of a process designed to
redefine Africa’s position and ability to enter the 21 st century on an even
keel. It is also in demonstration of the concern for the global common that
we have the European Commission providing the funds for this seminar.
The struggle of the African people as opposed to its various governments for
increased political liberalization and by extension, responsive predates the
current wave of demand worldwide. Nonetheless, it has become part of the
global agenda. It is also within this context that one would appreciate the
worldwide reaction against governments in Africa and other parts of the
world that still refuse to acknowledge that autocratic, repressive and non-

democratic styles and forms of governance have become archaic,
endangered and totally unacceptable. Those who still cling desperately to
this form of governance are gradually being persuaded by the international
community to give history and nature a gentle push. The genie is out of the
bottle and there is no means of returning it.
The clamour for democracy and good governance in Africa today stems
from two broad reasons. First, the denial of fundamental human rights, the
presence of arbitrariness and the absence of basic freedoms for the
individual have in the main remained familiar traits and indeed impediments
to development among a majority of governments in Africa. The strain of
these styles of governance has prompted a demand and a clamour for new
approaches to the resolution of various national questions. In consequence,
Africans are now clamouring for greater responsiveness on their political
leadership, respect for human rights, accountability and a two way flow of
information between the people and their leadership. In the second place,
Africans are also clamouring for an adequate legal system as well as an
independent judiciary and a free media which together can serve as a
bulwark against the oppression of government, and especially a corrupt or
unpopular government.
These are issues of governance and can only be addressed and guaranteed
under a pluralistic political framework. The existence of choice in selecting
those who will lead – and the chance periodically to review, renew of
terminate a mandate for public leadership – should normally provide a
secure basis for good government. This too, needs to be supported by
structures and institutions that are transparent and which ensure
accountability. Not only should these act as a means of limiting the scope for
corruption by those who are corrupt but through these structures by their
very transparency would be useful to those who may be unjustly accused of
self-enrichment and as they would expectedly be enabled to point to the
transparency of their actions.
I have often wondered and worried why these forms of government have
been the usual rather than the exception in most parts of Africa. Perhaps, the
collapse of public spirit is due to the over reaching influence of ethnicity and
religion often propelled by agreed; the struggle for power which spawned
the exploitation by political actors of the weaknesses of the political
structures and processes and the worsening problem of poverty in society

literally encouraged the worrisome subversion of the privileges of leadership
for personal gains and ends.
These unwholesome practices by our leaders in Africa seemed to have found
a particular breeding-ground for a number of reasons. Firstly, at
independence many of our leaders inherited a Colonial State built and
previously made to function merely on the philosophy of Praetorianism. Its
relation to the society was extractive, cavalier and alienated. What was
required at independence was for our leaders to radicalize these institutions
by democratizing access to them, popularizing them through openness and
transparency, and returning the locus of power to the people. Our leaders did
not do this. They almost all went on with business as usual.
With the enormity of state power at their disposal, and with little or nothing
in the way of restraining structures to counter them or bring them back to the
paths of sanity, they erred, derailed and became corrupt and undemocratic.
The state became, in most cases, the context for primitive accumulation, and
political parties became private armies organized to fight electoral warfare in
the quest to conquer the state and political power. The civil society which
could have checked the state, was weak, rudimentary and largely ineffective.
The international community which could have intervened was embroiled in
the prosecution of the Cold War. As a consequence, violations of human
rights, pillaging of state resources and all forms of undemocratic government
practices and actions could be rationalized within the rubric either of
stopping the spread of communism or of advancing the cause of socialism.
Familiarization with political philosophy confirms an innate tendency in
humankind. Once you give a free rein, unchecked, unbridled and
uncontrolled, the bestiality of the human condition comes to the fore.
Thomas Hobbes has it that life becomes solitary, nasty, brutish and short. In
a nutshell, at independence the structures which our leaders inherited
actually encouraged them to behave in the manner which some did.
It is further said that in Africa there are high social expectations in society
placed on leaders. That society has a way of corrupting the public office
holder because of the excessive demands and expectations that are placed on
the individual. It is said that because of the African concept of the “big
chief” (and leaders in similar position elsewhere in the world), the public
office holder is expected to have an infinite supply of resources to dish out
to all and sundry, if only to assist his kith and kin escape the bounds of

poverty. There are quite a number of other reasons that have been adduced
and may be fathomed to rationalize the pervasiveness of undemocratic and
corrupt regimes in Africa. The point must be made that these are in part
mere excuse designed to rationalize our collective inadequacies.
In this age and era of global citizenship, it is morally inexcusable, practically
and politically unacceptable for the world to sit and fold its arms in the face
of irresponsible leadership anywhere in the world. I say this because in the
medium – and long-run the world pays dearly for the irresponsibility of
“leaders” who take their countries to the dogs. The situation in Bosnia,
Somalia, Rwanda, Liberia to mention just a few where, in course of the firebrigade
response, millions of dollars are being daily expended. Money that
could be put to better the lot and improve the chances of the global citizens.
It is sheer ethnocentricism for the international community to look on
benignly when human suffering, denial of basic rights and other forms of
political bestiality is wreaked on societies by a despotic government.
Unarguably, the traditional concept of sovereignty has changed. The action
or inaction of the leader in the remotest part of the world today has serious
implications for the rest of the world. This is true whether we look at it from
the environmental impact aspect or the consequences in terms of enforced
migration. Much as one is willing to concede that we are living in a highly
competitive world, must this mean that the strong thrives on the weakness of
the not-so-strong Again, it is this same competitive edge that impose a
moral responsibility on the strong to assist the weak. Otherwise, the whole
essence of transporting man from the state of nature to civil society is
negated.
Fortunately, it is not so difficult to identify reasonable lines of action by the
international community. We will recall the recent political development in
Lesotho and the prompt positive response by other leaders in the sub-region.
Let me stretch this one step further by noting that it borders on
ethnocentricism to accept that a political leader who is not the product of a
universally acknowledged process of democracy should be able to hobnob as
an equal with committed democrats who invest time, energy and resources
both material and non-material to secure their people’s mandate. Such antidemocratic
leaders must be isolated and refused the courtesies normally
extended to those leaders who carry with them an authority that denies from
the consent of their people.

The world can no longer accept to underwrite the huge cost of nondemocratic
leaders who deny the world the benefits of her people’s
productivity and contribution to the growth of the global economy. The
same applies to countries that provide “parking spaces” for illicit wealth of
corruption or those who provide political cover for corruption in
international transactions.
On the homefront, if we are asked why anti-corruption drives fail, it is
because they seldom, if ever, really exist. As long as those at the top are
benefiting, there are “no go” limits for law enforcement, and before long a
telephone call of warning, or a reassignment, puts an end to a promising
lead. Again, in the words or H.E. President Nicephore Soglo, President of
the Republic of Benin:
…Our society is such that a judge functions in an
environment where everyone is known to another, and
a suspect soon discovers a cousin, an in-law or the
friend to a friend of a forgotten aunt. The investigation
on his part, operates within a society where the belief
in the occult is the common link among the people and
where he (the investigator) can find himself believing
rightly or wrongly, that his sick child has been the
victim of witchcraft.
There are clear roles for active members of civil society in helping to build,
develop and refine these institutions and practices, and to reinforce their
society’s own integrity. Our gathering over the next three days would further
afford us an added opportunity to improve on the capacity of these
institutions. This seminar is yet one of those modalities designed to facilitate
the actualization of this desire. Fortunately for us in Africa today there are
quite a number of instruments and mechanism which may be used to realize
and effectuate our desires. Here I am alluding to the Transparency
International, an international anti-corruption organization. I am happy that
Messrs Jeremy Pope and Dieter Frisch are here and would share with us the
operational modalities of the T.I.
I do realize that I am starting to anticipate the question of solutions and
starting to stray from my brief which is to provoke a discussion of where we
now stand.

Let me close my address by sharing with you part of the very first detention
note received from General Olusegun Obasanjo and smuggled out of his
prison cell:
…Be strong and keep the ALF going. Tell the EU
people to pay our money and to allow the Southern
Africa meeting to go on. It is to prevent this type of
occurrence. Tell Hans and Pat I am in good form and I
send my regards for what it is worth. Tell Pope and
Peter Eigen not to be discouraged and to soldier on….
Signed O. Obasanjo
16-3-95
As I read this note once again, I remember the quotation with which Jeremy
Pope ended his presentation during the first seminar in Cotonou in
September. He said Evil thrives when good people do nothing…
I than you for coming and I wish you a very robust and interesting seminar
in the days ahead.

Opening Remarks
by
Angelo Pangratis 1
Introduction:
Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen, it is a privilege and a pleasure for me
to be able to welcome you to this conference on behalf of the European
Union Commission. We have just received a welcome address which was a
very powerful text because of its idea and very emotional. I will like to state
from the beginning that the European Union is very concerned about the fate
of General Obasanjo and has formally protested about the recent trial which
we consider a political one. We hope our protests and the protests of many
others will bear fruit.
The EU supports democracy and the promotion of human rights both
through its common policy and its individual country policies. Democracy
and respect for human rights can only go hand in hand with what is usually
referred to as good governance which simply implies the transparency and
accountability of public officers in general and public resources in particular
and include the prevention and the fight against corruption. The crucial
importance of global governance for economic and political development
was again recognized by the EU and the ACP countries and the inclusion of
a special chapter in the mid-term review of the Lome Convention. It is in the
context of this global objectives that the EU has sponsored this conference
as well two previous ones already mentioned in the previous speech.
Corruption has an adverse effect on the promotion of democracy and human
rights. It is universally accepted that corruption can also be a global and
major obstacle to developed. It is contrary to the basic democratic principle
of openness, transparency and accountability. It creates and increases
poverty level and discourages investments and particularly foreign
investments and cause loss of confidence in the government. Given the
African continent’s track record in this regard, there is a clear need to
1 Head of European Union Delegation to South Africa

combat the rising level of corruption and formulate positive and long-term
solutions at national, regional and international levels which will provide an
environment that is conducive to both political and economic stability.
It is a policy priority for the European Union to promote regional
cooperation and integration particularly in the case of South Africa. The
successful economic and social impact of a more integrated South African
region is of paramount importance in putting sub-region back to its right
place, in the international and scene in the whole of sub-Saharan Africa. In
an effort to facilitate the process of regional integration, two issues at the
ministerial conference have, since September last year, been the need to
explore close cooperation between the EU and South Africa so that the
important recent developments including South Africa’s democratization
process, the peace process both in Mozambique and Angola and the shift
towards more open market-oriented economies can create the necessary
conditions for development in south Africa. It is important that these
positive developments are allowed to flourish in a democratic environment
and that corruptive elements are prevented from adversely affecting what
can be achieved. I would like us to contribute to this process. I wish this
important conference and to all of you individually every good success in
your efforts.

Keynote Address
by
Angelo Pangratis 2
Introduction:
I apologise for asking you to rearrange your programme to allow to me to
speak at this time.
This morning, Pan-African Women’s Day, we lit a torch in Durban. It is
Beijing taken across the crisis areas in Africa – Angola, Burundi, Liberia,
Rwanda and Somalia – and then to Beijing, where the UN’s 4 th World Day
on Women will be held later this year.
That torch is a commitment to peace and a symbol of the urgent need for
action. Neither democracy, nor a human or its culture can flourish without
peace, and corruption thrives in times of strife and wars. And we need to be
mindful of this.
I would like, Mr. Chairman to add my voice, to others who have spoken of
the arrest and continued detention of General Olusegun Obasanjo. I do so
not only because he is the Chairman of the Africa Leadership Forum, but
also as a South African who has known the General for a decade, since as a
member of the Eminent Persons Group, he became actively engaged in the
struggle against apartheid. He has demonstrated his commitment to
democracy by the way in which he tried to hand-over power from a military
regime to a democratic elected government in Nigeria, and by his
international activities since.
Wherever it is alleged that people have transgressed and broken laws, there
must be open and public process of charge, trial, and sentence. Undefined
charges, detention and secret trials are not only a violation of the human
rights of an individual, but also a backward step. I hope the government of
2 Honourable Speaker, Parliament of South Africa

Nigeria will heed the many appeals, including that from our own President,
to resolve differences peacefully and with respect for due process of law.
This seminar, the 3 rd in a series, is appropriately held at this time in the
Southern African region where a large number of countries have recently
held multi-party elections. We in South Africa, are now completing our 16 th
month as a democracy.
The link between corruption, democracy and human rights, is an interaction.
The results of which vary and take particular forms in different societies. In
South Africa, the link was between an absence of democracy, the violation
of human rights and a system permeated by corruption. I make no apology
for focusing on South Africa as we have to start with ourselves.
The legacy of post-apartheid South Africa, is that of a society and institution
that were corrupt in their entirety: in the political and economic system, in
the social organization, and above all in the values and culture engendered.
It is this inherent violation of basic internationally recognized norms and
standards, that resulted in apartheid being declared a crime against
humanity.
The interim Constitution and elections last year began the process of
transforming our society but we have a long way to go. The fact remains
with us, in the institutions and style of behaviour and the values of many
who still retain power in different sectors and at different levels.
So much of this past encouraged corruption. Indeed, it was correct and
spawned corruption. We have been a society that was organized to provide
everything for a racial minority regardless of the consequences and whoever
was effective; it was managed by a society of brothers who furthered their
objectives through strategies devised in secret; to achieve their objectives
they placed their brother members in all positions of influence and power –
civil servants, and in politics, in state institutions and parastatals, in the
army, and the police; inside the country human rights were violated with
impecuity; aggression was committed against our neighbours, and wars and
civil strife fermented; the laws of many countries were violated by breaking
sanctions – and in the process enormous so-called ‘commissions’ were paid
to leaders or officials, to obtain the sanctioned good, especially oil and arms.
But also in the course of trade in other goods certificates of origin, and user

certificates, ship manifests and custom declarations were falsified and public
officials corrupted.
The economy was distorted to meet strategic interests, and in this process
major economic decisions were taken in secret. You can imagine the
opportunities that advance information of this sort provided. Opportunities
that the decision makers, their families and friends look up for their personal
enrichment.
Controls and laws were focused on political opponents, and there were few
laws or even fewer resources to collect taxes, to police financial transactions
and prevent fraud and investigate corruption.
Recent revelations of the covert operations against the liberation moments
have provided further evidence of the millions of secret funds that were
dispersed. Giant companies were established in South Africa, in other
African countries, Europe, the Middle East and the U.S.
To this day, there has been no accounting for this money – how much went
into private bank accounts, and how much is still there. To what use will this
money be put
The Cameron Commission into illegal arms sales has provided a glimmer
into the murky waters of South Africa’s arms trade. One again, there were
references to giant companies, funded by South African tax payers, secret
accounts, etc.
Occasionally, one hears of a company that has closed down. But South
Africans are not told what happened to the money in the company’s bank
accounts, to the real estate that was acquired, the computers, cars and other
equipment.
Regrettably, there is no outcry – no demand for this information, no
investigative exposures in the media. The past is buried, those who
participated in or kept quiet about the past are often in the forefront of
decrying corruption among the so-called new elite.

This is the dark cloud of corruption that still overhangs us, in a democratic
South Africa – a culture, and a way of working that remains a threat, a
pattern of relationship and networks that have to be broken down, if
individuals were to be able to act honestly and with integrity.
A Culture of Secrecy:
It is this imperative that requires openness and transparent processes now,
and independent public enquiries into the transactions of the past. The two
are linked, and both are necessary.
We do need also to institute stringent measures to monitor and control;
including strong sanctions against violations. But we have learnt in South
Africa that laws cannot be enforced, unless there is a culture that accepts
such laws as legitimate. So we need much more than such laws. We need to
locate them as part of a broader context of society and that is the link
between the themes of democracy, human rights and corruption.
We are beginning to take steps to institutionalize and establish mechanism
without which the words transparency, openness and accountability become
empty slogans.
We need to ensure that all over institutions our leaders are accountable and
our processes are open and transparent.
Public office bearers must give the lead and set standards for themselves,
before requiring them of others.
Parliament has played a leading role. An ethics committee is currently
establishing a code for MPs. But all public officials require such a code. It is
necessary that all interests are declared and known. We need a declaration of
assets, so that enrichment can be monitored. Such a declaration would have
to extend for 2/3 years after the office has been vacated.
However, today financial corruption, in terms of handing over brief cases of
money is no longer the only way. In Britain there are recommendations that
retired ministers should not be able to take jobs in the private sector for a
period, in order to prevent them using information they acquired while in
office or jobs given as a pay-off for past favours. In South Africa, members
of the I.E.C. were prohibited from accepting jobs in government or in the

parastatals for 2 years after the election. We need to introduce similar
provisions in many areas of activity.
We need also to look at the private sector. Just how much information do we
have about companies. Given the domination of 6 corporations over 80% of
the Johannesburg Stock Exchange and the overlapping ownership and
boards, how does one investigate corruption
Parliament is also focusing on opening up processes and making information
public. A committee system has been introduced which empowers
committees to monitor each government department. The constitution
empowers these committees by giving them the right to call any witness, and
require documents to be produced. Both Parliament and Departments are
looking at a more open tender process.
The Open democracy legislation, which we expect shortly, will provide for
freedom of information. An important aspect should be to provide protection
for those who are in the employment of government or companies and who
expose corruption. The protection of such “whistle blowers” would
encourage those within the old institution and system I described. It would
encourage officials to come forward and provide information. They would
need to be protected from reprisals, and also from enforcement of any
confidentiality provisions in their contract of employment.
We have recently appointed a Public Protector who has wide ranging
jurisdiction to investigate maladministration, abuse or unjustifiable exercise
of power, unfair or capricious conduct, improper or unlawful enrichment, or
receipt of andy improper advantage, etc. The office of Public Protector and
its powers are provided for in the Constitution – and we need to ensure that
this will be carried into the new Constitution.
Finally, there is one element without which all these new Constitutions will
come to nought – an informed or galvanized public opinion.
NGOs:
But I would wish to utter a word of caution. It is relatively easy to expose
one or two individuals who are corrupt, and the temptation to focus on this,
especially if they are highly placed or high profile individuals, is great.

But equally, if not more important in South Africa, is to address the culture
and patterns that flow from our past. To change these must be an intensive
part of the transformation of our society. In keeping with our new ethic, we
must do so, in as open a way as possible.
If we don’t, it will be all too easy for new bureaucrats to slip into the ways
of the old – while the tentacles of the past will prevent many from trying to
break out and act with integrity.
At the same time as we encourage and facilitate the role of civil society as
the watchdogs, let us also as a nation monitor the activities of South African
companies abroad. The sanctions busting networks are still in place with the
endemic corruption. This can be a serious threat to our neighbours and to all
of Africa and to the steps towards democratization. Let us look at our laws
and regulations so that our export drive does not include corrupt practices.
I spoke of a tradition of corruption in South Africa. But there is also another
tradition, that of men and women in their 1000s who were prepared to stand
up and fight against apartheid and for democracy and human rights. Persons
whose integrity was put and the most stringent tests and they were not found
wanting – though many were forced to give their lives for their beliefs.
It is this tradition that we must now foster – that must be the basis on which
we consider democracy and build a human rights culture. It is the sword we
must use to slash open the curtains that veil the past, and expose it to public
scrutiny, and the shield of personal and public integrity that is our best
guarantee for the future.

Session I

3
Corruption, Ethics & Accountability
in Africa: Toward a Responsive
Agenda for Action
Main Background Paper
by
Sadig Rasheed 3
Corruption, Ethics and Accountability in Africa – An
Overview:
The debate on and efforts to curb ethical violations and enforce
accountability have intensified in recent years in Africa mainly due to four
reasons: 4
- The increase in the incidence of unethical practices and lack of
accountability;
- The wave of political liberalization, that engulfed most of Africa since
1989, which has emboldened a budding civil society into demanding
greater enforcement of ethical standards and the punishment of
violators;
- A growing recognition that unethical practices have been a
contributory element to the economic difficulties that many African
countries are currently facing; and
3 Director, Public Administration, Human Resources and Social Development Division, Economic
Commission for Africa.
4 See Sadig Rasheed and Dele Olowu, “Ethics and Accountability in Africa Public Services”, ICIPE
Science Press, Nairobi, 1993

- The pressure exerted by international donors requiring stricter
adherence by African countries to the principle of good governance
and the curtailment of waste and squandering of resources.
Corruption is often narrowly perceived or defined as to mean ‘grand’ and
‘petty’ ill-gotten financial gains. While these are perhaps the most flagrant
aspects of the plight, such a perception does not do justice either to the
manifold ways in which corruption manifests itself or to the motives and
driving forces behind corrupt behaviour. Aside from outright bribery,
patronage, nepotism, embezzlement, influence peddling, use of one’s
position for self-enrichment, bestowing of favours on relatives and friends,
moonlighting, partiality, absenteeism, late coming to work, abuse of public
property, leaking and/or abuse of government information and the like are
all part of the manifestation of corrupt behaviour.
A few argue that certain aspects of corruption – the receipt of bribes on a
‘grand’ or ‘petty’ scale – are normally harmless, are indispensable, should be
tolerated and could even be beneficial. In this light, ‘grand-scale bribery’ is
seen as an inevitable practice contributing to stimulating international
business transactions and facilitating the flow of external development
assistance; while ‘petty bribery’ is seen as a ‘lubricant’ or ‘incentive’ to
speed-up administrative procedures and cut on red-tape.
This, however, is a highly erroneous and damaging view. Practical
experience over the years in developing countries, and particularly in Africa,
has repeatedly demonstrated that ‘grand-scale bribery’ has been damaging to
development and to society. It has often resulted in the implementation of
unneeded projects, diversion of recourses away from legitimate development
priorities, inflation of the cost of transactions to the state and the tax payer
for the benefit of individual politicians and top-level civil servants, increase
in external indebtedness without a commensurate enhancement of the ability
for debt repayment, the acquisition of sub-standard obsolete technology and
equipment not fit for use or durable use, and even the purchase of defective
goods – expired drugs and foodstuffs – known beforehand to be harmful for
human consumption and use. Furthermore, a country in which ‘grand-scale
bribery’ is rife is a country which is normally shunned by serious investors.

While ‘petty bribery’ may on the other hand accelerate bureaucratic
dealings, it is essentially a form of extortion. A businessman may afford this
surcharge, but an ordinary citizen may not. More serious in both cases is the
fact that the condoning of such a practice encourages laxity in enforcing
accountability, which would encourage more serious ethical violations and
breakdown of discipline.
Corruption beyond this narrower definition also has obvious negative
impacts on productivity and efficiency and all corrupt practices undermine
the accountability, responsiveness, legitimacy and transparency of
governments; the effective implementation of policies; and efforts to bring
about recovery and development in general.
The lack of accountability, unethical behaviour and corrupt practices have
become so pervasive and even institutionalized norms of behaviour in
African to the extent that one may conveniently speak of a crisis of ethics in
the African state. While one could single out a few countries in which
‘tolerable’ levels of corruption exist, unfortunately the opposite is true in the
majority of African countries. 5
Rampant corruption and its negative impact in Africa dictate that concerted
action by all concerned must be embarked upon to address this debilitating
problem. Dealing successfully with this phenomenon requires a deeper
understanding of its underlying causes. The various authors who have
attempted to give a plausible explanation for the scourge have often singled
out one dimension or another as being the most crucial factor. One
maintains, however, that the matter is not that simple and that political
cultural and economic factors at once lie at the root of this multidimensional
problem.
- Over time, the post-independence state in Africa has generally
evolved as an undemocratic; autocratic and patrimonial entity. Being
essentially an embodiment of and a vehicle executing the
unquestioned will and whims of an unaccountable supreme ruler and
ruling elite. It became an ideal breeding ground for the very forces
making for unethical behaviour. Even with the transition to greater
political liberalization, overt paternalism is a quality which the state
has yet to effectively rid itself of.
5 See Ibid.

- Because of the fact that recruitment in the civil service has been and is
still very much influenced by patronage and political factors, the
loyalties, commitment and actions of public officials are often guided
and shaped by their primordial loyalties rather than the requirements
of impartial professionalism.
- The sprawling nature of the state, its overextended control over
economic matters and the licensing and approval powers which public
officials are invested with have created greater opportunities for the
abuse of office for self-enrichment.
- The issue whether the economic crisis is the cause or effect of the
ethical crisis in Africa is still hotly debated. Nevertheless, one is of the
opinion that while the two crises are no doubt mutually reinforcing,
the rapid deterioration of economic conditions – which the majority of
African countries have been experiencing since the beginning of the
1980s – has further encouraged the public office holders, both
politicians and administrators, to seek and obtain rewards in exchange
for their services and weakened their aversion and moral abhorrence
to such practices.
Is There Remedy
Repeated attempts have been made over the years in many African countries
to combat corrupt practices and unethical violations. A common feature of
those is the enactment of codes and establishment of institutional
mechanisms to enforce ethical behaviour.
Nigeria enacted a Code of Conduct in 1975 – which was subsequently
incorporated into 1979 and 1989 constitutions – requiring public officials
not to allow personal interests to conflict with their official responsibilities;
not to engage in secondary pecuniary engagements; not to operate foreign
accounts; not to ask for gifts; and to declare their assets immediately after
taking office, every four years and at the end of their terms of office. In
1957, Ethiopia enacted a Special Penal Code Chapter Two of – which, under
the title “Break of Trust and Offences Against the Interest of the
Government and Public”, - covered provisions governing, inter-alia, the
receipt of ill-gotten gains, misuse of waste of public property, forgery of
public documents, corrupt practices and acceptance of undue advantage.

Cote d’Ivoire established an anti-corruption law and a “Clearance Certificate
Against Corruption” in 1977.
A variety of bodies have also been established to curb ethical violations. The
ombudsman system has been experimented within Ghana, Nigeria, Namibia,
Sudan, Zambia, Tanzania and Zimbabwe. Nigeria established a Public
Complaints Committee in 1975 to investigate complaints of administrative
action by public officials, and also a Public Accounts Committee in 1966 to
assist the legislature in carrying out its oversight functions over the
executive offices with respect to the expenditure of public funds. Similar
bodies were also established in other countries, such as the Working
People’s Control Committee (1987) and the “Special Court” to try offences
related to exploitations, waste, abuse of authority, corrupt practice and
favouritism (1981) in Ethiopia; and the Anti-Corruption Squad (1975),
Commission for Enforcement of the Leadership Code (1973) and Permanent
Commission of Enquiry (1966) in Tanzania.
In some cases, these initiatives were partially successful in achieving some
of the immediate objectives behind these measures. However, this has not
been generally the cases. More crucial has been the fact that the incidence of
ethical violation has increased even in the countries where a large number of
violators have been investigated and/or punished.
The salient questions remain: why have these measures been generally
unsuccessful And given the extent of the malaise of corruption unethical
conduct and the hitherto limited success in dealing with it, is it at all realistic
to expect that this situation can be remedied
- In the first instance, much of the grand-scale corruption has largely
been practiced by the politicians themselves or by top civil servants
who are part and parcel of the regimes in power. Thus, obviously, the
will to stamp out or expose corruption is largely non-existent.
- Secondly, the pressure by external business partners to corrupt is so
great and also financial tempting to the extent that it almost always
succeed in enticing a willing corruptee.
- Thirdly, measures to limit corruption have often failed because they
have been introduced in an overall political and policy environment
that has not been sufficiently conducive and enabling to the measures.

When grand corruption is rampant at top-level echelons of
government and the political systems; the nature of governance has
basically remained undemocratic, unaccountable and patrimonial; and
where patronage systems have remained intact, one can hardly expect
that measures against unethical behaviour can be enforced with any
degree of seriousness or that the systems and institutions responsible
for their enforcement will be left to function without tampering and
interference. Thus, the nature of the state and governance and
commitment at the highest political level are crucial prerequisites for
any successful drive to curb and punish ethical violations.
- Fourthly, the measures that have been introduced have essentially
been partial in nature, focusing mainly on the sanctioning aspect.
- Finally, a large number of the institutions that have been established
to promote ethics and accountability often lacked the resources, public
visibility, impartially and public support that are critical for successful
operations.
The enormity of the task in dealing with corrupt practices and promoting
ethics and accountability in African countries is not to be underestimated. In
spite of the setbacks experienced in this regard, it is still possible to score
gains in a meaningful manner. Central to achieving this is the need for the
dedicated and sustained implementation of comprehensive, broad-based and
self-reinforcing measures – and not merely partial solutions – by the
government and civil society to deal with the multi-dimensional nature of
the problem, within the framework of democratic, responsive transparent
and accountable governance.
Democratic governance is an essential prerequisite for any successful
attempts to fight corruption on a sustained basis. While corruption does
occur both democratic and non-democratic systems of government, it
becomes an automatic by-product of the latter system and the chances for
corrupt practices to be exposed, protested against and punished become
much diminished under it.
However, even in situations where a crisis of governance exists, corruption
must be fought and civil society must not condone it. A comprehensive
agenda to do so and to promote ethics and accountability in contemporary
African public services ought to comprise the following:

- Fostering and promoting enabling conditions of service to enhance
professional and ethical standards.
- Advancing and affirming sound policies on recruitment, training and
public personnel management.
- Encouraging public service occupational associations to play a
catalytic role in institutionalizing professional values and defending
occupational interests promoting a psycho logy of service in political
and public life.
- Creating, strengthening an upholding the integrity and effectiveness of
public institutions of accountability.
- Cutting down on excessive centralization and bureaucratization.
- Enacting, improving and effectively enforcing legal instruments,
codes of conduct and regulations promoting ethics and accountability.
- Mass education campaigns on the extent and cost of corruption and
unethical bahviour.
- The systematic and impartial prosecution of violations.
- Fostering popular participation to ensure the responsiveness,
accountability and transparency of governance.
- Establishing coalitions of business associations and civil society
organizations to expose and fight corruption.
Towards a Responsive Agenda
Fostering and Promoting Enabling Conditions of Service to Enhance
Professional and Ethical Standards:
It is widely acknowledged that poor working conditions, increasing levels of
public service employment, and unrealistically low salaries or official
rewards are key problems that have undermined the professional standing of
African public services. Public service working conditions, in many parts of
Africa, were nothing short of dismal by the early 1980s. James Nti, for

example, has noted that “shortages of stencils, duplicating paper, functioning
typewriters, and photocopiers were rampant in many ministries and
departments in a number of African countries… The monitoring and
supervision of subordinates in the field, visits to projects, and the
performance of extension work have also been frustrated by the immobility
of public servants, and immobility resulting either from the lack of
serviceable vehicles or the shortage of fuel. In some cases, vehicles are
declared unserviceable because of the lack of minor parts such as brake pads
or tires!”
Poor working conditions have been accompanied by significant increases in
public service employment during the post-colonial years. It is sometimes
difficult, if not impossible, to be certain of precisely what is included in
public service employment data. Nonetheless, the evidence of a phenomenal
increase in public service employment is persuasive. 6
Conditions in African public services have also been undermined by
unrealistic pay and compensation patterns that emerged. One of the
prominent features of public service pay in the region is that it has generally
trailed private sector pay. In the industrialized OECD countries by contrast,
average public sector pay has broadly been in line with average private
sector pay and in some cases has even been slightly better. 7
More serious has been the dramatic fall in real wages which occurred since
the beginning of 1980s in Africa. ILO JASPA estimates that on average, real
wages declined by 30 per cent between 1980 and 1986 alone and that in
several countries the average wage has declined by 10 per cent or more
every year since 1980. The same source concluded that “wage erosion seems
to have been more pronounced in the public sector than in private
enterprises”. 8
6 See James Nti, “The Impact of the Economic Crisis on the Effectiveness of Public Service Personnel” in
Balogun and Mutahaba (eds), Economic Restructuring and African Public Administration, p. 124.
7 See for example J. H. Oyugi, “The Role of Research: Size, Cost and Effectiveness of the Civil Service
Reform Programmes in Africa” Chapter 17 of this volume. See also David Abernathy, “Bureaucratic
Growth and Economic Stagnation in sub-Saharan Africa” in Cummins (eds.), Africa’s Development
Challenges.
8
For further reading see Peter Heller and Alan A. Tait, Government Employment and Pay: Some
International Comparisons (Washington DC. UNF Occasional paper No. 24 (Revised Edition) 1984, p. 13;
see also Selcuk Ozgediz, Managing the Public Service, p. 53; and Derek Robinson, ‘Civil Service
Remuneration in Africa in International Labour Review 129 (3), 1990.

Another ILO survey of civil service pay in Africa has shown that real
starting salaries have declined in all 14 countries that were surveyed. In
some countries there has been virtual collapse of real wages. Only in one
country, Zimbabwe, the starting salary increased. The study found that:
On the average, the lowest starting salary dropped by
about one-half between 1975-1985, while that for the
highest grade plunged by nearly two thirds. Real
wages continued to decline in the second half of the
1980s. By September 1980, the starting salary in the
lowest and highest grades in Uganda stood at 70.0 and
22.4 per cent respectively of their purchasing power of
1985. In Sierra Leone, the respective indices were 68.8
and 42.7 at the end of 1989. 9
Other studies also point to the same direction. The DTCD study mentioned
above found out that lower, middle and top civil servants in Tanzania lost
over 55%, 65% and 70% of their real wages respectively between 1982 and
1987; while in Ghana real wages for these categories of public servants in
1989 were between 48% and 36% of their equivalents in 1977.
Wages freezes, inflation and substantial currency devaluations, which have
accompanied the introduction of structural adjustment programmes, have
been mainly responsible for this phenomenon. No wonder then that it has a
not only become difficult to attract and retain the best and brightest but also
that even among those who stay in the services, it has become unrealistic to
expect reasonable, let alone optimum, job performance. Inevitably, such
conditions have, furthermore, provided not only an excuse but virtually an
incentive for corruption and related behaviour.
Against this background, the first step in promoting ethics and accountability
in African public services must be to foster enabling conditions of service,
particularly adequate pay levels and economic incentives, that would
encourage productivity and efficiency and enhance professional standard. To
be sure, several economic and institutional reform initiatives have been
introduced to improve performance and enforce ethical behaviour. However,
evidence suggests that public sector adjustment policies have not only failed
to address the problem, but have actually worsened it through the
enforcement of pay restraints and below inflation indexation of wages
during periods of rapidly declining real earnings.
9 ILO, JASPA African Employment Report 1990, Addis Ababa, p. 35.

Implementing Sound Policies on Recruitment, Training and Public
Personnel Management:
Fostering public service professionalism acts as an important safeguard fro
ensuring ethical and accountable behaviour. It remains a fundamental
requirement of public service professionalism that recruitment should be
carried out on the basis of ability, and also that advancement within the
service must depend on merit. There are basic considerations that must
underlie current efforts at institutional capacity-building in the region. It is
recognized that ethnic and gender factors have to be taken into account in
recruitment and promotion opportunities. Nonetheless, the caliber of people
recruited into the public service and the extent to which merit is the
determining factor in their subsequent prospects of promotion and career
development is perhaps the most crucial factor in institutionalizing
professionalism in the public service.
In this regard, the Northcote-Trevelyan Reforms in Britain are particularly
instructive. It would be useful to recall here the overall concern of the Northcote-Trevelyan
Report:
The government of the country could not be carried on
without the aid of an efficient body of permanent
officers, occupying a position duly subordinate to that
of Ministers who are directly responsible to the Crown
and to Parliament, yet possessing sufficient
independence, character, ability and experience to be
able to advise, assists, and to some extent, influence
those who are from time to time set over them. 10
An associated requirement for professionalism in contemporary African
public services is a sound educational system – from primary to tertiary and
university levels – to provide the skill levels that are required. A
commitment to higher education that is both relevant and responsive to
developmental and professional needs is especially germane to public
service career development and training needs in response to changing
demands and requirements. In this regards, the rehabilitation and
revitalization of African educational systems is a necessary condition for
10 Ibid; pp. 36-37

increasing levels of professionalisation in the public service and in other
occupations as well. 11
Institutionalisation of Professional Values:
Public service occupational associations – like all combinations of workers –
are organizations run by public servants to promote their interests. But they
can also be used as instruments in transmitting expectations of the public to
their members. They further constitute vehicles through which the morale,
feelings and attitudes of public servants can be communicated and
maintained. To this extent, “the informal support of public servants staff
associations for the formal system helps to sustain professional values and
ethics of public service. 12 To be sure, many African countries have a
tradition for effective trade unionism in the public and private sectors and
indeed trade unions were prominent in the struggle against colonial rule and
more recently in articulating populist demands for democratic change.
Typically, members of a trade union or staff association present their
organization and occupation as a socially responsible enterprise. Public
administration in Africa has been so presented by some of its practitioners
complete with a region-wide association in the form of AAPAM and a Code
of Ethics to be imbibed by all practitioners.
However, as some have noted, while the role of professional organizations in
promoting high professional and ethical standards cannot be overemphasised,
they still have a lot to do in this respect. 13 AAPAM it self has so
far limited its efforts to research, training and advocacy. As such, its most
active members have been primarily individuals with an academic interest in
African public administration. The Association needs to extend its role to
establish or support effective national and branch chapters that are more
directly responsive to the day-to-day needs of practitioners. It is only by
building such a ‘grassroots’ base that its Code of Ethics will carry
conviction. Moreover, strong and vibrant staff associations at branch levels
11 The Northcote-Trevelyan Report cited in Ladipo Adamolekun, Public Administration: A Nigerian and
Comparative Perspective (London: Longman 1983), P. 112. For a detailed discussion of public personnel
management see the same source.
12 On this point, see ECA, strengthening the Viability of the African University in the 1990s and Beyond
(Addis Ababa: ECA/SAPAM 1992).
13 See S. Agere, “Promotion of Good Ethical Standards and Behavbiour in Public Services in Africa,
Chapter 10 of this volume.

will not only be more effective in promoting their members’ interests in
improving working conditions, salaries and benefits, but – given the divisive
tendencies of ethnicity and religion in contemporary Africa – will also help
to foster a sense of solidarity and esprit de corps. A strong sense of shared
purpose in duty to serve the public is ultimately the basis of public service
professional ethics. In the case of the Meiji Reforms in Japan in the 1870s as
was earlier noted, much emphasis was placed on socializing public servants
to inculcate such a sense of duty. Such socialization must, however, extend
beyond that to encompass the family, the educational system, the media, etc.
to extol popularize virtuous ethical values.
Promoting a Psychology of Service in Public and Political Life:
Ethics and accountability compliment one another. Professional ethics is the
basis of accountability, which is the obligation to be answerable for carrying
out assigned duties and in exercising discretionary powers. In the public
service, the concept and practice of accountability is expected to make
public officials responsible for their actions or inactions. Accountability is
supposed to make government transparent, emphasise and enhance
governmental responsiveness and legitimacy and improve policy
implementation. In terms of modern democratic theory and practice, the
basic principle at work here is that the public service derives its authority
from the population as a whole, and its responsibilities and duties from the
public interest.
Professional ethics are fundamentally a matter of value judgements on
occupational morality. Eschewing the finer points of philosophical and
theoretical debate on this matter, throughout human history, value
judgements on appropriate conduct of public servants – politicians have
been excepted to uphold some concept of the public good within the
framework of the rule of law. Indeed, the notion of legitimacy in the modern
state as a form of political organization is tied to this expectation. For public
service officials, this expectation has been summed up as follows:
Working within a framework provided by law, being
required even in the sphere of informal administrative
practice to maintain certain standards of procedural
fairness, acknowledging political control and
accountability, being subject to an obligation to use
resources as economically as possible yet also

efficiently and beneficially, being expected to
contribute to policy development as well as to
effective policy implementation having some kind of
duty, no matter how hard it is to formulate it, to serve
the public. 14
Duty to serve the public requires a psychology or culture of service in
national political and public life. Africa’s political leaders bear a heavy
responsibility in promoting such a psychology through their own example
and actions. Indeed, one shrewd observer of development problems in the
region has put the issue as follows:
In my considered view, the answer to Africa’s socioeconomic
crisis lies in visionary leadership and
managerial excellence. Resources are no doubt a major
constraint in development. Nonetheless, the capacity to
create, manage and optimize the required resources is
part of the challenge that faces leadership and
management. 15
Senior public service managers and their political master must provide a
healthy combination of vision, dynamism, common sense and pragmatism.
They must have the statue and ability to earn the respect and confidence of
their colleagues in the lower ranks of the service in general and the people
they serve in particular. It is also essential that be established and effectively
enforced.
Upholding the Integrity of Public Institutions of Accountability:
It was suggested above that professional ethics are the basis of public
accountability and, as such, ethics and accountability are complimentary.
Within the framework of the modern state, accountability is supposed to
make government transparent, emphasise and enhance governmental
responsiveness and legitimacy, and improve public service efficiency and
policy implementation. Indeed, recent international attention on the issue of
‘governance’ has focused attention on these dimensions of public
accountability. According to one characterization of governance:
14 See AAPAM, African Public Services, Appendix 2.
15 See O. M. Laleye, “Mechanisms for Enhancing Ethics and Public Accountability in Francophone
Africa”, Chapter 17 of this volume.

Good governance depends on the extent to which a
government is perceived and accepted by the general
citizenry to be legitimate; committed to improving the
general public welfare and responsive to the needs of
the citizenry; competent in assuring law and order and
in delivery public services; able to create an enabling
policy environment for productive activities; and
equitable in its conduct, favouring no special interests
or groups. 16
Whatever characterization is adopted, it has become generally understood
that accountable governance requires a political commitment to upholding
the integrity and effectiveness of public institutions of accountability and the
technical efficiency of the national public administrative system. Some
African countries have fairly effective systems of accountability while a
number of others are beginning to strengthen public institutions of
accountability. But it is clear that much remains to be done as a recent
survey by Olowu of legislature, judiciary and executive-based institutions of
accountability in eight African countries in 1991 revealed. 17
The legislature is the key institution through which the sovereignty of the
people is exercised. Members of the legislature are representatives of the
people and are empowered to initiate, debate and pass bills into law, review
and amend the budget prepared by the Executive as well as audit actual
expenditures based on annual reports submitted by the authorities
responsible for public auditing. They are also required to approve important
political appointments, investigate abuse of office and generally provide
opportunities for citizens to participate in the governing process.
One survey revealed that, with a the exception of only three of the sample
countries, the legislatures were hardly playing any significant role in any of
the functions conventionally performed by legislatures. Of the eight
countries in the sample, the worst were Nigeria, Cameroon and Malawi. But
even in the best performing countries, the legislatures’ roles were
circumscribed by one-party constitutions (Tanzania and Uganda).
16 Neville Johnson cited in Adamolekun, Public Administration, p. 24.
17 Adebayo Adedeji, “’L’ and ‘M’ Factors in the African Development Equation”, African Journal of public
Administration and Management 1 (1) 1992, p. 3.

The survey of judicial institutions revealed a similar pattern. Judicial and
quasi-judicial institutions are charged with responsibilities of adjudication
among institutions, organized groups and individuals. But African
judiciaries, like legislatures, tend to be poorly resourced, circumscribed, or
managed as part of the executive branch. This also appears to be the fate of
quasi-judicial institutions such as Public Service Commissions. Most of the
powers of these bodies, especially in respect of top administrative
appointments, has been severely circumscribed or taken away in almost
every African country and treated as the prerogative of the Chief Executive
or President. Of the eight countries in the sample, only in Botswana did
judicial and quasi-judicial institutions seem to enjoy relative institutional
authority. ******
Thus, the general trend in most African countries is that the political
executive has increased its powers at the expense of other branches of
government. To this extent, external controls on the executive have
generally been ineffective. The single party system also had the effect of
consolidating the dominant position of the executive branch and limiting the
relative autonomy of the public service as an instrument of serving the
general interest. In regard to internal controls, Olowu’s survey found that
public service rules, regulations and disciplinary procedures in many
countries had become outdated or in need of review for relevance and
compliance. More over, knowledge of these regulations and procedures were
often poorly disseminated within the service and induction training was the
exception rather than the norm.
The parlous state of institutions of public accountability in most African
countries provides much insight on the public service predicament that was
outlined earlier. While recent trends in political reform and in public service
capacity-building provide some hopeful signs, the more sensitive matter of
strengthening the institutional capacity of the legislature and judiciary also
needs to be addressed.
The role of non-governmental “Watch dog” bodies and organizations is
crucial in ensuring accountable government. The legislative and judiciary
bodies must exercise their mandates and authority more effectively in this
regard. Executive-based bodies for monitoring and enforcement of
accountability – such as the Civil Service Commissions, the Ombudsman,
public complaints bodies, the auditor-general offices, etc. must be
established and/or strengthened, be adequately funded, their official

adequately remunerated, be guaranteed complete independence and be
allowed to report directly to the legislature. 18
Fostering Popular Participation to Ensure the Accountability of
Governance:
The ultimate safeguard of high standards of public ethics and accountability
has to fall ion the ability of average citizens not only to hold public officials
accountable for their actions but also to ensure that public institutions fulfil
their functions and responsibilities. On the record of the recent wave of
popular demands for democratic reforms that has swept across the region,
there is no reason to doubt the growing capacity of civil society in Africa to
oppose structures of state domination, and help in fostering the integrity,
accountability and transparency of governance.
The challenge is to channel such populist capacity and energy into
institutionalized forms of popular association and participation, such as
political parties, pressure groups, and the media. People’s organizations have
a crucial role to play as “watchdogs” and in helping to strengthen the role of
other “watch dog” organizations and executive based accountability
enforcement bodies with a view to sensitizing the public on blatant abuse of
power and office; exposing corrupt and unethical behaviour; and demanding
that such acts should be corrected and punished. 19 The capacity and
confidence of the ordinary citizen and popular organizations to take the
initiative in holding public officials and institutions accountable also needs
to be strengthened and supported.
Efforts to support and strengthen non-governmental and people’s
organizations, as advocated in the Africa Charters for Popular Participation
in Development, 20 deserve to receive urgent priority.
18 See Pierre Landell-Mills and Ismail Sergeldin, “Governance and the External Factor”, a paper presented
a the World Bank Annual Conference on Development Economics, 25-26 April 1991.
19 See Olowu, “Organisational and Institutional Mechanism for Ensuring Accountability in Anglophone
Africa: A Review”, in Sadig Rasheed, Ethics and Accountability in African Public Services, op. cit.
20 ECA, African Charter for Popular Participation in Development,. Addis Ababa, 1990.

The International Dimension:
The international dimension of the corruption and ethical crisis ought not to
be neglected. Bribery of politicians and public officials in developing
countries has often been used by businessmen in developed countries as a
fair and legitimate methods for export promotion. Many governments in
industrialized countries ignore this bribery, some openly promote it and a
few even make it tax-deductible. There is an urgent need to enforce ethical
behaviour at the international level if grand corruption in developing
countries – including Africa – as a result of international business
transactions is to be curtailed.
In recent years Transparency International has been playing an appreciable
role in raising the alarm about this problem and demanding that action be
taken to remedy it. Any meaningful progress in this direction would require
agreement on and the strict enforcement of international conventions
punishing corruptors; strengthening international integrity systems;
establishing disclosure of external accounts laws; and repatriation of wealth
and payments amassed through international corruption. The international
community is, however, far from any consensus that is likely to institute
such measures.
Conclusion:
The lack of accountability, unethical behaviour and corrupt practices have
become entrenched, and even institutionalized, norms of behaviour in their
own right across Africa to the extent that the issue has now become a matter
of major and general concern. The obvious implication of this is that
concerted action by all concerned must be embarked upon in a dedicated and
systematic manner along the lines of the aforementioned agenda.
It must, however, be recognized that even the best safeguards and best
practices can give way to abuses – as such notorious cases as of Japanese
government readily illustrate. For this reason, a crucial safeguard of high
standards of public ethics and accountability in Africa has to fall on the
ability of average citizens, peoples organizations and associations and the
media to hold the politicians public officials accountable for their acts and
also to ensure that public institutions fulfil their functions and
responsibilities properly and effectively. As the democratic change and
popular demands for democratic reforms become more pervasive and

entrenched, the capacity of civil society in Africa to expose, publicise and
oppose unethical and corrupt practices, hold those who are responsible for
them accountable and force governments to be more transparent and
accountable should become a more potent deterrent.

General Comments
Aileen Marshall:
Thank you very much Mr. Chairman. First of all, I would like to thank the
organizer, the ALF and TI for inviting the Global Coalition for Africa to
participate in what I think is a most important seminar. I would also like to
mention before I start that the GCA regrets and is very much concerned that
the General is not able to be here and like everyone is concerned, the GCA
has expressed their concern to the government of Nigeria and condemn the
arrest and is very much interested that the General will soon be with us
again. Before I start the discussion, I think we do need to than Dr. Sadig
Rasheed for an excellent and thorough paper and also Ayo for that
comprehensive introduction of the paper I points. Since we are a little bit
late, I think everyone will have something or a little to say and it will be very
good to have a general discussion from the floor.
I am, going to try to limit my discussion to a few points are raised in the
paper. The paper focuses primarily on corruption rather than the broad issue
of democracy and human rights. So my comments is just going to be very
much based in corruption. Although in the course of two days, we will get to
the wider issue. I think the significant issues which the paper raises is very
welcomed. It is very unfortunate how endemic corruption has indeed has
become in a number of countries. I think the paper suggest that we can’t just
look at bribery, we have to look at other wider issues of corruption and this
is absolutely right.
What seems to have happened is that corruption has become so widely
spread that what is really described as corruption in a lost of instances has
become part of our everyday life and therefore acceptable. I think in many
countries people don’t think that corrupt behavior is actually corruption.
They can recognize stealing as wrong, they can recognize that giving or
taking large bribes is wrong but the myriads forms of corruption which the
paper outlines is more often than not regarded as normal thus there is no
environment to counteract them. I think another thing which happens is that
a lot people do not draw a limit to what is corruption or that what they do is
not corruption, what other people do perhaps is and I think the paper rightly
points out that once corruption starts, it does become part of the society and
it becomes very difficult to stop and that is the part of crisis of ethics and

governance which is faced by a number of countries not only in Africa but
throughout the world. As the paper rightly indicated, the form of government
which has prevailed in a number of African countries has regrettably
encouraged corruption either because of the patronage and nepotism or
radicalism which it has engendered because as a result of this a lot of people
has become so alienated and cynical about government and indeed about the
state relations, they no longer see their actions as negatively affecting the
development of their countries, they just see them as benefiting themselves
as individuals in a sense. I think another issue which the paper also points
out is that when corruption becomes so widespread, everybody feel that they
may as well join them. If other people are benefiting why should they be left
out A point that the paper does not point out very well, because it is
primarily concerned with the public sector corruption, is that of private
sector corruption. And I think that this is very important because it is the
combination of public and private sector corruption which is so devastating
which provides this vicious circle which we seem to be in a number of cases.
It is very hard to address public sector corruption and accept of expect public
sector officials to behave in an honest and open manner when the rest of the
society is not.
I think it does really need to be addressed from both fronts. One of the
problems of the combination of the public and private sectors corruption, is
that it tends to create the environment where there is a feeling that
everything can be bought and that everyone has his or her price and of
course, while a lot of people get rich, it is the ordinary people who suffer the
poor and the powerless always who have no redress and who can’t
participate in the cycle of corruption that is why corruption also undermines
governance and democracy, of course, it is in itself a violation of human
rights of the ordinary people.
So what can be done, the paper outlines a number of things perhaps can be
done on what I will suggest is the macro level. It talks about improved
governance, better accountability, increased transparency, adherence to the
rule of law, creation of a more creditable civil service, increased
participation. I would argue that all of these things will indeed help over a
long time. I think we have to be a little more realistic. These are long term
things, they are not going to happen overnight, improving governance is a
long process. Also it will not happen automatically. I think they’ve got be
consistent and coherent in their effort to improve governance by everybody.
One slightly important aspect which the paper does not mention is the

possibility that things are going to get worse before they get better.
Regrettably, there is a transition and we are seeing a breakdown of
authoritarianism but as the institutions which underpins good governance
and greater democracy to try maximize their profit in the short term and I
think we have to be on guard against them. I would argue that what is
required is the creation of an environment in which it is so clear the
corruption will not be tolerated and in which the economic and social causes
of corruption are publicized.
In this vein, the paper stresses a few things which are very important and
which I will touch on. Leadership is obviously crucial, but bad leadership is
an anathema, I don’t think we are talking about the Head of State, although
this is obviously crucial. The head of state of course sets examples and to
indicate the higher echelon of government are not immune to the rule of law.
But I think it is important that the leadership at all levels is encouraged to
ensure that they do not only set an example but to refuse corruption in most
of what they do and that leadership in government department and
leadership in the public sector.
The paper dwelt at length on the creation of a meritocratic public service. I
quite agree with the argument in the paper about the very different
conditions that most public servants in Africa work and the abysmally low
pay but I think if we are going to improve the public service and create a
meritocratic public service, it’s not just money, it’s not just the provision of
resources which is important, it is also the creation of a work environment
which is conducive to professionalism and which encourage people to feel
that they are indeed public servants and that they are doing something which
would benefit the society as a whole.
The other thing which the paper mentioned very well, is of course, the need
to develop the institutions which underpins both good governance and
democratic forces particularly on the legislative and the judiciary. It is
certainly very important that adequate training is provided for the members
of these institutions. Civil society and these organizations have a very
important role to play in addressing corruption but in a sense of public
education and in bringing pressure unto them. In terms of public education, I
really think that the cost of corruption are not widely known in general by
the public and this is something that civil society must see as a challenge in
bringing this to the attention of everyone. All of that have been said. The
point again is that it is the ordinary people who suffer. They are the ones

who end up with their shoddy work or reduction of wages or suffering from
the lack of employment and I think if this is been made known, there is
going to be a great change about getting a groundswell of opinion against
corruption.
Importantly, the press can also inform the people of the cause(s) of
corruption and improve on investigative journalism. It can also raise as to
what has been done or what has not been done and why they haven’t been
done. I think we have to guide against what comes and ensure that this is
done in a professional manner, that the press does a very important role. As
the paper points out, the international community has a role to play and the
international community has not really fully got its acts together to act with
one voice, and this is what needs to be encouraged. An organization like
Transparency International has a role play here in encouraging the
international community.
This boils down to the fact that it has to make it harder for people to engage
in corruption. At the moment, it is just too easy, there is no real redress,
therefore people can get away with it. People rightly condemn it, but nothing
very much happens. So we have to put systems in place so that people
actually would make much more effort to engage in corrupt practices, they
have to make much more effort to cover them up and unless we do that, I
think we are not really going to very far in trying to prevent corruption.
Based on this, I will argue that, we have to address corruption on all fronts,
everyone of us has a role to play. Some years ago, in this country South
Africa, I argued there were no bystanders to apartheid and I think the same
can be said about corruption. There are no bystanders to corruption.
Everyone has to do something. It is very hard for one person to be honest in
a corrupt environment where everybody else is on corruption and corrupt
practices. It is a lot easier if a lot of people are doing that and that is what we
need, to encourage people to replace the vicious circle which exist in so
many countries. This obviously invites practices like improved governance,
like the code of conduct, decentralization of governance, increased
participation etc.
But I think we have to be realistic. Real change does not necessarily result in
behavioural change and I think the paper pointed out that there have been a
lot of pieces of legislation throughout Africa and still we have the situation
where corruption is endemic. So it is out to engender the behaviour of

change and which is very important that is why I think we have to create a
conducive environment. A lot of people will want to preserve the status quo
they are benefiting from. They will only change it if it is only in their
interest and do so if they are made to so and I think what is required as well
as the other things is a regulatory environment which makes corruption
harder.
We would say that there is some hope in initiating tasks. If we just say
corruption is so big, so difficult, so endemic to address and we have to put
this big thing in place, then, we perhaps we are not going to move very
quickly. I think we have to look at the small things that can be done on a day
to day basis. At the same time, we have to put a lot of things in place.
Beyers Naude:
Thank you for your presentation. I do appreciate it and I really thank you for
your comment. Now, it is the criticism of the paper. You just said the paper
is pointing out more of the long-term aspect more of the longer term
remedies, but I think you did not go ahead to talk of the short-term remedies
that could have been pointed out by the paper. Could you just mention a few
of some of the short-term remedy.
I think everything the paper said is absolutely necessary and that need to be
put in place. My concern is that improving governance is a long-term
process because in order to do this one has to put things in place, for
instance, new legislation and also new regulation. I would say perhaps we
should not wait until everything is done to say we are going to address
corruption. We can perhaps start doing some of those things which make up
a lot of improving governance but not saying we have to get everything done
before we put things in place. A few things I think we could perhaps do is
try to identify some key areas where we can say this corruption is a problem
here we can perhaps do something. In many African countries for example,
payment of custom duties is a major area where corruption can come in.
People often find that once they have got the required paper to import
something or export something still they required our customs to pay
something either it is overt or are asked to pay a fee or the other or in order
to expedite the process, it is assumed they are going to pay something, some
little things perhaps that can be done there. I think everybody, customs had a
badge with their name and number and had to sign something. That would
give people an opportunity for redress. They would then say I still had to pay

$18 so and this is the name of the person who wants me to pay. I think that
would make it a little bit harder that that person in custom automatically to
require kickback. It makes it harder and they have to think about covering it
up. Similarly, I think we could have perhaps training programmes in the
public service at certain level for people in supervisory and managerial
positions to look at the checks and balances that are required. You can have
a regulation hat says you got to behave in this fashion and this fashion and
people are going to do it unless somebody check others. People could have
questions, internal reviews on a regular basis. It means people know they
have got to be accountable for their actions and therefore they have got to
think a bit more about how they are going to cover up for their corrupt
activities. Now obviously, this is not going to get at the grand-scale
corruption but I think it does start to make people think twice about doing
things and it starts to help develop that normality of an environment.
Similarly, I think that civil society organization could start to do something.
It think that TI is very important in this regard and so also TI National
Chapters are very important because one can start getting the information
out about the cost, economic, social information of corruption and just make
it more known and once people know things they may do and to want to do
something about it. They may want to do the little thing that could be done
now which would in a long-term underpin the improved governance, etc.
which the paper discussed. Thank you.

Session II

4
Corruption in Africa: The
Role of the North
by
Lawrence Cockcroft
Nature and Scale of the Problem:
I would like in the course of this presentation to establish three points: first,
that transnational bribery is an expanding phenomenon; second, that it has
considerable power as to undermine both economic growth and political
stability (particularly but by no means exclusively in the ‘South); and third
that something can be done about it. Transnational bribery is of course only
one of various forms of global corruption – several of the others (notably
drugs trafficking and money laundering) are already the subject of
international initiative designed to curb them: it is the contention of TI that
the issue of transnational bribery should be similarly addressed.
In seeking to have it addressed, Transparency International, as an
independent NGO, operates both as a pressure group for change in the
context of international institutions, and as a facilitator of change at the
country level. I will talk today mainly about out former role, but should
stress that we are equally involved in seeking to work with reform minded
governments and ‘national chapters’ of TI to build national integrity systems
which can constrain transnational bribery.
What is transnational bribery A payment made across a national frontier
designed to cause a public official, or an employee of another company, to
conduct business in a way which is different to that which he would
otherwise adopt. Such a payment can be made directly – but much more
frequently is made indirectly. I will return later to the question of definition
but I believe this is sufficient to clarify the question we are discussing today.

How widespread is the practice It is much more concentrated in some
countries and geographical areas than in others, but there are few regions or
even sectors which are exempt – and certainly not the EU itself. My
colleague in TI, George Moody Stuart, who is Chairman of the UK Chapter,
has rated industrial sectors by the extent to which they are prone to bribery.
Out of a total possible score of 30 he awards the following points:
Sector
Point
Aircraft and Defence 20
Major Industrial Goods 15/13
Major Civil Works 11/8
On-going Supplies 7/5
Consultancy 6
The high score attributed to the military sector is accounted for by the degree
of ‘mystification’ built into the product: few civilians are able to discern
whether one type of military equipment should have been bought in place of
another.
The pre-eminence of the military sector as a milieu transnational bribes is
indicated by the scale of the arms trade. Between 1988 and 1992, the top ten
arms exporters sold an average of $30 billion of arms per annum. Two thirds
of this total were sold to ten developing countries: It may be safely assumed
that, at a minimum, fifteen per cent der’ to politicians and military chiefs in
the countries concerned. Even more importantly, such ‘backhanders’ were
frequently the engine which drove the trade, rather than some objective
military necessity. Consequently, the population of the countries concerned
were deprived of resources totaling $30 billion which would certainly have
had a much higher value in other sectors. The ‘Bofors’ arms deal between
Swedish arms suppliers and India is perhaps the most important single case
of its kind, with economic and political ramifications which are unresolved.
Much smaller countries participate in the arms trade on a surprising scale: in
1994 it was reported that Tanzania intended to purchase radar equipment for
civilian and military purpose with a value of $120 million, or nearly forty

per cent of annual export earnings. 21 It may be safely surmised that such
cases as these are without question fuelled by bribes offered by the salesmen
of ‘northern’ arms suppliers. In fact the French secret service (the DGSE)
reported that in 1994 COFACE (the official export credit agency) financed
FFr 10Bn or close to $2Bn in bribes to foreign purchasers of defence sector
equipment. 22
Neither is this process restricted to North-South trade: the UK Ministry of
Defence procurement system was seriously abused by Gordon Foxley who
in the course of the 1980s accepted £1.5m in bribes from shell manufacturers
in Italy, Germany and Norway – all at the expense of the Royal Ordinance
factory in Blackburn, widely considered to be the most efficient producer of
shells within NATO. However, the arms sector within the EU corresponds
closely to the Moody Stuart categorization of ‘most prone to bribery’: press
reports left little doubt that the Italian helicopter manufacturer, Agusta, has
paid $1.5m to the Socialist Party of Belgium in 1988. At that time, the
current Secretary –General of NATO was Belgium’s Economics Minister
and a party member: the current EU Commissioner for Competition Policy
was the party leaders. 23 In a similar vein, the Suddeutsche Zeitung reported
in January 1995 that two Austrian MPs had planned, through a middleman,
to arrange the purchase by the Austrian Government of helicopters from
British Aerospace in return for a payment of 70m shillings (£4.6m) into the
coffers of not one but two political parties – conveniently enough the SPO
(Socialist) and the OVP (Conservative).
Economic Costs:
The particular focus of TI’s interest in this process is in its impact on North-
South development, and on the development of a market which functions
fairly in the states of Eastern Europe. In relation to the weaker economies of
the South there can be little doubt that the effect of transnational bribery can
be disastrous. As a result of the process by which bribery has determined the
supplier of many capital investment projects some or all of the following
effects can be observed:
21 The East African, Feb. 27 th , 1995, Nairobi, p. 1.
22 Le Monde, 17 March 1995, Paris.
23 Financial Times, London, March 21, 24 and 28, 1995

- a serious inflation of project costs;
- the skewing of project sourcing towards projects with a foreign
exchange rather than local content, at the expense of local industry;
- a reduction in capital output ratios or (on any other definition) returns
to capital investment;
- Unnecessarily high maintenance costs, frequently denominated in
foreign exchange;
- The initiation of a pattern of capital flight to ‘Northern’ financial
markets.
The process of transnational bribery has also been at work in the
privatization process in many countries. Its impact on the privatization
process is to:
- direct the sale of the company to a less competent bidder;
- reduce the total amount of finance available per project (since the
winning bidder is likely to have less finance available for follow-up
investment);
- diminish total flows of foreign direct investment as the international
business community becomes aware of the problem.
The implications for aid flows of bribery in both these areas are very serious.
The fundamental objective of aid is to raise the quantity and quality of
investment in the recipient country. The impact of transnational bribery
works in exactly the opposite direction: to consistently reduce the quality of
investment. There is therefore a contradiction between the objectives of the
aid programmes of OECD countries and their export credit programmes
where these, as in the majority of cases, can be used to finance bribes. This
is no doubt why all OECD countries have faced difficulties with their
equivalents of the UK’s aid and trade provisions.
Finally, the impact of transnational bribery is clearly to distort the free play
of competitive forces in international trade. As such, it is in contravention of
all free trade agreements – such as those embodied in the EU or the WTO –

and has much the same effect as various forms of protection. It raises the
final cost of the product to the consumer, and so reduces total disposable
income. In this sense, transnational bribery within Europe is in contravention
of, for example, EU competition law which could probably be invoked
against a company found to be practicing it.
Political Costs:
High political costs reinforce these economic costs. The political fall out
from the case of the Bofors arms deal in India has by no means completely
subsided at least five years after the first public expose, and has significantly
undermined public confidence in the political process. In 1993, the
corruption issues led to two Presidential impeachments in Latin America:
those of President Collor de Mello in Brazil and Carlos Peres in Venezuela.
In both cases, the Presidents were forced to resign. Whilst transnational
bribery was not the key element in these cases it formed a part of the skein
of corruption in both countries. In France, three cabinet level politicians
were obliged to resign in the course of 1994 24 on charges related to
corruption – including the Minister for (Overseas) Cooperation, Michel
Roussin.
However, there can be no doubt that the prime example of the political
consequences of corruption is Italy, where politics for the last two years
have been dominated by this issue. It has a transnational dimension. An
early ‘victim’ of the magistrates’ attention was, in fact, the allocation of
foreign development aid to contractors, which was part of the Foreign
Minister’s portfolio. This situation has seriously discredited Italy’s overseas
aid process, not least from the recipients’ point of view.
Finally, there is a different category of ‘cost’ to either political or economic,
and that is the allocation of (presumably) scarce intelligence resources to
tracking transnational bribery emanating from a rival trading country. This
was identified as a key function for the CIA by its outgoing Director, James
Woolsey, in his report to President Clinton of January this year. As a result,
two very large scale deals – both arms related and in Saudi Arabia and
Brazil respectively – were lost to France and gained by the USA. The need
24 Alain Carignon, Gerard Longuet and Michel Roussin. In the last cases for charges related to illicit party
funding rather than personal enrichment.

for intelligence resources to be used this way is hardly compatible with the
concept of a functioning global market and the principles of the WTO.
Is There a Viable Legislative Framework
It is often said that there is a basic problem in agreeing on a definition of
bribery which can win wide international acceptance. Sometimes, this is
confused with an argument which suggests that since bribery reflects
cultural norms common in some countries it is evident that those countries,
amongst others, would never agree on a rigorous definition. In fact, nearly
all countries have legislation on the books which defines the bribing of
public officials by national and other citizens as a crime.
The existence of such domestic legislation with definitions of bribery which
in the majority of cases have provide adequate for many cases to be brought
to court suggests that comparable definitions should be adequate in cases of
transnational bribery. The fact that the briber is resident in a foreign country
does not alter the nature of the act or of its impact. It is true, however, that in
cases of transnational bribery it is far more likely that payments will be
made through an intermediary who may be resident in a third country. This
complicates the question of provability but not of the definition of the act of
the briber or ultimate recipient.
In refusing to extend their anti-bribery legislation to cover the acts of their
citizens or resident corporations in other countries most countries fall back
on the principle of ‘extra territoriality’. This principle assumes that crimes
committed by nationals outside their domestic frontiers should be a matter
for the courts in the country concerned. The pragmatic basis for the principle
is that it may be extremely difficult to repatriate national citizens for
offences committed elsewhere. However, there are an increasing number of
breaches to this principle which are exemplified by a number of international
conventions which effectively provide an international definition of a crime.
Such conventions require signatory states to bring their national legislation
into line and mean that an offence which is justiciable in one signatory state
is justiciable in another. The UN Human Rights Convention is one such
example, and the Vienna Convention on Money Laundering (discussed
below) as another.
The US is the sole country to have passed, in 1977, legislation (the Foreign
Corrupt Practices Act – FCPA) explicitly directed at transnational bribery by

its own citizens and corporations. It explicitly outlaws not only bribes paid
directly but also those paid through intermediaries. In the latter case, the
FCPA explicitly encompasses payments to intermediaries where the
company or individual making the payment knows that a portion of the
payment will be passed to an official of a foreign government, a political
party or one of its candidates. ‘Knowing’ in this case includes instances
where corporations may ‘turn a blind eye’ even to a situation where there is
a ‘substantial risk’ that part of a payment would be transmitted to a third
party. For a criminal act to occur, the FCPA does not require that a corrupt
act succeeds in its purpose: a mere offer or promise of a corrupt payment can
constitute a violation of the stature. It embraces not only money but
‘anything of value’.
There are possible interpretations of other nations’ legislation which, it is
argued, could be used to have the same effect as US legislation. Amongst the
civil code countries of continental Europe and elsewhere, there is precedent
for the provisions of the code to be regarded as applicable to a crime
committed by a national on foreign soil. Thus the Swedish Penal – Code
explicitly envisages the possibility of ‘a person who has committed a crime
outside the realm being tried according to Swedish law and in a Swedish
court…providing that the act is punishable under the law at the place where
it was committed’. 25 In the case of the common law, countries of Canada 26
and the UK 27 , the existing legislation could in principle be used to place a
conspiracy to pay a bribe in another country on the same footing as a
conspiracy to pay a domestic bribe, providing that the conspiracy occurred
within the two countries concerned. However, in the case of the UK no
single case has been brought on this basis, and it has certainly not been
regarded as a threat in corporate circles in the UK. However, as discussed
below, the UK may be entering a new phase in its treatment of this problem.
25 Swedish Penal Code, Chap. 2, Section 2, National Council for Crime Prevention, Sweden (English
translation).
26 Rapport Sur In Recommendation de l’OCDE a la Corruption de Fonctionnaires Etrangers, DAFFE,
OCDE, Oct. 22, 1993, p. 12, para 11, Paris.
27 Discussions with the Home Office, London, January 1995.

Can Bribes Be Monitored
(A)
Monitoring the Briber:
Accounting and audit systems are generally designed to reflect the financial
state of the real businesses to which they relate. However, by convention or
by design there are typically some payments which, at the audit stage, may
be overlooked on the grounds that they are not ‘material’ to the true financial
state of the company in question. Since most bribes are relatively small sums
in relations to the turnover and profit of a multinational corporation, the
question of whether auditors can overlook them without compromising their
function is crucial.
This point was central to the corporate reporting procedures established
under the FCPA. The essence of the FCPA’s approach to establishing an
audit framework that allows bribes to be traced is that no transaction is too
small to be recorded, and that auditors are fully empowered to satisfy
themselves with regard to the précis nature of all transactions. The
implementation of the record keeping section of the FCPA is the
responsibility of the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) since it is a
condition of listing on the SEC that companies abide by all provisions of the
Act. This extends to the many non-American companies which have a listing
on the SEC. In fact, the need to comply with the FCPA should be a part of
the internal control system of any foreign company listed in this way. Thus,
the internal code of British Petroleum, which has an SEC listing, specifically
states that all transactions conducted by the company should be seen to be in
line with the FCPA. 28 It goes on to state that all fees paid to agents ‘should
be commensurate with the services performed and should normally be
covered by a contractual agreement’.
In the U. K., the changes in financial reporting introduced as a result of the
Cadbury Committee make an important contribution towards these
objectives. In particular, the recommendations for stronger internal control
systems, and for fraud detection, taken together should make it much more
difficult for transnational bribes to go through the audit process ‘on the nod’.
The audit committees of non-executive directors recommended by the
Cadbury Committee, and adopted by an increasing number of quoted
28 Policy on Business Conduct, British Petroleum, Aug. 27, 1993, para 2, London

companies, could be an important mechanism for monitoring the distinction
between a commission and a bribe.
(B)
Monitoring the Bribed:
Tracing large or small payments which may have arisen through bribes to
individuals or shell companies, through the world financial system is
obviously a very difficult task. Is monitoring feasible
This question is most usefully answered by references to the system
developed under the auspices of the G-7 since 1989 which aims to deal with
funds laundered either from the drugs trade, or in support of terrorist
activities, or resulting from other forms of criminal activity. The Financial
Action Task Force (FAT-F) established by the G-7 and working with the
member states of the OECD has made considerable progress in establishing
a system for monitoring, and to some extent for controlling, the international
laundering of money arising from crime. The Task Force approved forty
recommendations to participating governments. As a result, nearly all
member states have now made the laundering of drug money a criminal
offence, or are taking steps to do so. About two thirds of member states have
now introduced measures making it ‘an offence to launder the proceeds of
any serious crime or crime which generates significant proceeds’. 29 Nearly
all members with such laws are able to confiscate the proceeds of such
laundering. This will be further facilitated and the Council of Europe
Convention on Money Laundering 30 becomes fully operational – which was
formally the case from September 1993.
Within the European Union, the work of FAT-F is further supported by the
existence of the EU Money Laundering Directive. Each of these instruments
require banks to pay special attention to complex, unusual and large
transactions and, where there may be a suspicion of criminal origins, to
report these to the relevant law enforcement authorities. The legislation
passed in most OECD member states to deal with this problem includes a
binding requirement that banks comply with the reporting procedures. In the
UK the information is passed to the National Criminal Intelligence Service
which received printouts weighing several kilograms every month – a forest
29 Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering, Annual Report, 1992-1993, June 1993.
30 Re ‘Laundering, Search, Seizure and Confiscation of the Proceeds of Crime’.

of information on possibly suspicious payments, within which it may
admittedly be difficult to find the trees.
The significance of this initiative to the control of ‘transnational bribery’ is
that it has established a system of mandatory disclosure of the international
transfer of sums of money which may have criminal origins. This suggests
that if there is a common legal framework for criminalishing bribery at the
national level, and if governments really wish to apply it, a system exists for
pursuing evidence and even confiscating financial proceeds form such
activities. Equally importantly, it has established a system which to some
extent avoids the problem of ‘extra territoriality’ by defining a global
definition of a crime (the laundering of money which has origins in other
criminal activities) and facilitating the prosecution of knowing or unknowing
associated persons (financial intermediaries) in a different country to that
where the crime was committed.
Attempts to Address the Problem from 1970-90:
In considering what might now be done on an international basis to address
transnational bribery, it is important to briefly summarise the initiatives of
the late 1970s. At that time, a flurry of international interest had been
stimulated in particular by the Lockheed scandal in which there had been a
series of pay-offs (totaling $25 million) to senior politicians in Japan, and on
a lesser scale, in Italy. The reaction to this triggered not only the Foreign
Corrupt practices Act (FCPA) in the US in 1977 but also important
initiatives by the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) and by the UN.
Not surprisingly, the introduction of the FCPA was controversial and all the
arguments which are used today within and outside the OECD against taking
action were at that time mobilized on Capitol Hill an elsewhere. These
centred on (a) the fact that such an Act would cripple US exporters and (b)
that bribes could not be monitored. In fact, several studies of the impact of
the FCPA have been carried out: they tend to show that it has not
constrained US exports except perhaps in certain countries where corruption
is the dominant characteristic of the economy. The feasibility of monitoring
bribes has also been established: about 70 cases have been brought either by
the Justice Department or the Securities Exchange Commission since 1977,
and in a minority of cases companies have been found guilty.

The partial effectiveness of the FCPA is no doubt assisted by the
considerable penalties associated with it. Since 1988, these have been fixed
at US$2 million for companies and US$100,000 for the director or officer of
a company with an additional potential for a prison sentence of up to five
years. Individual company directors and other officers can now be charged
under the Act regardless of whether their companies are charged as well. It
is, however, the deterrent value of knowing that the FCPA is in place, and
that a number of cases are brought each year, which has enabled the Act to
have a significant impact.
The response of the ICC to the bribery scandals of the mid-1970s was to
propose a self-regulating Code of Conduct. Its report of 1977 (‘Extortion
and Bribery in International Business Transactions’) reflected this position
calling for stringent enforcement of anti-bribery legislation, and indeed for
an intergovernmental agreement to ensure its effectiveness. However, it took
the view that the international business community should also take
responsibility for its won contribution to minimishing bribery – in line with
the ICC’s general preference for self-regulation – and accordingly published
the ‘Rules of Conduct’.
The rules were intended to apply to transactions between enterprises as well
as between enterprises and governments. They were also intended to form a
valuable defensive protection for those enterprises which are the prey of
those in governments and elsewhere seeking to be bribed. In spite of the
formal adoption of this Code by the ICC and its commendation to its
membership the Code has not had the desired effect. However, it probably
has had some influence in encouraging larger companies to introduce
internal Codes of Conduct which have anti-bribery provisions as part of their
remit. The growth of concern about business ethics in the late 1980s has of
course reinforced the adoption of Codes, which have had a fixed impact
depending largely on the ways in which they are applied. In the case of
Shell, for example, there is a requirement that managers of profit centers
confirm in writing on an annual basis that all aspects of the code (including
its specific anti-bribery provisions) have been observed.
The ICC is in the process of reconsidering the role of its Code and the
associated initiatives which may be required to make it more effective. The
experience to date suggests that the premise of its 1977 report was correct:
the code will not be effective as a self-standing instrument, but requires
additional action emanating from governments.

The possibility of such action was embodied in a UN initiative taken in 1976
which was designed to lead to an international convention. Although such a
draft was ready for presentation to the General Assembly by 1979 it was
never adopted and was in fact ‘killed’ in the context of the political climate
of the early Reagan/Thatcher years. The detailed work which led to the
drafting of the convention covered all of the basic issues of definition,
responsibility, monitoring and follow-up which form a necessary part of any
such international agreement. It forms a useful basis for future work in
progressing a similar measure in the fora which I shall mention below.
The 1990s: The Evolution of New Frameworks:
OECD:
Whilst the initiatives of the 1970s were not reinforced by measures taken in
the 1980s two forces were at work: first as business became increasingly
global it was no longer possible to regard the bribery problem as the special
preserve of certain countries in the ‘South’, and second US business felt
increasingly restive under the shadow of the FCPA. By 1990, the US
Government was pressing within the OECD framework for other member
governments to take comparable action. As a result both of this pressure, and
of an increasing recognition of the scale of the problem, agreement was
reached in May 1994 on a ‘Recommendation’ which requires member states
to report back to each other on ‘concrete and meaningful steps’, achieved in
several related areas.
These included a review of:
i. criminal laws and their application in respect to the bribery of
foreign public officials;
ii.
iii.
iv.
civil, commercial, administrative laws and regulations so that
bribery would be illegal;
tax legislation, regulations and practices in so far as they may
directly favour bribery;
company and business accounting requirements and practices in
order to secure adequate recording of relevant payments;

v. banking, financial and other relevant provisions so that adequate
records could be kept and made available for inspection or
investigation.
vi.
Laws and regulations relating to public subsidies, licences,
government procurement contracts, or other public advantages so
that advantages could be denied as a sanction for bribery in
appropriate case.
The Working Group which ahs been established to follow this is carrying
out regular reviews of action taken by member states to implement the
Recommendation. On an optimistic scenario the outcome of this initiative
will be a series of steps taken by member states (and other who may be
coopted in the process) which maximize the use of existing legislation (and
introduce some amendments to it), change fiscal practice in relation to taxdeductibility,
and tighten up accountancy and audit practices.
In this context the UK Government has moved its position considerably over
the last year. It now emphasizes the fact that existing anti-bribery legislation
is adequate to catch a conspiracy to pay a bribe on UK soil that may actually
be paid overseas, provided that the bribe would be a crime in the country
concerned. Further, the Inland Revenue has for the first time in relation to
the tax year 1994/95 introduced a provision that nothing which constitutes a
criminal act (including for instance a bribe planned in the UK) is eligible for
tax deductibility. The tighter provisions for internal control initiated by the
Cadbury Committee should make it increasingly difficult to disguise the
nature of a bribe. The UK’s position is therefore rapidly moving to a
position in which a framework for combating transnational bribery is in
place. The extent to which it will be used will not doubt depend on
corresponding moves within the other OECD member states.
Other member states are responding in fact at different speeds to the
Recommendation. There has so far been significant reluctance on the part of
the German government to move in this direction. On the other hand
Transparency International has found significant support within the BDE
(the equivalent of the CBI) for a more positive response, and the SPD is
consistently pushing in this direction. In France, there is widespread concern
in the media about the problem, but there was little movement from the
previous Government. A major attempt to deal with corruption in the public
sector in France, the ‘Loi Bouchery’ passed in 1993 specifically omitted

action in this field – although the Bouchery Commission which was the
precursor to the legislation had recommended that such action should be
taken. However, there is a sense of some movement as a result of the OECD
and it is crucial that this should be reinforced.
European Union: The Implications of Maastricht:
Although the issue of bribery across member states has not yet been
addressed as a subject of major concern to the European Council of
Ministers or the Parliament, it is very likely to become so. Both the Agustas
helicopter deal between Italy and Belgium, and the Foxley case involving
three member states, are clear examples of the problem within the defence
sector. As the single market becomes more and more effective and as public
purchasing is opened up across the Union at increasingly lower levels
bribery in the context of public contracts let within the EU is likely to be a
growing problem, unless checked.
The stress on judicial cooperation envisaged by the Maastricht Treaty
provides a strong framework for member states to place transnational
bribery within the EU on the same footing as domestic bribery. Under the
Treaty, for example, the Council of Ministers may initiate a legal convention
for recommendation to member states ‘for adoption in accordance with their
respective constitutional requirements’. A more immediate prospect is that
existing EU competition law could be used to penalize a company found
paying bribes on the grounds that such payments constitute a constraint on
trade. The Commission is in fact empowered by this legislation to levy a fine
of up to ten per cent of the turnover of companies found to be in
contravention of the law.
International Convention:
A response of this kind within the EU, and a set of matching national
initiatives amongst OECD member states, would reinforce the case for a
global convention. The critical concern of OECD member states in relation
to the kinds of measures discussed above will be competition from non-
OECD countries, who are observing no similar restraint, particularly in the
markets of Asia, the near East and Latin America. Since the success of a
major initiative in this field depends on major exporting countries moving
roughly in step it is essential that a global convention is launched.

The crux of the case for such a convention is the obligation it would place on
signatory states to bring their domestic legislation and practice into line with
an internationally agreed norm. In this sense, there is an important argument
for regarding such a convention not as an ultimate goal but as a means to the
goal. In fact, the development of regional economic communities, such as
NAFTA, ASEAN and Merco-sur, each devoted to expanding trade and
investment within the group, could provide the opportunity for a series of
‘building blocks’ towards this end. The ‘Summit of the Americas’ sponsored
by the OAS in December 1994 specifically called for active cooperation
between member states in fighting corruption; the conference between EU
and all Mediterranean states to be held later in 1995, and designed to shape a
long-term association, provides a similar opportunity.
The Council of Europe is now actively engaged in trying to launch just such
a convention, and has behind it the experience of initiating the Vienna
Convention on Money Laundering discussed above. However, whilst nonmember
states can sign Council of Europe conventions, there is no doubt
that the image of the Council is Eurocentric. Given the mandate which the
WTO has been given by the international community, and the importance of
minimizing distortions in world trade, there is a strong case for such a
convention to be initiated by WTO.
Conclusion:
The period since 1975 has seen several significant national and international
attempts to control the phenomenon of transnational bribery, especially in a
North-South context. However, the various initiatives which have been
described in this paper have, with the exception of the FCPA, suffered from
a lack of serious commitment from governments of both North and South.
From an operational point of view, however, the lack of commitment form
‘Northern’ governments has been the key factor. They in turn have certainly
been lobbied by major corporations, or their representatives associations, not
to support the initiatives in question. This was as true of the proposed UN
International Agreement in 1980 as of the early proceedings of the OECD
Working Party on Illicit Practices until agreement on a Recommendation
was reached in 1994.
It was not, however, the view of the ICC report on measures required to
reduce bribery published in 1977 which envisaged collaborative steps to be
taken by both business and government, although such steps were not

ealized. The key concern of corporations has been to avoid a situation
where national legislation is passed which places them at a competitive
disadvantage vis a vis companies form other countries. This has obviously
been the predominant reason for the US to seek the measures within the
OECD which would have a comparable impact to the FCPA.
In association with this corporate position has been the reluctance of
governments to extend the ‘extra territorial’ effectiveness of legislation. This
is a common position amongst European countries and continues to be a
determinant of their position. However, the principles underlying the money
laundering initiative embodied in FAT-T, and more particularly in the
Council of Europe Convention on money laundering, have to some extent
circumvented this problem by establishing the principle of a global
definition of a crime. This in turn allows prosecution to take place in any
country which is a signatory to the Convention. It was the strength of the
proposed UN Agreement of 1979 that it attempted to deal with bribery in a
comparable manner.
The principle of extra-territoriality is likely to be eroded within the EU as
the full effect of the Maastricht Treaty is felt. Full judicial cooperation, the
existence of the European Court, and the potential to introduce a Directive
on bribery within the Union all suggest that the principle will eventually be
irrelevant within the EU. This makes it more likely that the EU will find it
feasible to adopt a common position vis a vis third countries, perhaps by
means of a revived international convention under the auspices of the
Council of Europe or the WTO.
A ten-year programme of action to curtail the phenomenon of transnational
bribery could then be:
Year
Action
1995 Members of OECD Working Group define action
which they will take
1996 Extension of FAT-F Money laundering initiatives
to proceeds of bribery
1996 EU Directive re-intra member bribery

1997 EU member states translate Directive into national
legislation
1997 OECD Directive requiring legislation in all
member states
1999 International Convention embracing majority of
non-OECD countries
2000-4 Other supportive national legislation in countries
signing the International Convention
A programme of this kind should be attainable, given the scale of the
problem, the recent record of parallel initiatives and the signs of change in
political will which are emerging in the political leadership of several
influential countries.

General Comments
Jeremy Pope:
The topic at the moment is the North as a source of corruption. It will be a
big mistake if we are saying that the North is the only source of corruption
and the problem only lies in the North. Quite clearly a large part of the
problem lies in the North and there is a very clear role for the North in
working with the South and East in addressing the problem. Let me quickly
say something about the North as a source of corruption and the North and a
partner in change. Thereafter, I will deal with some specific ideas as to ways
in which the North can assist the South in this process.
The North has been dealt with in a thoughtful paper by Lawrence Cockcroft
which I hope you have time to read at some stage. There is a rather
interesting quote in that paper on page three which emanates from, of all
places, the French Secret Service, saying something about transparency. It
was reported that in 1994 the official export credit agency of France
(COFACE) financed 10 billion French franc (2 billion U.S dollars) in bribes
to foreign purchasers of defence sector equipment alone. That is the estimate
that comes out of the North by the North and the traditional views justifying
this has been that the North is an island of integrity. It is a continent of
integrity, everyone is moral, everyone is upright, everyone is virtuous but
unfortunately none of those attributes are found anywhere else!
Therefore although we are very moral and scrupulous in our activities at
home we have to behave like Barbarians when we are abroad! It was the
concern with this outlook and very much the philosophy which led to
Transparency International (TI) office being established in the North. It was
not established in the North as a comfortable place to live. It was established
in the north to address the problems in the North in recognition that an NGO
based in the South taking on the north would probably lack the credibility
and the ability to really come to take shape in the North. Now, the North say
they do things differently in the South and the spokesman for this view point
has been Lord Young, the Chairman of Cable and Wireless. Rationalising
the practices they indulge in abroad, he said “they do things differently in
the South and we must go with the moral trends and the practices of the local
people and although we would not dream of doing it at home. Besides we
need the jobs in the North”. It becomes the justification for bribery in the

South as a means of creating employment in the North. The important
question is who is going to have this jobs in the North
There has been continuing worry in the North among responsible
businessmen who realize that the level of corruption in the South is
unsustainable. Corruption is really damaging their companies because if you
develop sales techniques which involve slosh funds, bribery, backhand and
kickbacks it is only a matter of time before that starts to be used in other
areas and we have the examples in the last three weeks emanating in
Germany where there have been series of scandals. Allow me mentioning
two of them. One is in the Opel car factory where a whole series of
kickbacks have been identified. More interestingly, perhaps is the scandal
that has emerged in Spain where it transpired that the Spanish Secret Service
of all people took kickback from Siemens to the tune of three million U.S.
dollars for security equipment for the Barcelona Olympics games. Now,
what makes this so interesting is that the kickbacks did not go directly into a
European bank account. Instead nearly 60 bearer cheques each of which is
about 100,000 Dutch Marks bearer cheques were laundered through
Uruagay before they got to Spain. You wonder why Uruagay, the answer is
that they would not get tax deductibility which bribes paid within Europe
will not get. So it will pass through the Third World in order to gain that tax
deductibility.
TI worked without any real effect in Germany for nearly two years and
Dieter has been heavily engaged in it but by sensitizing the media local press
and journalist. When this example emerged, the tax deductibility issue for
exports went straight to the top of the political agenda and I think very
largely because of the work of Dieter and Peter Eigen. In addition to this in
the north and in Germany, we have an Advisory Council and a member of
that is the former President of Germany, Mr. Richard Von Wizeacker. He is
a distinguished individual who brought a great moral authority to TI. In
addition, there has been public endorsement by the Federation of Germany
Industries (BDI) who have called on the German business community
specifically to support the effort of the TI in tackling this problem. The
German Finance Minister has moved from a position of saying tax
deductibility is a fact of life, tax system is neutral, the tax system is about
raising revenue to saying something has to be done to end tax deductibility
of tribes. This brings me to the North as partners in change.

The North as Partners of Change:
The North, we must recognize is driven by self-interest. They are not going
to change a system for reasons of altruism. We are dealing with the business
community, we dealing with real money, we are dealing with people’s job,
we are dealing with issues that can make or break political parties. They are
not going to be persuaded by the development lobby alone saying that for
the good of the South and the development of the South, these changes are
necessary. The message that must come across loud and clear is that it is in
the interest of the North to end the unwholesome practices because, at
present, they are boomeranging back into the North and actually detrimental
to the interest of the North in North. So we have the “sea of change” in
Germany with the patient work there paying off.
We have TI National Chapter in Denmark and it has managed to pin down
the Danish minister who has also joined the drive of the German government
against corrupt business practices. In May last year, the OECD
recommended to member governments to end the practice of not regarding
the bribing of foreign officials as a criminal offence. There is a working
party in the OECD whose chairman is a Swiss, professor Mark Piet, who is a
strong, able and committed individual who has to persuade the Swiss to
formally to join TI. He is an asset for change in this regard. The Council of
Europe has also tried to develop some form of international code for
competitive bidding. We have also written to the World Trade Organisation
and to Sally Young in Britain arguing that the World Trade Organisation
ought to take the position on tax deductibility because it would be disastrous
to our effort if all we got at the end of the day was an outlawing of
corruption and criminal act mainly within Europe. We want this to extend
out in itself and the World Trade Organisation is probably the prime vehicle
within which this can take place.
The North as a partner in change can help to utilize mutual legal assistance
arrangement. These have been erected, I spent quite a number of years
helping to get these things started and they are now in place in a large
number of countries they are urgent to the battle against drug trafficking and
these are steadily being expanded to cover all forms of serious crime. They
deal with money laundering, they deal with extradition and the like and they
are immensely important in empowering South to actually enforce its laws
and to capture some of the criminals and call them to account. The most
interesting development I think in mutual legal assistance is the collapse of

the Barrings Bank through Lesson who has become famous for singlehandedly
destroying that old financial institution. He fled from Singapore
where he was based to Germany and the Singaporean government sought his
extradition. As far as we know, this will be the first time this mechanism
was used. Developing countries, that is if we can call Singapore a
developing country, will have successfully had a European extradited to face
corruption charges and we think this is a potential watershed. More so that
when an appeal was made by Lesson’s wife to the British Prime Minister
saying her husband was willing to come to Britain and plead guilty to a
number of charges rather than going to Singapore to face trial. We wrote to
the financial times saying in the view of TI, this would be disastrous.
The case was of considerable importance and if the North gotten behind an
attempt to subvert the judicial system of the South this would send precisely
the wrong and signals to the business community in the North. If Lesson
does not go back to Singapore, if you side for with Nicolesson or his wide, it
will be a serious embarrassment and setback for North South cooperation in
combating corruption.
I would say the Singapore example is interesting for developing countries
because before Lesson could be extradited from Germany to Singapore, a
German court requested for a report on the Singaporean judicial system
because you don’t just hand people over to anybody who want to place them
on trial. The German court required to be satisfied that Singapore had an
independent judiciary, that the rule of law will prevail, that upon conviction
Lesson will not suffer an unusual punishment or that Singapore does have
the habit of flogging convicted offenders. I understand that a report has gone
back from the German Embassy in Singapore giving Singapore a clean bill
health and this really means that the developing countries will have to show
independence of the judiciary, the rule of law and fair trial and human
treatment upon conviction. I believe this would be a landmark. That is, the
government and the business agencies in the North have a clear role in the
work of TI.
Obviously, the private sector need to monitor themselves much more closely
than has been the universal practice. There is the need to be committed to
higher ethical standards. Auditors need to be obliged to report corruption
when they are identified to the directors. There is also the need to
breakdown the “Chinese walls” that have been erected within companies
that enable directors to say we did not know about this or that. There is need

to end the practices by companies that say everyone shall obey the laws and
no one shall corrupt any public officials. Yet the same company tells the
managers ‘if you don’t get the contract, you lose your job’. What message is
going on. So as I said, the North willingly is being driven by self-interest.
More is the boomerang factor which is becoming more and more paramount.
At the end of the day, the rules have to change for everybody at the same
time. It is unrealistic to expect, for example the German government
unilaterally to take actions and make it easier for others that are corrupt to
gain undue advantage over German companies. ******
Everybody points to the United States and its foreign corrupt practices act as
an example of a government that is big with integrity and that is unilaterally
taking on the matter of bribery abroad. There are very many major
companies in United States who are very anxious not to fall foul of the
corrupt practices act. Now, we must ask at the final point, is the North being
driven by self-interest alone Why did the US impose unilaterally this
handicap on its exporters The answer is self-interest It was not done by
Jimmy Carter or by a fleet of human rights concerns or to advance the cause
of human development throughout the world. It was done because the U.S.
companies were paying huge bribes, kickbacks and illegal payments to the
Republican party. The money was then banked in Bahamas and brought
back to finance the election campaign of Richard Nixion. It was Watergate
that led to the corrupt practices act being enacted. The FCPA was enacted
against the democratic institutions of US. So we have to be realistic. One of
the things we want to do with TI was break the taboo. As DT used to say, the
taboo of discussing international corruption has been broken. I think that
taboo is well broken in the North and now our task is to move the North
forward but we need cooperation of everyone for this to be meaningful.
Thank you.
Dieter Frisch:
Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen, allow me just as I stand here for the
first time now at this seminar to say to Mr. Beyers Naude and all friends
from South Africa here how deeply grateful I am to be here for the first time
in new South Africa. I have never come to this country before these changes
took place. I am happy to be here. Let us also have once against because he
is not only a great man but my personal friend. I have a thought for General
Obasanjo and I am sure he is thinking of us. Now, I was initially supposed to
speak this afternoon but I will have to finish the part of this discussion this

morning about the role of the North. Jeremy has just shown you that we are
all convinced that corruption is not the problem of the South or the East, it is
the problem of the North and of everybody everywhere. As a first step, it is
necessary that the North shows a sufficient credible attitude in combating the
problems which have the root in the North. Thereafter, we can come to the
second kind of attitude and activity. This is what I want to deal with very
briefly, i.e., what we can do together in terms of cooperation between the
North and the South. In particular, I think the possibility of financing
technical cooperation which exists for example between the European Union
and developing countries. Also in the future what we can do together about
the subject of corruption. If there is a will on both sides to do something, I
have five points in this regard.
The first area where I see possibility to help is the establishment of political
and economic framework or conditions which will help to control or prevent
corruption. The first point here is the increase in the number of the donor
agencies and including European Union in particular supporting the
democratization process in developing countries in particular in Africa. This
is very relevant to our subject because democratization means free press,
political pluralism and this must lead to greater transparency through public
control of financial management and accountability. These are very essential
in limiting and reducing the risk of corruption. I will not say it will eliminate
corruption. One of the papers of this morning said there is corruption in
democratic and undemocratic systems but it shows very well that in
undemocratic systems it is almost automatic and there is nothing which
works against it. So, the notion of good governance, I believe covers this
question of accountability, transparency, management of public funds. This
should also go along with the notion, as it is here on our side, of human
rights with the state of law and human rights protection and with the rule of
law.
Secondly, within this framework, aid agencies should be ready to support
non-governmental organizations in the South. Those who represent the civil
society can play an important, critical and constructive role in this process
and are useful complementing our views and position in the North. In a
democratic system, free press and the political opposition can perform the
role of watchdogs and the TI national chapters are part of such a structure in
a number of countries. It is necessary to support everything which builds an
awareness of the problem of the devastating effects of corruption on
development, which I proposed to deal with this afternoon. Finance from the

North should be available to support seminars like this one here, publication
or reading materials, or education programmes and in programmes on civic
education.
The second area for cooperation which I see is to help developing countries
to create the necessary mechanisms and procedures which are specifically
geared to counter corruption. I think of technical existence and advice for
establishing rules, for instance, in the field of public procurement.
Sometimes, we have been called upon to give advice what others are doing
in the field of anti-corruption legislation. You can give support and
assistance in building up financial control systems and audicalls. Sometimes
we can help by showing how others do or how it can be done in an
independent manner or how an ombudsman system can function. I am very
happy to have here for example Augustine Ruzindana who has this kind of
mechanism. He would be there to explain to other countries explaining the
way it can be done. There is also the need to support civil training for
professionals which are particularly exposed to the problem of bribing. I am
convince that the cost benefit ratio of these kind of technical assistance must
be very high because if you change something in one of these areas it is
certainly going to lead to a substantial saving of public resources.
The third point is that we must be more careful in our dealings between the
North and the South. Very careful in the choice of projects and priorities
which can be finance with public money and in the conception of these
projects. Although I will be dealing with this later in the afternoon. I just
want to say here, we must all be aware of the promoters of projects. We
must find out in our dealings where the real priorities of the country lies and
not what is considered important by some people who go round and want to
do business and are ready to pay the price for that and have normally no
concern for development aspects at all. We must be willing and always work
together carefully the conception of projects, or technical conception. We
should not seek projects that can be adapted to the need of the exporter who
want to have a highly sophisticated capital-intensive system because that
brings more money and it is more relevant in terms of bribing so that it
might be of common interest. Whereas in a certain situation, labour intensive
technique might much more adapt to the needs of the country.

The fourth point might be that we have to see to it and we now talk in the
first place of the agencies in the implementation of all the financing of
projects as programmes in the developing countries a certain number of rules
in particular as far as public procurement is concerned are followed. I don’t
want to go into details but are total number of experiences we have made in
a matter of public procurement which we cannot of course explain and want
out partner countries want to improve their systems to realize and to
concretize giving one or two example and I hope I have full list of them here
in my paper. The important point is one must go at any point for open
tendering. If there is competition, there is no guarantee against corruption
but it is certainly a way of reducing significantly the risk of grand large-scale
corruption. The more and more customary way of doing what I called strict
agreement which means concluding a contract without competition is
normally a major risk of corruption. These are the kind of things we must
know and can draw form the practical experience one has strict control of
those who elaborate the tender documents. In a tender documents you can
buy your things in a way that it creates directly the source and the
possibilities and the opportunity of corruption but I think I will leave it there.
If you have questions, we can comeback to it in the discussion and in the
days to come or also laterally of course during the break.
The fifth and very short point will be sanctions but don’t be surprised I mean
what has been said this morning, we are in favour and I am personally in
favour of and all supported positive measures which we can offer to our
partners in the South to help them to prevent or encounter corruption.
Sanction, as in the field of human rights and democracy in this kind of
matter should always be a last measure but all possible measures of
contracting positive support have been exhausted. I think when serious cases
of corruption are detected, this should have consequences on those who are
involved. First that have been caught and convicted of bribery should be
blacklisted from further participation in projects and I will suggest that
donor agencies and developing countries keep a kind of register of all known
offenders and they consult this register before dealing with firms. Similarly,
if corruption is detected, and action is not taken against the officials in the
beneficiary state, this must be seen as a state acceptance of corruption
leading to waste of public resources. In such cases, the funding to projects in
that country should be reviewed in light of none to apply sound financial
management. In such a case, these are measures we should put at the end of
our list. First of all goes through what I will try to mention shortly the
positive ways of tackling these problems and by the way I will think that the

North offering these kind of operatives operate of course only create a point
of departure, if it brings its own house in order. Thank you very much.
Jackle Cilliers:
Firstly, I will like to make some remarks about corruption in South Africa.
In recent months, the festery sour of corruption and apartheid in South
Africa has burst open and exposed to the degree to which the dominance of
the previous government, the national party could only be maintained by real
massive degree of corruption, nepotism and paternalism and the scandalous
misuse of tax payers money. We found in the old South Africa a type of
institutional corruption. Corruption not really the correct word to use for it.
WE have, as we have in many other African countries, politicians looting the
state coffers for personal profit. But we had a massive misappropriation of
scarce resources of funds to establish the homeland systems. A system
which in turn spurns corruption and a massive misappropriation of funds on
a really massive scale. The system deliberately impoverish and denied black
Africans the most basic amenities. Locating them on poverty stricken
squatters camps far away from jobs which require in turn massive
transportation subsidies. Corruption also appears to be thriving on in the new
South Africa and there has been numerous allegation around. In actual fact
recent police disclosure indicate that in South Africa white collar corruption
and fraud is actually.
A quick turn to sketch the background of our country about the corruption in
the military. My institute deals very extensively with and in the civil military
relation and police reform in spite of the name indicating only with defense
issues and we do so in South Africa and in Africa. Now, there can be little
doubt that the military incursion into politics in Africa and in former South
Africa has contributed to corruption despite the fact that military
intervention had often been justified as part of the fight against corrupt
civilians. Corruption thrives, unrestrained and unchecked under
undemocratic forms of government where there is little or no press freedom,
transparency, no independent judiciary and parallel civil society. The person
holding public office is regarded to be quite legitimate and not only to use
his power within the limit of his mandate but also to place it in the service of
this personal ends. This is particularly prevalent under military dictatorship
but not significantly more so under civilian one party government.

Corruption has and always been particularly more prevalent regarding
purchases of military supplies which are often inappropriate, unnecessary
and simply wasteful. At a time that the world is watching through the
introduction of various treaties and agreement the developed world can
easily provide the limit to the requirements of African countries in the area
of self-defence. With the end of the Cold War, there is a much greater
leverage now to advance democratization, accountability and human rights
throughout our continent.
Mr. Chairman, some remarks on the questions of donors and corruption. I
want to talk about the culture of conference and entitlement that is so
prevalent in Africa and that is partly linked to corruption. In spite of the
Africa donor fatigue that one hears a lot about, I feel that developed world
spends massive amounts of money because of socio-consciousness in Africa.
Firstly, often little accountability is required for such monies, particularly for
cause sufficiently noble such as anti-apartheid struggle or if the front man is
of a sufficiently high profile.
Secondly, donors put their own national agenda on the table. Usually these
are expensive and ineffectively coordinated systems. There are also various
initiatives regarding peacekeeping, conflict management and prevention
which are pushed, for example, in Africa this is usually almost driven
entirely by donor interest irrespective of the ability or capacity of the
organization involved really to act. This is all terribly politically incorrect.
You have in a top-down approach which is often or sometimes
inappropriate.
Thirdly and finally donors are particularly interested in visible activities, talk
shops, conferences, policy making, training in highly ethical modern issues,
few too, few in my opinion are really prepared to invest in real hard train to
improve capacity and skills rather funds, conflict mediation and
empowerment of communication cognitive development, skills and so on
instead of administrative skills, accounting, typing, agricultural skills, hard
skills. Through funding of talkshops, you find donors assisting in
establishing a culture of entitlement and it is very easy to become part of
this. Let me illustrate this with the experience of institute. You find that
African participants would more serve that any other participants at
workshops and conferences would more than other participants fly business
or in first class. Secondly and invariably they request extra per diem which

is usually in excess of even the most reasonable expectations. They demand
preferential treatment. Worse still civil servants would demand payment for
papers which under normal circumstances would be inappropriate to pay for.
We have discovered that there is a professional clause of how conference
goes in Africa and internationally. Much of this is the preserve of double
standard and patronages of donors who have paid to turn a blind eye after
all. This we will see quite clearly is only prevalent in Africa. We are
prepared to accept lower levels of accountability and responsibility. I think
we need to re-establish our sense of honour. Chairman, let me conclude. I
have not really responded to the paper but I think it needs to be said that
there is no replacement for hardwork and honesty. We need to break the rack
of entitlement and patronage. Africa is awash with good intention. If we are
to combat to corruption we have to be impeccable in our actions. WE have
to set an example by being scrupulously honest in our own actions with
integrity not so much a problem of the donor community alone. Simple
hand-out dependency goes a little place else. In the post-Cold War ear, there
is increasingly agreement on what constitutes progress to good governance.

Session III

5
Effects of Corruption
On Development
by
Dieter Frisch 31
Mr. Chairman, Madam Speaker, friends, I apologise for talking the floor
again, this is really not my choice. The phenomenon of corruption during the
last 10 or 20 years has been spreading geographically and exponentially and
it has been increasing both in terms of amount involved as well as in terms
of impact. One positive element that has been mentioned this morning is that
at least the taboo about corruption has been broken. Not only can we talk
about corruption today but I also just hope that it is a sign that we are
prepared to act decisively against it. An example from Europe, if we are not
to cite developing countries all the time. You are aware of the Italian case
which is a situation of generalized corruption. It is a case that shows that
something can be done about corruption if they are enough courageous
people who are ready to apply the laws.
I believe that there is a growing awareness in the North as was said this
morning by Jeremy Pope and also in the South many countries have now
realized that they cannot continued as they have done in the past because of
the devastating effects of corruption on the development process.
One can analyse these effects at different levels. One is talking effects on
international trade and hampers fair conditions and it has certainly
devastating effect on development and this is my subject. It is my subject
perhaps because to corresponds with my professional background and
experience. I have been dealing with development for so many years. I said
this morning that I have come to the conclusion from what I have observed
that corruption is really one of the major obstacles to development.
31 Former Director-General, European Commission.

It has been made clear this morning that international corruption is by
definition a game of two players. It is normally one player in the North and
the other in the South or the East. However, the destructive effect on
development more pointed in countries with scarce resources. Sometimes,
when we discuss about agricultural policy of the European Community I
have always remarked that the rich North to a certain degree, can afford a
number of errors and of bad policy because they have the means. This is not
a moral argument. Where the resources are scarce, the resources should be
managed to the best interest of the countries concerned.
I would start off by saying that there are some people who contest that
corruption has a negative effect on development and they often advance
certain arguments repeatedly often in papers. The first one is that corruption
is part of the culture of developing countries and as such that corruption is
morally accepted. You read this very often and this gives goods logic to the
corruptions. I affirm here that morality is not different. There is no such a
thing as the North-South divide in terms of moral acceptability of corruption
and I will quote General Obasanjo who wrote to the effect that in the African
concept of appreciation and hospitality, a gift is a token. What is important is
not the material value of the gift, but the spirit of giving and receiving. The
gift is made in the open for all to see and never in secret. Where the gift is
excessive, it becomes an embarrassment and it is returned. If anything
corruption has perverted positive aspect of this age old tradition. So I not for
my part and TI certainly not as an organization accept this that I called the
cultural arguments.
The second argument we read and hear sometime form great economist is
that corruption increases the development process, it makes the development
machinery function. Again, I strongly contest this argument. Let me put
moral aspect aside. Although moral back shift may accelerate an
administrative process. I recall that sometimes ago one of my delegates did
not know how to present his account and he presented acceleration fees for
the money he apparently paid to get the stamps or something, I hope it was
not more than that, but it meant that a civil servant did not do what he or she
was normally supposed to do but he is willing to do a bit faster than he
would do it normally when he accepts acceleration fees.
This is not good but in terms of impact on development. Corruption induces
an official to take a decision different from what he is supposed to decide
under normal circumstance. In terms of the development, the negative effect

here is very clear. This may involve choosing the wrong priorities and
paying higher prices for bad qualities.
The third argument which is often used is that corruption is intrinsically
linked with under-development. This is very close perhaps to the first
argument and the argument which has to be taken seriously. I think as long
as revenues are too low to allow somebody to feed his family at large it is
very difficult to get him away at least from the petty forms of corruption.
The reply I would give, nevertheless, is that we cannot wait until one far
away date when development would really have solved the problem of
corruption just as we cannot wait for development to have settle one day
democratic problems, things must be done much faster and secondly the
experience particularly in countries of the north shows that there is no
evident link between poverty and corruption, otherwise I don’t know why
the corruption cases will blow up anywhere in the rich countries. Again to
quote General Obasanjo poverty may play a part but can hardly be the root
cause of corruption. Referring to Nigerian banking industry, he says most
bank officials got fat paychecks, yet they were fraudulent and corrupt
practices were outrageous. Compare this with other officials much less paid
who have maintained their integrity and their incorruptibility throughout. So
we cannot accept these arguments and we should look at what the negative
effects are. I will try to be as short as possible and put it in very clear points.
The first argument is clearly that corruption raises sharply the cost of goods
and services. As long as the corruption percentages are low say around 5%
we could perhaps absorb them and expect the industry to absorb them by
reducing its profit margin. When the corruption percentages grows to the
levels where there are today 10% up to 20% sometimes even more, these
percentages are added to the price paid by the country concerned and the
extra value goes into private pockets and is lost for development. This is the
first point.
Secondly, as goods and services are mostly financed through credits,
commercial credits or concessional credits, the extra credits is of course the
debt of the country. Today, you can take it that a large part of the debt of
many countries stems from there.
The third point is the case of insufficient controls. Corruption often leads to
a lowering of quality of goods and services. I give you the example of a road
project. If there is collusion between a government official and the road
contractor this can lead easily, we have seen cases of that frequently, to a

lowering of the accepted or the paid standard and the savings quotations
mark are shared between the official and the firms. And when one often
wonders why new hybrids in developing countries last such a short period.
The answer is clear.
The 4 th effect is that the damage is even greater at the level of technology or
even concept where the project is influenced heavily by corruption. As I said
this morning, I will just repeat the point that the supplier could normally be
tempted by expensive technology to bring a capital intensive technique
where a labour intensive technique would have been more appropriate.
Capital intensive technologies are more often than not corruption prone.
Most developing countries would prefer labour-intensive conceptions but
corruption dictates a preference for capital-intensive technologies. This
accounts for the spate of several industrial ruins you see all over Africa.
Industries that have never worked or never run at installed or required
capacity or to have run aground due to wrong technology all promoted
through corruption.
The fifty point is the disastrous effect of corruption which reaches its peak
when development priorities and consequently projects and programmes are
influenced or determined by corruption. In this case, scarce resources instead
of being allocated to the development priorities are wasted on projects which
make little or sometimes nothing in terms of developments and they just
make the personal profit of the decision maker. I am convinced that
corruption is responsible for enormous number of development ruins,
sometimes called “cemetery of white elephants or cathedrals in the desert”
abandoned motor ways, uneconomic dams, industrial plants which never
began operating or never achieving any economic utilization of the capacity
or operates at a loss and permanently subsidized or protected to the outside
world or which operates in fits and starts. When one traces through the
origin of such disaster one discovers normally that these are usually
commercially financed projects. I am happy to say that having been a
manager of public development assistance, at least the agencies which do a
serious work, are to a limited degree responsible for this kind of disaster.
They may make errors but would not allocate funds deliberately to white
elephant projects.

Commercially financed projects normally concluded by direct negotiation
without proper tender suffers more from this. But there is state involvement
in the North normally covered by state export credit schemes. Consequently,
although the states in the North even if they have not financed these projects,
public money has indirectly participated at least through the guaranteed
system because for what other reasons could such anti-developmental
decisions have been taken. This sort of perversion has a major consequence
of diverting scarce resources to low or non-priority projects.
Corruption decreases state responsibility and accelerates the neglect of
fundamental needs such as food, health, education. Corruption is a major
cause of under-development and poverty in general. Often, external official
development assistance is called upon to make up for the deficit of an
irresponsible management of available resources. In the long-run the tax
payer in the North cannot easily be convinced to cover the cost of resources
wasted for a country that invest its own resources in prestigious projects and
that is if such money is not deposited in foreign bank account. I must say
that we are almost caught down in this quest in a vicious cycle, corruption is
the cause of under-development and poverty without any doubt poverty
contributes to the extension of corruption for we have said earlier that when
public officials cannot honestly meet the basic needs they will resort to less
honest means of subsistence.
It can well happen that the additional debt of the country is not up to 10 or
20% of the extra cost by corruption even then it cannot be investment
because an investment which does not function economically create the
debts because it has been paid for without having contributed significantly or
perhaps not at all to the economic progress of the country. Then, the last but
one point will be that generally speaking, corruption, and this is an important
point, kills the development spirit. Thus nothing is destructive to the society
than the rush for quick and easy money which makes fools of those who
work honestly. We must also see to it that in the market economy model
which is advocated in all the economic reform processes which is called
structural adjustment is built around sufficiently strong states.
Market economy is not synonymous with absence of the state. We must have
a strong state but not over-bearing state perhaps a small and efficient state to
enforce the law and thus does not allow that market economy to become
synonymous with jungle and mafia and generalized market corruption. Some

of the examples we see in Eastern Europe in the former Soviet Union gave
us that of food for thought in this respect.
The last point on the negative effect of corruption on development will be
the economy in which the foreign partners know that corruption generally is
repulsive to foreign investment and is also more repulsive to aid agency who
manage money. It is common knowledge that countries that this aid failure
are repugnant to these flows. Of course, the investors want to make business
but they look for countries where the climate is sufficiently stable and
predictable. In any case, I know investors who withdraw from certain rich or
potentially rich African countries because they found that the corruption
constraints were unbearable. I also see that aid agencies are becoming more
and more hesitant to provide financial resources to countries that mismanage
their own resources that is one of the reasons for the dwindling of foreign
aid or the aid fatigue and I would not be surprised if one of these days one
would decide to suspend development cooperation in flagrant cases of
mismanagement that is bad governance as one does when a serious
allegation of human rights.
Once before I conclude Mr. Chairman, I am in no way restricting my
analysis to the South. I think we have spoken of the North this morning and I
repeat again that countries of the North have their share of responsibilities in
the damage caused by corruption. They are often promoting their export
without due consideration to the effect in terms of development. They
tolerate and indeed sometimes encourage corruption as Jeremy Pope
explained this morning by allowing tax deductibility as useful expenditure
and by covering such amounts under their official systems of export credit
schemes. But it remains though that the damage is done mainly in your
countries and so I feel entitled to dwell mainly on the effect of corruption on
your development.

General Comments
Ibbo Mandanza:
Mr. Chairman, it is difficult to discuss the paper because Mr. Frisch’s
presentation highlighted most things that were discussed in the morning. I
know what an important forum this is. I have just given out a magazine
which I edited and you will notice from there how much material I used
from TI in bringing to fore the issue of corruption in Africa. Now, I will like
to say that TI’s work in the last two years alone since it was established is
really important in highlighting the subject of corruption. In most countries
now it is no longer an issue of taboo to discuss corruption and it is only a
happy coincidence that we devoted the current issue of our magazine to
corruption and at the same time we are meeting on corruption in South
Africa.
Without any attempt to waste time, I want to say that Frene Ginwala has said
it all and put it in a proper perspective. The trauma of corruption I might say
is a very important angle from which to raise the issue of the correlation
between corruption and development. I would like to say that corruption in
most cases is really a manifestation of problematics of development. In
Africa certainly, if we talk about abuse of human rights, anti-democratic
tendencies, without at the same time identifying corruption as part of the
baggage we will be missing the point. It is difficult in Africa in particular to
speak about the messy state of affairs in terms of the state without at the
same time describing corruption as a part of the baggage.
So in many cases, therefore I would like to argue that corruption is really a
manifestation of a larger structural problem that we have in our countries.
Secondly, I will like to emphasise that development as a concept has to be
viewed as an holistic concept. In other words, it is political, economic, social
culture and moral. If you view those terms therefore when people complain
about corruption, they are not just complaining about the substantive effect.
However, it is not very difficult to find exactly when there is corruption in
our countries. Corruption has become a common place word in our society.
It now defies definition except as describing everything and anything that is
bad in the society. For the person in the street, corruption is associated with
all that s unsavoury with those in power, that is government inefficiency and
extortion. Corruption represents the degeneration of leadership and
officialdom, it represents gross dishonesty and greed, it reflects the highest

level of unaccountability in a society which therefore can hardly be
democratic in a political, social and economic undertone. Corruption as
discussed this morning cannot be confined to the public sector only and in
most cases, as it is across both public and private sector all the papers
presented this morning have highlighted there are two faces to it. It is
external in terms of cost and it is inspired by he or she who is corrupt. It is
also internal in terms of benefits for the corruptors. Corruption provokes
anger in the general population, and unhappiness particularly against those
in position of power or those who are its perpetrators. Therefore, corruption
must be seen not only in terms of morality which is obvious but also in
terms of its impact on the development processes.
Corruption breeds hardships for the victims, but it also creates a new social
structure and feeds on or things an unequal or uneven development in our
countries. Those who are in a position of power and influence and are
therefore able to profit from the proceeds of corruption means that they are
able to increase their power and influence at first and that of their family and
the dynasties. And in developing countries in particular, it is often quite
simple to corrupt the developing social structures, the class structure of
societies and the access to booty that comes from corruption and hence the
theme of this conference is its emphasis on the impact of corruption on
issues of democracy and human rights. I just want to cite some of the
findings and thanks to TI with respect to corruption and the direct impact on
economic issues. For example, TI estimates that certain percentage involved
in all the amount of international transactions is paid in bribes to Heads of
state, government ministers and senior civil servants involved in such
transactions, the funds obtained through such deals never see their way into
Africa. As they are secretly deposited in foreign banks. One of the features
of the African continent of course is our inability to have a national
bourgeoisie. If there has been development in many countries of the Third
World, it is because the national bourgeoisie class has been able to localize
development by investing their resources in their local economy. Thus a
major feature of the weakness of the African post-colonial state in particular
which is historically based has been the absence of a national bourgeoisie.
What we have instead is a class of people who are mostly agent of banks
outside their countries amassing fortunes in foreign banks rather than
investing at home and this in turn Mr. Chairman has created a very high
sense of insecurity in African countries because if your nationals do not
bank at home but rather bank in Switzerland, they in the first instance do not
have any confidence in their own country and must be assured to be errant

leaders who at anytime travel to where they keep their booty. There are also
other ways in which corruption creates hardship, for example, in one
country, it was discovered that half of the officials were selling 35% of all
the drugs through illegal channels when the attention of the authority was
drawn to it with a call for measures to clamp down the racket.
The authority argued that such an action would lead to the total collapse of
their system as that was the only way through which health workers could
top up their miserable salaries. Another example which shows how grand
corruption has crippled Africa’s fragile economies, one official had to say
you can buy any African depending on what your price might be. Mobutu
Seseseko of Zaire for example believed to be one of the world’s richest
personalities is said to have a personal fortune of about 8 billion dollars with
majority of it in France, California and Belgium. His wealth contrasts
sharply with state of Zairean economy which has a foreign debt of about 12
billion dollars in 1993. If you steal from public funds in Africa and many
part of the world where poverty is endemic, of course you, are stealing from
the poor. This is a quotation I read from one of the TI documents:
Corruption can be devastating to the developing
countries as highlighted by the Mozambique
experience. The Minister of Planning and Finance
revealed that his country lost in 1994 3.5 million U. S.
dollars in an uncollected revenue from the department
of customs and excise due to corruption. The same
year, Mozambique’s total export were worth just over
100 million US dollars. In Zimbabwe, it was revealed
that in 12 months, after October 1992, the government
lost a total of 3 million U. S. dollars due to theft and
fraud by public officials.
One can go on giving similar examples. Perhaps the Nigerian situation is
very instructive. In Nigeria when the civilian regime of Alhaji Shehu
Shagari came to power in 1979, the country had a foreign reserve surplus of
3 billion US dollars accumulated from its oil sales. By the time they
overthrew him in December 1993, Nigeria had an external debt of over 20
billion US dollars rising to 33.7 billion in 1990 before dropping to 27.5
billion US dollars in 1992. A figure representing 121% of the country’s GDP
and 231.9% of its export earnings perceived among the top corrupt nations
in Africa offshore deposits of illegal and money by Nigerians between 1986
and 1990 were estimated to be in the region of 10 billion US dollars or the

equivalent of the GDP of Cameroon in 1992. Now, the Nigeria case is an
example but the difference between Nigeria and other African countries is
one of degree rather than that of kind and one sees that clearly from the
example of Mozambique cited earlier. Rich countries like Zaire and Nigeria
can easily be pauperized by the problem of corruption in much the same
way. I do not think it is necessary to repeat what has been said in the papers
this morning of neatly trying to identify the cause of the problem.
The main papers have identified external and internal causes of the problems
of corruption. Mr. Chairman we will have to acknowledge that the solution
likewise has to be dealt with on both fronts. It is now a global problem
requiring a global solution and perhaps one way forward is that the works of
organizations like ALF and TI that are able to get information from both
fronts with regard to specific countries situations is very instructive. I think,
those of us who are in the media realize more and more how such
researchers were able to publish their findings and the media becomes a very
important determinant in the crusade against corrupt practices.
I hope there would be a session on media but as a member of the media, I
like to say that the work being done in such organistions as ALF and TI
makes it possible to do our work more effectively in publicizing corrupt
practices.
The issue of corruption which I have said early issue of the more obvious
aspect of a disease that now occupies most of our countries.
Daniel M. Lisulo:
Mr. Chairman, Honourable Madam Speaker, distinguished ladies and
gentlemen, in the first place, I would like to thank ALF and TI for having
invited me to attend this very important seminar. I would also like to thank
the seminar sponsor without whom this would not have been possible. Mr.
Chairman, I have been confronted by the remarks made by Honourable
Madam Speaker with regard to the position of General Obasanjo. She has
made my work very easy. I was going to make this appeal. I was determined,
come what may, to do that, I have known General Obasanjo since 1978 at
the time I was Prime Minister of Zambia, I was sent by country, on my way
to the OAU meeting which was being held in Liberia to discuss with the
military ruler then whether they would be prepared to hand over power to
the civilians and after detailed discussion with General Obasanjo, he assured

me and he sent a word to his counterpart in Zambia that they will definitely
do so. And ever since I have been in touch with General Obasanjo.
Now, Mr. Chairman I am making an appeal for a prayer of clemency on
behalf of General Obasanjo and the other people who have been sentenced
to death. Admittedly, personally I have never agreed with the existence of
military governance because according to my concept of democracy,
governments are changed through the ballot and not through the barrel of the
gun or threatened by the barrel of a gun. I also appreciate that there is a
tendency when you make this plea, that those countries who are the
recipients of the plea would argue invariably that it is tantamount to
interference in their internal affairs because of this idea of sovereignty. My
argument is why do such countries not argue that we are interfering in their
internal affairs when we praise them for doing something good. I wish to go
further Mr. Chairman that if in any case persuasion fails I would be one of
those people who go along with many other people in the world to advocate
even the taking of stringent measures against the Nigerian leaders and when
I speak Mr. Chairman, I am speaking on own behalf and not representing the
government of Zambia. I will pause here to congratulate the Republic of
South Africa. I read in newspaper report that today one of their
constitutional commission has recommended the abolition of the death
penalty and really I must congratulate you. That is a step in right direction. I
personally do not agree with the death sentence not because I am a criminal
but because it is a little bit primitive, barbarious and it takes us backward to
the days of the beginning of human beings.
Now, Mr. Chairman, if I have gone offside don’t delay in showing me a
yellow card or even a read card fro being offside. Now, Mr. Chairman, I am
coming back to the topic of corruption, democracy and human rights. In my
view, the concept of democracy presupposes the existence of 3 main organs
or arms of government as propagated by Montesque and others in Europe. I
know there are other leaders who are now extending those 3 arms to 4 and
perhaps 5 but I would be satisfied with only 3. Now, these 3 arms of the
government are not entirely in strict compartment to each other. There are
certain areas where they are interwoven and we also introduce checks and
balances to see that one organ does not take the advantage over the others.
Now, it means that these various organs must be managed by human beings.
Whether it is the legislature or it is the executive or it being the judiciary it
must have human being now if the human being who takes up various
positions either by election or by appointment or by nomination are corrupt.

It means that whenever they go to these organs, they will perpetrate corrupt
practices and that will be a danger to democracy. In the process of them
practicing corruption they would not stop at mere practicing, they would go
to the extent of trying to formalize and if necessary to legalise it. You can
have a situation where the laws are clear and those leaders will see the law
against corruption are not being applied stringently. They will look
elsewhere as if nothing has happened. Now, if some corrupt members of
parliament are elected to the house, naturally, they would like to remain next
time, so they would participate in corruption more than before. They can
even go to the extent of aligning themselves with the Mafiosi such as drug
cartels or drug traffickers in order to get easy money which they would use
to perpetuate their position in various points of government. Now, if some
members of parliament are corrupt, they are always in money, they are in
apposition to ratify the appointment of the nomination of other people who
are corrupt in that system. It is then possible that they would form a
syndicate which will make sure that at the end of the day you have a corrupt
set of people running the entire body polity that will be contrary to
democracy.
In so far as the human rights are concerned, when we talk about human
rights we are talking about right to life, freedom of expression, freedom of
worship, freedom of association. You call it the law and the law supports
you. These fundamental rights unless they are justifiable or suitable they are
useless. If you don’t have the court which can enforce them through the law
say, they are enforceable they have no value in the society. So what is likely
to happen is that when you have members of parliament who are corrupt and
are the law makers, they will make sure that even the appointment of the
members of the judiciary, or the nomination of that committee which
appoints the judges or members of the judiciary would be corrupt and then at
the end of the day when ordinary people whose fundamental rights are
affected adversely, do apply to the court, the court would rule against them.
So, in the final analysis, even justice would be perverted, there would be no
talk about human rights. It would be more theory rather than practice. Now,
Mr. Chairman, there could be a situation if corruption is allowed to go
unattended to. You have a situation wherein the Mafia would be running the
government through their puppets. I don’t want to mention one country in
Europe where previous prime minister, previous president, previous
minister, previous members of parliament are being prosecuted for having
had connections with the mafias. Now, if you reach that stage in Africa, it
means that as a continent we are finished. It is under these circumstances

Mr. Chairman, when I was the Prime Minister, we passed a law, Corrupt
Practices Act, which put those people who are corrupt in government to
account for whatever they have gained illicitly, if it is in excess of their
emoluments. At that very stage, when we were proposing this law, we
thought they were very clever laws in Zambia anticipating that corruption
may come in, we were seeing it in other countries. But of now, I see a
situation and I agree with some speakers that I think we need to amend the
laws, widen it, in order that it will accommodate even informal situations
that after some years, officers cans till be prosecuted. The effect of
corruption on our society is really devastating. We are already poor, our
people are poor, and if the little money that the state gets is shared among a
few, what would a majority of the people get at the end of the day. After all,
all governments are set up to look after the interest of the people. I believe
that those people who are well off, who are educated, who are in business,
they can look after themselves better than anybody else, than the poorer
people who constitute the majority, they need to be protected by the state
and the state in this circumstances must be led by men or women of some
high integrity.
Thanks you.

Session IV

6
Parliamentarians, Corruption, and
Human Rights Abuse
Introduction:
by
Alexander L. Boraine 32
The theme of Corruption, Democracy and Human Rights in Southern Africa
is one which has engaged the attention of leading human rights activists,
particularly over the last five or ten years. It is ironic that General Obasanjo
who has devoted a considerable part of his life this subject, is himself
prevented from being here. I would like to, in my voice with many others,
not at this conference but throughout the world, in condemning in the
strongest terms the illegitimate actions taken by a secret tribunal, not only
against General Obasanjo but also so many others in Nigeria.
It was my privilege to have known General Obasanjo and to attend
conferences under his auspices in Windhock, Namibia, and Uganda. It was
also my privilege to organize a visit by General Obasanjo and a number of
his colleagues to South Africa several years ago. During that visit, he met
many distinguished members of the South African society including those
from the business sector, civil society and politicians, including Deputy
President de Klerk and President Nelson Mandela. It is hoped that because
of this country at the highest level will do everything in our power to ensure
the staying of the execution of many who have been condemned to death and
the release of those who have been condemned to life imprisonment.
Democratic Accountability:
Historians in the next century will undoubtedly describe the 50 years sicne
World War II ended as The Era of Democracy. Extraordinary changes
flowing from a commitment to democracy are there for all to see. Firstly, the
32 Executive Director, Justice in Transition.

econstruction and the re-education of Germany after its defeat in 1945.
There was also the emergence of a democratic constitution in Japan. We
have almost forgotten the birth of independence in 1947 of the Indian subcontinent,
whose largest member state, India, has clung to here democracy in
spite of deep-seated divisions, serious disputes, linguistic struggles and
communal strife.
We could recite many other examples: the change in the European
dictatorships, for example, Spain, Portugal and Greece, who returned to
democracy in the 1970s. We have also witnessed the replacement of military
dictatorship in Brazil, Argentina, Chile and many other countries in South
America.
In more recent times, there have been the remarkably peaceful revolution sin
Eastern Europe, in particular in Hungary, Czechoslovakia, East Germany
and Bulgaria. The break-up of the former Soviet Union and the
developments in Russia are all to do with a new understanding and
commitment to democracy. We could say that democracy is the new kid on
the block.
Bearing in mind the newness of the democratic tide and the extent of it helps
to keep developments in South Africa and Africa in context. It is easy to
identify the common threads in this worldwide movement towards
democracy. They include at least one person, one vote; a free and secret
ballot, a choice between freely organized political parties and the recognition
of the rights of the individual. It is starting that in our era people in large
measure have not settled for less than full democracy. Those who have tried
to get away with lesser, partial reforms have been swept aside.
Alongside this new tide of democracy is the fresh realization that popular
democracy is very new. It is true of course that the roots of democracy go
back centuries to the Athenian Republic, the early parliaments of Britain and
other European countries, the ideas of Locke and Rousseau, the two councils
of New England and the French Revolution. But until very recently whose
sections of the population have been excluded. It was only in the 1920s, a
mere 70 odd years ago, that women in eve the most sophisticated countries
gained the vote. They did not get it in France unit after World War II, and
not in Switzerland until less than 20 years ago. The exclusion of the majority
from political power has been the rule until the 20 th century. How many of
us remember that in the United States the 14 th amendment which

emancipated the slaves in 1865 gave American blacks the vote, but most of
them could not exercise it in some of the states of the South. Indeed, it was
only the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that finally emancipated America’s
black community. This should warn us that we should be concerned not only
about laws but also about the implementation of these laws.
In acknowledging the development of democracy in recent decades and in
expressing gratitude for this is not to suggest that democracy is the panacea
of a evils. Nevertheless, however imperfect democracy might be as a
political system, it does have the merit of calling rulers and leaders to
account. The limitation of state power is a sine qua non for a democratic
society to exist and to flourish. We should not forget that traditionally, when
people thought about how men and women were accountable for their deeds,
and especially how powerful men and women rulers were accountable for
what they did and did not do, the basic ideas was the in the last instance they
would be found in the religious and theological notion of the Last
Judgement. That ultimately was what accountability was about: all of us
would be called to account by God. And when you think about that, however
we may describe it, it is not a democratic notion of accountability. It is a
profoundly undemocratic notion of accountability! Made even worse by the
fact that many dictators, including some who have ruled South Africa not so
long ago, have seem themselves not only accountable to God, as it were, but
in fact they found it difficult to distinguish between God and themselves –
thus giving themselves ultimate power over all other human beings. Of
course, we don’t find it easy to think of political accountability in religious
terms any longer. However, the modern secular equivalent of the Last
Judgement by God does exist. It exists in the notion that history will be the
judge, that there is a historical accountability from which we cannot escape.
In South Africa, we had continued to fail to be accountable, history would
have extracted a terrible price from all of us. To put it another way, we
cannot escape accountability to each other and to our fellow citizens. And if
we do not do so through democratic institutions, then men and women will
call each other to account in other more violent and bloody ways.
Abuse of State Power:
James Madison, in The Federalist has put it well when he states, “If men
were angels, no government would be necessary. If angles were to govern
men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be
necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over

men the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to
control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself”. The
tendency of power is to corrupt and to use Lord Action’s famous dictum,
“For absolute power to corrupt absolutely”. Political corruption is endemic
in most systems, and that is why it is absolutely essential that there are
checks and balances so as to limit state power.
South Africa, unlike many other parts of Africa and other parts of the world,
has not had the experience of a military dictatorship as such. That South
Africa has been until very recently thoroughly undemocratic goes without
saying. Apartheid as a policy and way of life was conceived and
implemented by a minuscule minority, but it made victims and oppressors of
all of us who have lived during this period. We had a parliamentary
franchise. This meant, of course, that the entire black population was
deprived of representatives from whom they would be entitled to demand
accountability for the manner in which they had reacted to the legislation
presented in parliament; whether they had voted for or against bills and what
they had said in debate on issues particularly affecting examples in which
previous legislation was framed which delegated authority. There was no
much delegated authority in South Africa that often there was no target at
which to aim in order to bring people in government to account for what
they did. In other words, we had to contend with a faceless bureaucracy. In
many instances, we had no idea who really was responsible for official
policy or actions. I think particularly of a number of a times that state
presidents and cabinet ministers hid behind other people whose actions were
totally undemocratic.
We also had draconian security legislation under the guise of “the protection
of the public interest” which enabled cabinet ministers to hide behind this
and avoid important questions so as to be unaccountable for their actions.
In South Africa, we have also had many examples of secrecy which led to
maladministration and corruption. Probably the best known is the
informational Scandal. This was on a massive scale and if flowed directly as
a result of the provision allowing for secret departmental accounts. There are
other examples such as the former Prisons Act, which muzzled the press as
far as revelations of prisons were concerned. We had protective devises
vastly extended by the state of emergency legislation, especially through the
indemnity clause which indemnified all officials against any act they may
have committed in good faith in the course of duty. I can think of nothing

that is more of an open invitation to ill-treatment of protestors and detainees
than the infamous indemnity clause.
Many of you will be familiar also with the establishment of the National
Security Management system, with its coterie of securocrats, which was
nothing more than a powerful band of men who took major decisions in the
State Security Council control was exercised throughout the country, so
although we had no military rule, we had an unholy alliance between the
executive and the security apparatus.
One of the reasons why the state was able to get away with its abuse was
that it was presented against the background of the so-called “total”
onslaught” syndrome which meant that apartheid was presented not as an
indefensible race policy but as engaged in a noble struggle against evil
forces of international atheistic communism. In such a context all actions by
the ruling part, all curtailment of civil liberties, were made to look, in the
eyes of some, excusable and accountability was evaded. Abuse of state
power was allowed to flourish because openness was denied. The great
American judge, Louis Brandeis, pertinently states, “Publicity is justly
commended as a remedy for social and industrial diseases. Sunlight is said to
be the best of disinfectants, electric light the best policeman”.
It is not enough, therefore, to have a parliamentary system. It must be a
parliament which recognizes that the more secrecy there is, the more
corruption and maladministration occur. It is parliament which must be not
only elected by the people but must be accountable to the people. There is
always room in every society for those organizations and institutions which
constantly hold governments to their commitment to democracy and
accountability. Civil society, which battled so strongly against apartheid for
so many years, must not now assume that we have reached paradise. The
government deserves to have a vigilant civil society which dares to
challenge its decisions when they appear to go against the common good of
the people.
Effective Accountability:
I have already made the point above that democracy is no guarantee of
perfection. There are a number of internal and external threats to democracy,
of which we must be aware. Firstly, there is possible tribal, ethnic, racial,
land which brings its own conflict. Therefore, democracy is not only about

good law but the implementation of those laws so as to offer the best
possible life chances for all its people. Thirdly, there is the question of an
unresolved past. Here in South Africa, we have decided to go ahead with a
Truth and Reconciliation Commission in order not only to deal with amnesty
and with human rights violations, with reparations and rehabilitation, but
also in the restoration of the moral order, a focus on a cultural of
accountability and human rights.
If we are going to be effective, we must also be aware of the many forms the
abuse of power takes. Firstly, there is personal corruption. When politicians
and people in power use that power to benefit their families, their friends,
their grounds, their bribes, their political party, over and against the common
good. As Emmanuel Kant, the famous philosopher, put it, “out of the
crooked timber of humanity no straight thing is ever made”. We should not
be cynical but always vigilant and on guard against personal corruption.
Secondly, there is the imposition by the majority of its policies, its
regulations, or loss of freedoms without due process. This has happened in
many parts of the world and there is no guarantee that it can’t happen here or
wherever else democracy has recently flowered.
There are also what has been described as positive threats to a democratic
system. Failure, in other words, to recognize society is forever changing, not
only technologically and scientifically, but profoundly in terms of attitude.
There is no doubt that in South Africa at least people are insisting that they
want to be consulted.
An area which comes to mind is the whole question of development and the
environment. More and more people are demanding to be involved in
changes which will affect their quality of life. They want to be consulted
about future educational policies, health, housing, etc. It is apparent also that
people in this country, and I am quite sure everywhere, want to be enabled.
The empowerment of ordinary people is the best and most effective
guarantee of accountability. Accountability limits the arrogance of power
and a hallmark of good government is the ability to listen and the spiritual
twin to that is a government which exercises its power and responsibility in
a spirit of humility. Under the leadership of President Mandela, South Africa
has made a remarkable start and the democratic state has been firmly based
on an Interim Constitution which was the product of months and months of
negotiation and compromise. The manner in which the final Constitution is

now being debated, not only in parliament but by many forums and
institutions throughout South Africa, augurs well.
The institution of the Constitutional Court means that government has
recognized that whilst the legislature is democratically elected and the court
is not, nevertheless the final sovereignty ought to be vested not in the
legislature but in the courts. The role of the judiciary is extremely important
in the development of accountability. Within the legislature itself,
democratic accountability is enhanced through public debate, open criticism
and free and regular elections. Institutional aids to assist the legislature in the
enforcement of public accountability include the use of parliamentary
committees which are open to the public, the appointment of a Public
Protector or Ombudsman and state auditors who must be unshackled and
free to report fully and openly to the legislature and through it to the public.
We should not overlook the vital important of the media which can and
should play a linking role between all the institutions for the maintenance of
democratic accountability and the public. They should convey the essential
facts about government and administration to the public, enabling it to call
the powers-that-be to account. Inevitably, the media will not be popular with
those in power, but they should resist in imagining that the media are
deliberately being obstructive and rather encourage and enable the media to
play its role in assuring a democratic and accountable society.
********

Discussion Session
Lead Comments by Louis Chimango 33 :
Mr. Prime Minister, distinguished colleagues, I want to congratulate the lead
speaker for his paper. What I would do is merely to pick up from where he
left off and flag a few issues for your consideration. First, is the issue of
classical constitutional law theory which underpins our discussion today.
The theory that parliament is supreme, that parliament can do no wrong, and
I would like to ask whether that theory is still tenable today because if you
are talking about the role of the parliament in matter of fighting corruption,
we are assuming that the parliament is supreme in the sense that it is
omnipotent and the question is that whether that is tenable in the face of the
executive Presidencies which our very modern democratic constitutions
have in different parts of Africa. In our case in Malawi, where the president
appears 150 times, supposedly in the interest of national unity, interest of
economic development and this is the presidency that must refer difficult
issues of constitutional matter to court when the need arises.
In the light of the last two statements that Mr. Boraine has made about the
constitutional court, in the light of the theory about independence of the
judiciary, where is the sovereignty of the parliament What is the context of
the parliament in the light of African strong and wise chief-president Now,
in the face of a strong presidency, the constitutional processes that have
taken place in South Africa, in Malawi and elsewhere in the region, Namibia
included were to do with consensus building.
The question I want to flag is whether there is absolute consensus on matters
of human rights, whether openness, transparency and accountable
government are issues which need commitment by all and I am particularly
interested to hear from Zimbabwe because I do know that their human rights
chapter is actually not a modern one. It doesn’t, in my view, embrace the
modern international standard that is so much talked about. Are these and
other human rights omission that abound in many parts of Africa significant
In my country, the issue today is price stability. In our consultation with the
people, when we tried to discuss or reason with them, this was on of the
issues that kept recurring like a decimal. I it s question of human right for
example, to demand that people be robbed of the values of their currencies,
33 Member of Parliament, Parliament Buildings, Malawi.

granted that economic system are liberalized. In my submission, once you
have a consensus on this issue, then you should not find it difficult to create
and empower the institutions that are intended to assist in matters of
safeguarding human rights. Institution of ombudsman, the human rights
commission, the question of appointment of these institutions by the
authorities. The powers, questions of where they report and whom they
report to indeed is ultimately the question of funding. Quite often, you do
have these institutions but there may be no commitment and maybe because
there is no consensus. Quite often the political will is not there to make these
institutions work to combat the evil of corruption.
I was delighted to hear from His Excellency, the Prime Minister of
Mozambique, that in his country, they are launching a crusade against
corruption. In my country, Malawi, right now, a draft copy of an anticorruption
bill is circulating in the cabinet circles and we will be debating
the bill in parliament in October and to debate that bill effectively, we need a
consensus. Is it just another of the donor driven mechanism I have
consulted the solicitor-general, I have looked at one or two models, most
likely, according to the technical recommendations, it will be along debate.
The question is, would cabinet really take it that far Is there a commitment
by the people Are those in the cabinet relating sufficiently at the crucial
hour or shall we merely receive the 21 days notice when the act is done
Will that anti-corruption law have effect retrospectively Will it have a
relationship with say, a truth commission, the model that South Africa has
enacted I don’t know whether if enacted is the word. What is the
relationship between anti-corruption and the truth commission, particularly
the retrospective nature of possibilities. And fourthly, to what extent can
modern political parties which have gone through an election, highly
competitive election. Parties which have a majority in parliament, to what
extent do these parties really guarantee freedom of their members to speak
independently on critical issues and to vote according to their conscience.
Are the new democrats so called possibly yesteryears dictators I have heard
that one leader of an opposition party, I will not name the country, sits in the
parliament to ensure that members of his party vote according to the way
one particular block vote on all issues. You have the party discipline, the
chief whip, the question is what is the impact. Does it enable us to tackle
these issues squarely and effectively. What is the impact of voting blocks
and alliances The next question, the role of the opposition. Without a viable
opposition, surely there can’t be a viable democracy. I am a member of the
opposition, having being in government and in my party for 30 years, and in

my case, as a minister for fifteen years, but we were government in waiting
and we were told constantly that the other party in the government are not so
good. We are the real choice. Here we are debating anti-corruption, human
rights and the question of how seriously can we be taken when you have to
look up to your shoulders and say that if you are in government tomorrow,
this will be so good for us. I, myself, am a constitutional adviser and a
parliamentarian adviser to a party in the opposition, congress party. When I
am asked on a number of issues, well I am alright, we should fight for this
party but remember when you are in government tomorrow. This will stifle
us and so on. These are inhibiting. In any case, official oppositions are
constitutionally recognized in our written constitution. In the Malawian
context, we missed the opportunity. We didn’t put that in the constitution but
now the gentlemen in the parliament, can stand up against us and say we
don’t recognize this, it is not in the constitution, you better take it easy.
Well, if we take them seriously, what are the implications What is the effect
of shadow portfolios Are they useful in this aspect of anti-corruption and
human rights. What is the financial muscle of the opposition party As I am
currently the treasurer of one party, I have seen that we are not there in
financial terms, What we say about civil servants limitation, lack of
stationeries, computers, you could say that twenty times in respect of
opposition parties. Can we be enabled to act more effectively, would that not
rob the parties in position from effective leadership in these parties Is the
opposition in Zimbabwe in a sufficiently strong position to challenge the
government When 2 million Zimbabwean dollars year in and year out goes
merely towards funding the majority party cutting away support from any
party that has gotten less than 15% of seats or support in the parliament.
Without funding, what are the realities I have looked at the position in
Tanzania, I think it is mere 50,600 Tanzania shillings, it is almost nothing. I
know that Mozambique was also talking of possibilities, a commitment, at
least, to fund political parties.
In my country, we have a constitutional provision that the government
should fund political parties which have gotten 10% of votes or seats in
parliament. That provision has not been put into effect despite resolution
which we passed mandating the minister of finance to effect it. We have
held several meetings, in fact, six meetings, altogether non-productive
meetings because we were arguing how mush the party should get but
eventually nothing trickled in. If the opposition is going to be effective in
this matter, can we put our money where our mouth is

Parliament is sluggish, parliament takes time. Our parliament deferred
something like six crucial items on their agenda simply because we don’t
have the time. I don’t think we have the qualities always either, because ours
is a constituency based election. It is what the constituencies wants and not
what the work of the house demands. Is the Namibia model perhaps the way
out Proportional representation where you get quality may be at the
expense of representation.
If you are talking about the shortcomings of parliament, then maybe
committees are maybe a means of improving the quality. Public account
committee, a committee on human rights, legal affairs committees. But then
there is the issue of funding. We have budget imposed now by IMF and the
World Bank. These committees meet and therefore corruption is reduced a
little. Is the way out perhaps question time In every system, this is supposed
to take place once every week, the cabinet ministers come to parliament
meeting to answer question on their areas of jurisdiction. But we have seen
that these can also be manipulated. In one case, the minister or the head of
the executive may choose the question that he will answer, but at the other
extreme is the ever available platform for the opposition through which
perhaps they are trying to score political points. These are limitations, if a
parliament is going to deal in any sense with monitoring and checking on
matters of anti-corruption and human rights. And lastly, I just want to draw
the attention of the house to the predicament of our members of parliament.
They lack the necessary equipment with which to work. For instance, none
of us has a hotline to his/her constituency, when the parliament is meeting
and we need that hotline all the time. Is our educational system sufficiently
attended to the issues of the anti-corruption Are we ethically unripe with a
conscience that enables us to face these issues particularly multiparty
parliament where everything goes. We now have universal primary
education but what is the quality of this universal primary education A
speaker yesterday was talking about God and religion, are all our religions
committed to the same ideals There is a suspicion in my country that
maybe not all religions have the same values. What about professional
ethics, the law, for example, I have worked in government for many years
and the thing that I find glaring and simple is this question of lack of
commitment, worth or values, lack of ethics. Even just the question of time
keeping, etc. I took some trouble to build those values into the system even
after I left, it was a mountain of an agenda. But if you can’t get there, is it
realistic to say that you have those ethical values built into your members of
parliament.

There is the need, finally, for a regional platform to fight corruption, can the
South African Development Community (SADC) region meet periodically
to discuss these issues, strengthen each others conviction so that from there,
we have a united agenda throughout our region Can donors not facilitate
these struggle While joking yesterday, I said that when we are in parliament
crying foul and saying that one actor is corruption, a very important donor
said that it is not corruption, it is misallocation of funds. We really were
frustrated in an area where we needed to be strengthened. Can the public be
our vanguard Can they support us through popular resentment rather than
through mere acquiescence when there is an important issue such as
corruption What is the role of pressure groups, lobbies and women’s
groups So that perhaps there is strong appearance not only from the
members of the parliament but also from the lobbies, from behind and in
front to make a total assault on these issues.
I finally want to congratulate the new media in my country, we have so
many papers. I don’t think they are quite free but are able to write what they
see. I congratulate the media on that but the question is, is anybody
listening Are they waging this war on their own Are people taking on
these issues and registering their popular resentment.
These are not issues that we can sort out in one or two times. Of course, we
require correction and patience, but ultimately let us admit that truth must
prevail. Although there may be frustrations, I believe that parliament
overplay sometimes giving the support of that institution including the
North. I believe that there is a role that the parliament can play but there are
realities which I believe must first be confronted and resolved.
Augustine Ruzindana:
I want to make just one brief comment about the parliament which is often
very weak in Africa in comparison to the executive. Yet, parliament is the
only institution that can actually curb the activities of the executives, now it
does not play that role because most parliamentarians expect some benefits
of some sort form the executives. If they are to be effective in their own
constituencies, they expect certain benefits from the ministers, from senior
civil servants and so on and that prevents them from being critical even
when they are on very vital committees like public accounts committee and
other committees which control the executives. So there is a bit of problem

that we must find the ways actually to strengthen the parliament, when we
got independence, we inherited the power of the governor and that power
passed onto the president, then there had been no strong parliament in
colonial countries and so our parliaments have quite often not been very
active. And then in countries like Uganda for example, where we had a long
period without a parliament, when they come back, they come back in an
emasculated form. And it takes a bit of time to give them confidence and
understanding their role and so on. And in my own experience, I found that
although parliament can be quite useful. It does not often understand that its
role is to act as monitor on behalf of the people and this is quite a missing
dream. In Europe, in other democracies that have existed for a very long
time, parliamentarians have got some backbone. They understand their
institutional role but in our case, parliamentarians are like government
officials looking for benefits for their areas, looking for benefits for
themselves, waiting for the next cabinet reshuffle incase they can be taken
into government. And this is quite a sad commentary. This has allowed
corruption to creep into our systems and our systems have been threatened to
become stunted where there is transition to democracy and this transition
may not become a transition. It may be threatened to be permanent transition
and even stunted if we do not grow out of it, if we don’t strengthen,
particularly, the parliament. Judges are highly respected and quite often not
interfered with officially. But the parliament is a different matter. Ministers
sit there, the President, while he comes in with an imposing figure and
authority and so on. And this is a bit of a problem. I am not, incidentally, a
parliamentarians. I have been watching what the parliamentarians do and so
on.
And so parliament as a mechanism against corruption, as an agent of good
governance is generally a failure and a disappointment in Africa. In fact,
where you get true and fair election, you find lots of parliamentarians being
kicked out. It is a sad, commentary not upon individual but upon the system
that they represent and from the view point of democracy or anti-corruption
or of the need to protect human rights, we must find ways of strengthening
the parliament. The president, the presidency, the executives is too strong
compared to what parliament is and unless we are in a position to correct the
situation, it becomes very difficult to comment upon the record of the
individual parliamentarians because the institution in which they are, is an
emasculated institution.

D. M. Lisulo:
Thanks you very much Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen. I do not want
to go into the theories of constitutional law, whether the judges should be
more supreme or parliament and so one. As we believe in the legal
profession, there are always two sides to a case but other can have three of
four more sides on a case. Now, there are point for and points against any
question but personally, I am very happy that we are clearing quite a lot in
the process and it is really a very brilliant idea for Africa that we have not
been static in articulating the problems relating to democracy in all the other
facets.
Now in Europe, for instance, United Kingdom, it took them centuries to
consolidate their democracy. And in the process, heads rolled, including the
heads of monarchs. So, we are great her in the continent at least, we are
making an effort. This discussions we are conducting and the views we are
exchanging, they are very vital. Now, coming to the particular topic, my
appreciation of the matter is that, we are, I think discussing the role of the
parliamentarians in reducing or eliminating corruption and human right
abuses – that is what we are discussing. Now in the first instance, others
have pointed out the human beings who are going to be member so the
parliament are very important. The quality must be good. They must be
persons who are knowledgeable. They should not go to the parliament for
the sake of employment but to serve, commitment to serve the community.
In order for the community to have the right type of people as my sister has
said from Nigeria, civil society should come in and they must be educated to
know what is right and what is wrong. Now, once the members of the
parliament are knowledgeable, and they know what they are going there for,
it will be easier for them while in parliament to initiate even private member
bills if the government does not come forward with the right bill on
corruption or on abuses related to human rights.
I know, for a fact, in Zambia that while we were under one party system and
that with the Prime Minister as the leader of the house, our constitution had a
provision for private member bills. And they were members of the same
party who wanted to introduce private member bills and that one gave
impetus to governments to introduce such bills. Admittedly, it is a very
expensive exercise, printing. You have to get your draftsmen, and if you go
to government, you will see draftsmen is another special occupation. It is not
every lawyer who can draft legislation. So, the expenses are there. So it may

not be possible. But if you have enlightened people in the parliament, they
will be able to do it. You can have a group of lawyers bring in their
resources, they can hire the services of a draftsman to draft for them, some
of these amendments. I also agree that parliamentary committees or selected
committees are very crucial. These are the ones who are really in the
position to control the government, to insist on transparency, to insist on
accountability as long as those members do understand what they are there
for to illustrate with an experience in Zambia. In Zambia, these
parliamentary committees or selected committees are composed only of back
benchers, ministers are there and the chairman of that committee is a back
bencher, so they have the right to take government to task to discuss any
issue and make resolutions. Then the problem we have discovered is the
question of party discipline, the “Chief Whip”. He says the party policy is
this, why do you go to the other side If we can find our way now in
Zambia, we are discussing to have a new constitution that these should be
free for the members of the parliament, to debate and to vote in accordance
with their good conscience so that they are not subjective in their debate,
votes and conscience. I think if we can reach that stage, we should be able to
look forward to members of the parliament to assist the society in the
elimination or reduction of corruption and also the violation of human rights.
I know in all parliaments, there are question times, though they are not very
often. A back bencher would ask a question, the minister stands up, he
answers nicely, somebody just come and that is the end. No effect
whatsoever. This is where the role of the press and the civil society comes
in.
Now, you look at what is happening in Nigeria. In straight speaking, you see
economic sanctions or expulsion from Commonwealth or from OAU,
absolute, economic sanctions may even help Nigerians themselves because
when the economic sanctions begin to bite, then they will wake up and try to
find out what is the cause. I am saying this because in Zambia, we have had
a lot of experiences. We had sanction against Rhodesia in a way, against
South Africa. But there were certain things which were trickling in a small
way into the country but because of the hardship, the people of Zambia
woke up, they became a little bit conscious of the surrounding circumstances
Rhodesia. So, you see in a case like Nigeria at the moment, if some
economic sanctions are applied against Nigeria, the argument that you know
the people will suffer is good, it is when the people suffer that they will
wake up to realize what their rights are. Now, I come to the question of
funding of the political parties, this is not a big problem. We are discussing

through Zambia. There is a group for and there is a group against but in
actual reality, democracy is very expensive. If we want to establish
democracy in Africa, we must find a way to pay for those who managed to
get into the parliament, not everybody, if the government, the party in
government is there, it should not be paid, but it is the opposition party that
should be paid. One would go even to the extent of what they are discussing
in Zambia whether we should legislate against multiplication of political
parties, though the 30 political parties on illegal terms but in actual reality
they can’t hold one public meeting. If they say they want to conduct
demonstration, it would only be the chairman, the secretary who will be on
the street demonstrating against any issue. I think all these questions you
know, freedom of association, etc. But these freedoms are not absolute. If
they are absolute, then there would be chaos in the world. In any given
society, there must be some limitations, reasonable limitations. You cannot
have never have everything absolute because it affects the right of the
individual.
Oby Ezrkwesili:
Thanks you very much Mr. Chairman. Anytime I am in a gathering with
Ugandans, as soon as the delegates finishes speaking, I just feel he or she
has talked about Nigeria. We seem to come from the same parents. Anyway,
like he said about the parliament, I come from a country where we had an
experience that was funny with the erstwhile military President of Nigeria,
Gen. Babangida. There was this style of phased transition that he had in
place. With General Babangida Presiding over everything as military
president, we had local government elections, We had senate and house of
representatives elections. We had gubernatorial elections in phases. You
need to have seen the senate and the house of representatives that we had. It
was like a team of court jesters. The system that was put in place was
actually tailored to attract the kind persons that went into that parliament.
What then happened was that, as the people kept yearning for a conclusion
of the transitional process, most of the senators and members of the house of
representatives were so comfortable because, what the system and its
initiators did was to make sure they had a rather comfortable lifestyle. In
essence, in so as far they were concerned, they were just okay and so it did
not really matter what went on. They were sitting as a senate and the house
of representatives was actually the pedestal through which abuses and all
kinds of insults were reigned on human rights activists. What kind of
parliament When my brother from Zimbabwe commented on the quality of

the people who enter the parliament, he immediately touched my point. It is
a case of garbage in garbage out. If you have low quality characters in
parliament, what kind of protection are you going to get from them Sir,
when Hon. Chimango spoke, he said something about who is listening. He
talked about the press and said who is listening Is anyone in the country
listening Is it going to mean anything to them It also touches on the
situation we have in my country. It has gotten so bad that when you are
telling someone that this cannot continue, this should not be done, the
attitude of the average Nigerian has become “but what can we do, just leave
them”. So it’s a total stage of lethargy and apathy. The way the civil society
have been treated has brought out in them a kind of relapse. They have just
bottled up and its like they don’t even think they have any authority. They
don’t think they have any power. The average Nigerian – any African voter
really does not know that the government in power owes him or her any
responsibility. In fact, when roads are constructed, there is the tendency to
say “ooh, the government has done so well”. They haven’t realized that it is
from their tax that things like that has been done. They don’t even know
when to ask questions. So what I think we ought to talk about is
strengthening of the civil society, the civil society power. They are the ones
who bequeathed the power to parliamentarians. So the civil society has got
to be able to know, be educated, to be able to know the power they wield
over the parliamentarians. A lot of parliamentarians campaign for elections.
In my country, he could probably stay in Lagos, which was the former
Federal Capital and send some money to his province and somebody, you
know, will distribute the money and the people would vote for him and he
never goes back home to thank them until there is need for him to try
another election and he sends the same amount of money again. And then
the day he makes the mistake of going to his place and any of the members
of the community would want to see him, of course, they would be whipped
by the gateman or the guards. So, he has become a big man, who cannot see
the same people who voted for them. So it is the strengthening of the civil
society, to begin to make them to be people who can call for transparency in
the character of the individuals that seek elective positions in African
democracies that would help us strengthen democracy in Africa.
I want to take this opportunity to reiterate what I said yesterday, when I
talked about morality from the perspective of having a good knowledge of
God. And my brother from Zimbabwe said it would be difficult to legislate
on morality. But I don’t think whatever I was talking about was legislating
morality. I was talking about morality from the perspective of the quality of

character of people in public office. It has become so rampant that people do
not care for credibility of action anymore. There must have been something
that went wrong somewhere. Value system got destroyed and that’s my
perspective. If we are talking on legislative framework, for fighting
corruption, we are making a very big mistake because the individual has got
to be brought up to the stage where he begins to think about the character.
What I am perceived as, and that I think is moral suasion and I do know that
even where legislative instruments have managed to check human behaviour
that in a society where greater society would look at you with disdain if you
did things that were not right. It could actually check you more than the law
could check you. Thank you,

Alexander Boraine:
When I argued that the constitutional court should enjoy sovereignty over
the parliament, I regret very much that I have to maintain that strained face.
The alternative to constitutional court is the parliament which is many
instances as we have heard today can be dominated by one majority party.
We have also heard today that the quality of parliamentarians to offset such
a dominance may be quite suspect.
In the alternative, if you have a panel of judges who are not bound to
political parties, not bound to any political policy, not bound to even any
constituency but can interprete the rule of law and Bill of Rights which is
part and parcel of the constitution, I have seen what parliaments can do. We
had a partially democratically elected parliament in South Africa which
simply abused its power and corruption flowed. So I am afraid, I must stay
with my views on constitutional courts. I want try and make a very brief
response to issues raised by the lead respondent – that is the role of the
opposition and I think he made a pertinent point which I didn’t simply have
time to get into. If I had time, I would have liked to mention three problems
which we in South Africa are experiencing in terms of the role of the
opposition in parliament. First, we have a government of national unity.
They seem to be right in terms of transition politics and in terms of
reconciliation but it means that the executive has been enormously
strengthened and that, in many instances, bills and policies and ideas are
debated first in the cabinet of National Unity and those members outside or
in the legislative who may have very different point of view would have
been handed down a decision as it were from on high and thus find it
extraordinary difficult to take issues with their leaders. They may very well
do and some very brave people do sometimes in private, less so in public,
that is a real problem for all situation to my mind.
Secondly, parliamentarians have been elected on a rather elitist system- in
terms of proportional representation and I think there is a lot of merit in that.
If a member of parliament wishes to change his or her party affiliation, they
are immediately banished from parliament, which seems of course right
since they owe their allegiance to the political bosses and if they cross these
political bosses, they are told “You shut up”. Very often, the opposition is
weakened rather than strengthened. And again, the fact that parliamentarians
now in South Africa have no immediate constituency, which I think is a very
weak element in the elitist system and I would prefer to see perhaps 50% on

proportional representation and 50% on constituency basis so that ordinary
people can have direct access to the members of the parliament which in a
small fragmented way was possible before.
Final point, I am very sympathetic to the views of the speaker from Namibia
and appreciate him saying that in many instances, we use this grand terms
and beautiful ideas that must be quite difficult to put into practice. Yet, when
we look at them, what are we really saying We are saying that the role of
parliament should actually be weakened, not strengthened in favour of
public debate, public criticism, that the role of the judiciary should be
strengthened vis-avis the parliament; that the role of the constituencies – i.e
the civil society ought to be strengthened vis-à-vis parliament. Yes, by all
means, let us have all the typewriters, computers and telephones and
research assistants, that is absolutely right and necessary, but we should
never, ever imagine that parliament should become so powerful that it
cannot learn from the very people who put them there. Again those high
sounding ideas which should not be rejected too easily.
The idea of an Auditor-General is something incredibly important because
the Auditor-General who is not responsible to the executive but responsible
to the parliament and can make known the very beginning of corruption in
public accounts is a very huge help to really strengthen the parliament.
I am really distressed that there has been very little reference to the role of
the media in calling parliamentarians to account and in strengthening
parliament. I think it is an oversight. It is quite distressing, but if we really
want to get out views on corruption and accountability with all the
weaknesses and control of the media, I accept that, without qualification,
this is an area through which you can inform the public, when the media
knows what is happening and therefore publish same, public accountability
should be enhanced and that should be foremost.
Thank you.

Dieter Frisch:
Thank you very much, I am very grateful for what we were offered this
morning. I want to focus on the issue which is the one, I in collaboration
with some of my friends here have been dealing with – corruption and
parliamentary democracy. I believe that there is a serious linkage and
relationship between these matters. I mean the fight against corruption and
the effective functioning of parliamentary democracy. I remember in the
background paper yesterday, which we discussed in the introduction, it was
said that corruption exists everywhere. It exists in democratic and
undemocratic situations. Thus there is no clean situation all over and we
cannot prevent that. In my own experience, I think the background paper
said somewhere, that in an undemocratic system or situation, the likelihood
of corruption is very high, almost automatic whilst in a parliamentary system
there are checks and balances. There is a chance if the system functions very
well that there will be open debate, there is more transparency or that there is
more accountability. I have been keenly following events in Africa for so
many years. I think we must be at least relatively informed and I am satisfied
with the progress which has been made so far. If you come form Europe
with a gloomy picture of the African continent which you have garnered
through public opinion and through events in other parts of Africa one must
also appreciate the progress that has been made and all that we heard from
different countries. The fact that there is open debate, that there is a free
press almost everywhere in Africa is a real achievement and helps certainly
to improve transparency and helps against this fight or the prevention of
corruption and that is one point I wanted to make.
The second point is about financing of political parties which was raised by
our colleague from Malawi. I think this is a very important point. I than go
back to the European experience of the recent years. You see that in many
European countries, the problem of financing of parties has been at the very
root of the several problems of corruption and this persisted until recently,
not only in Italy but also in France and Germany and the problem can only
be settled when at certain moments we find the means of a transparent
system of financing political parties. Of course, these are rich countries that I
am talking about and they probably have the budgetary means to finance
political parties than most African countries do. It is certainly more difficult
in countries where the resources are much more scarce as in most of African
countries. But I think that this is probably a price of democracy which must
be paid and I would like to hear others express their opinion on this. If the

political parties have a minimum of financial independence, they are
exposed to pressures from all quarters. Unfortunately, your partners from
outside should the democratization process by all mutual possibilities. In
effect, you cannot opt for this or that party because that will be interfering
and I think you should not do that. Perhaps political foundations may be a
solution. The Germans have this foundation, they are fair in this respect,
public agencies should not go with party financing. On the other hand, we
could use the idea that Mr. Chimango mentioned, that donor organizations
could invest in infrastructure i.e. equipment that parliamentarians may need.
We talked about telephone lines and those sort of facilities help
parliamentarians do their jobs properly. This could be something we could
think about.
The last point I would like to make relates to the role of parliamentarian in
taking legislative initiatives in the field of anti-corruption law. I will go on to
that to bring a little bit of European experience into it. At the Transparency
International we are working hard to convince European governments to
gradually eliminate the practice which tolerates or encourages international
corruption and we are very happy to note that recently in Germany, two
initiatives came from the parliament. I would say unfortunately in this case
from the opposition, referring to the T.I. and asking in this context for the
abolition of the tax deductibility of bribe given overseas. This is a move in
the right direction but it was stimulated by initiatives coming from the
parliament and in this case from the opposition. Thank you very much.

Jeremy Pope:
In New Zealand, we have had the misfortune of scoring top in the recent
pro-league on the list of corrupt countries in the world. On top of this, our
Auditor-General is in jail for stealing public funds. But I would like to
comment on something that arose from some of our discussions with
General Obasanjo in the course of our travels. We were discussing the issue
of democracy as something other than our intention at Athens because
coming from the pacific region. I so know that if Athens discovered it, so
too did the Pacific Islands. And in the Pacific, we have a long standing
history of Athenian democracy. In which on important issues affecting the
community, every member of the community of standing, which
unfortunately traditionally exclude women, was allowed to speak and the
chief spoke first and he remained silent and he spoke last and that is when he
sums up the consensus and that was how our traditional society functioned
in a totally democratic fashion.
General Obasanjo said it was the same process that was in practice in most
of pre-colonial Nigeria. So I would say that democracy had been alive on the
Africa continent for centuries. The real problem came with the invention of
nation-state. In effect, you see a situation wherein a layer structure was
imposed on systems that were working perfectly and satisfactorily. In that
system whenever, the chiefs abused their positions or when they are corrupt
the people simply withdrew their support/consent and sometimes this means
that one way or the other they are made accountable.
In the 20 years I worked at the commonwealth secretariat and looking at
what was going on in various commonwealth countries, one got the strong
impression that human rights were blatantly abused where the legislatures
were the weakest. We do need a powerful legislature and less powerful
executives and we need to maintain the basic shifting in power. Mr.
Chimango asked whether parliament should be made supreme. My country,
New Zealand does not have a written constitution but the President of our
Appeal Court has said that there are certain laws which parliament cannot
enact and which if enacted will not be enforce by the courts notwithstanding
the absence of a written constitution. I think the judiciary worldwide is
showing creatively which may turn positivist. Which is certainly the thing
some of us can support. I heard that the Hong Kong model been introduced
in Malawi. The Hong Kong model is a colonial model built around a
powerful governor who is a colonial civil servant, paid a massive salary,

placed beyond the bound of corruption and has no political stake in the
country and has nothing to loose, he is under no form of pressure other than
from the United Kingdom. If that is the model, I will want to substitute the
governor for president. This is a model that has a potential for political abuse
because the mechanism can simply be used to beat a political opponent on
the head. He also raised this question of political parties, leaving members
free to vote according to their conscience. Malawi has adopted a westminister
style of government. I would borrow you a leaf by referring to my
country once more, and that is to say we are the only commonwealth country
whose people were consulted meaningfully and given a choice as to which
electoral system they will like and with the resounding referendum, we
threw out the west minister system and I say quite frankly that if it is abused
then it is abused because the main parties have been taking their turn to
govern. There was a conspiracy between the two main parties against public
interest.
On political party funding. I was in Ghana during the last presidential
elections, and it was quite apparent that the opposition parties had raised
most of the campaign funds by making promises to its sponsors and donors,
of shall we say, benefits on their being in charge of government. Now, this is
a complete disaster because it means when the opposition lost, as they have
deserved to, it was because they campaigned very badly. Anyway, they lost
resoundingly, but they would just say to their financial backers, well I’m
terribly sorry, perhaps we would win next time. Unfortunately, they have to
turn round and accuse the whole system of being corrupt – that the election
was rigged, which was quite painful because it wasn’t. It may have been
made in a way that favoured the ruling party. They certainly abused the
whole process. The opposition later called for a boycott of the parliamentary
elections and instead of democracy moving forward in Ghana, they tried to
move it backwards and this was a complete and absolute disaster and I put it
sown fundamentally to the fact that all these monies that were used to run
campaigns was raised on the basis of kick backs to come. Thanks you Mr.
Chairman.
Pascoal Mocumbi:
We have had a very interesting debate this morning. In our discussion, I
think we have a consensus saying that parliament per se is not enough. It is
important to have people who have quality in themselves as
parliamentarians, quality in terms of knowing exactly what they are doing in
parliament, we need consensus within the society, people should feel

completely sovereign and to be sovereign, they need to understand what is
going on in the parliament and in the executive and be sure that they are the
ones who elected those in the parliament. So whatever we can do in our
country to strengthen civil society is welcomed. I can add my own point of
view saying that, particular parties are not only mechanism to ensure strong
civil societies, NGOs, associations of any kind, religious group are very
important in developing an awareness within the society.
We have touched on the judiciary and the role of the Supreme Court. I think
we can agree that certain courts be sovereign to interprete the laws. If there
is any problem, the people should be involved in order to make new inputs
to the laws in the society. In Africa, we should remember that State
institutions are new and often these institutions were not drawn, taken into
full account the realities of African traditions, but we have to live with it. As
we move towards perfection, I think more perfection to the institution in our
countries, by decentralizing more and more the administration. In
Mozambique, we are trying, we arte preparing for municipal elections for
next year and we consider the municipalities as entities with autonomy,
financial and administrative autonomy, would have their own stake in
deciding how to run the state affairs of their own area. And I think we can
combine the accountability of parliamentarians to the other constituencies
and the role of the municipalities, we may come out with good checks and
balances to ensure that democracy is developing well. Finally, I would
comment on the necessities of financing the democratic institutions. The
parliament itself need to make certain that parliamentarians have the
necessary means to work in their own constituencies. We should establish a
criteria for funding those parties that are represented in parliament. During
campaigns we should find in each country, modalities or criteria for
financing those that are running for elections to finance their campaigns. In
addition, we must also assist in financing NGOs who are contributing to the
development of society and for the strengthening of democracy and for
awakening the consciousness of the people. In the case of Mozambique, we
are also considering the provision of resources for institutions which are
responsible for the maintenance of laws and orders, the police and the
judiciary. We have had to cut down the military expenses in order to have
some money in order to finance the judiciary and to provide them with the
means to maintain law and order without killing. So, these are the comments
I want to make before we take our break for coffee.
Thank you.

7
Legal and Judicial System
and Corruption
Definition of Corruption:
by
Ben Hlatshwayo 34
Corruption is common parlance: We label corrupt a public official who
accepts gifts bestowed by a private person, the object being to induce him to
give special consideration to the interest of the donor.
The Presidential National Advisory Commission in the U.S.A. defined
corruption as follows:
Corruption includes all circumstances in which the public
office holders sacrifices or sells all or part of his judgement
on matters within his official purview in return for personal
gain. Corruption thus defined includes a direct or tacit
agreement between the official and the person requesting
action that would benefit the official in exchange for
official action.
Most countries have both common law and statutory provisions dealing with
corruption.
In Zimbabwe, the common law of bribery is defined as consisting of
“unlawfully and intentionally offering to or agreeing with a state official to
give any consideration in return for action or inaction by him in an official
capacity”. Roman and Roman-Dutch law sources.
The prevention of Corruption Act Number 34 of 1985 covers a much wider
field than does the common law crime of bribery, for under the Act bribe
need not be a state official.
34 Lecturer, Department of Public Law, University of Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe

The Statutory Offence of corruption is committed where an agent corruptly
solicits, accepts, obtains or agrees to accept a gift or consideration for
himself or any other person as an inducement or reward for doing any act in
relation to his principal’s affairs or business or for showing favour or
disfavour – or secretly obtains any gift or consideration for himself in
connection with his principals’ affairs or business.
No precise meaning of the term corruption. It may cover fraud, extortion,
embezzlement, bribery and nepotism.
“Essentially, there is a common thread turning through these types of
phenomenon – the subordination of public interests to private aims involving
a violation of the norms of duty and welfare, accompanied by secrecy,
betrayal, deception and calor disregard for any consequence suffered by the
public”. 35
Legal definitions tend to be narrower than the social or economic
understanding of corruption. The solution should not be to simply allow
judicial officers to broaden the meaning in the discharge of their duties
because such wide judicial discretion could itself lead to corruption. Nor
should the broader understanding be simply incorporated into law without it
being internalized by the various actors as acceptable standards of
behaviour. Thus, the development and acceptance of social political parties,
business persons, etc, is a surer safeguard against corruption than the most
elaborate anti-corruption legislation.
“There is no modern instance, it is said, in which any judiciary has saved a
whole people from the grave currents of intolerance, passion, tyranny which
have threatened liberty and free institutions. The attitude of society and of its
organized political forces rather than of its legal machinery, is the
controlling force in the character of free institutions. The ramparts of
defence against tyranny are ultimately in the hearts of the people”. 36
35 Syed Hussein Alatas, The Sociology of Corruption (Revised Edition), Times Book
International, Singapore, 1980, p. 11.
36 Indian Judge, Mr. Justice Khanna quoted in D. Morgan “The Indian “Essential Features’ Case”, 1981
ICLO 335

Classifications:
“In T.I. (Transparency International’s) classifications there are two types of
corruption; the grand which involves big business and highly placed
individuals in society, and the petty corruption, which is characterized by
small bribes in exchange for favours either by public officials or by small to
medium level business people. The former is mainly caused by greed and an
insatiable desire to accumulate wealth by whatever means while the latter
results mainly from poverty, caused by relatively lower wages and the ever
increasing cost of living”. 37
Or to put in common parlance as Nigerian social critique and pioneer of
Afro-beat music in one of his anti-corruption songs did “Authority stealing,
passes armed robbery”.
Transparency and Accountability in Dealing with Public Funds:
1. Budgeting processes and parliamentary scrutiny: The principle of
legality in raising and expenditure of public revenue.
2. Liability for loans incurred by corrupt regimes – challenges for
international law.
3. The Public Accounts Committees and the Controller and Auditor-
General.
4. Decentralised raising and spending of revenue.
“The most obvious way of providing local governments with resources, is to
put some sources of taxation at the disposal of local governments. This way
of establishing a basis for financing the local government’s services has
many advantages, above all that of providing maximum transparency and
popular control over the tax money. The taxpayers have the possibility of
knowing exactly what their taxes are being used for. Literally, financing by
local taxation will enable them to see with their own eyes the schools, the
roads, the hospitals which they have got in return for their taxes”. 38
37 Southern Africa Political and Economic Monthly, Vol. 8, No, 9, June 1995.
38 Bent Rold Andersen, “Financing of Local Government with special reference to Vertical and Horizontal
Revenue Sharing”. (1963).

Public Tender Systems:
Notices and publication of contracts and terms of agreements.
Governments and Political parties: Formal Control and Self regulation:
1. The Ombudsman Office
2. Declaration of assets, interests, exclusion from office, requirements to
relinquish directorships, etc.
3. Political Party Codes of Conduct.
Private Sector Participants and International Aid and Finance Agencies
Adopting Standards of Conduct:
- Transparency International (Zimbabwe Chapter) in the process of
formation.
Aims and Objectives:
a. Assisting the private and public sector, non-governmental
organizations, and the government to establish and implement
anti- corruption programmes.
b. Strengthening public support and understanding for anticorruption
programmes.
c. Enhancing public transparency and accountability in national
and international business transactions.
d. Adopting and popularizing the Standards of Conduct of
Transparency International (TI).
e. Encouraging all parties to national and international business
transactions to operate at the highest levels of integrity, guided
by the highest national norms and also by TI’s Standards of
Conduct.
f. Organising conferences, workshops, seminars, study
programmes and such other publicity campaigns and activities
aimed at countering corruption and promoting transparency and
accountability.
g. Doing such other things which are incidental or conducive to
the attainment of the aims and objects of the Chapter

Strategy:
1. To establish branches or sub-committees of life-minded individuals
and organizations to work with the government, private sector, public
sector and non-governmental organizations in designing and
implementing national anti-corruption programmes.
2. To establish close ties with the media, participate in public for a, and
use publicity campaigns to broaden public awareness of the damage
caused by corruption, the need to counter it and the means to reduce
it.

General Comments
Hon. Harmut Ruppel:
I feel that the legal framework should be right, that parliament should
produce strict regulatory frameworks for making sure that the processes are
at least from that perspective are going to be subjected to public scrutiny and
hopefully enhance transparency and accountability in the political systems
with a view to promoting good governance. But I think in the end it does not
depend on the words written in statues and regulations, it is part of it, but
most important again, is the commitment of the human factor. They must be
genuinely committed, everyone in the process of implementing and making
practical meaning of these laws. Now the first group of people which I found
often lacking are not the main problem. We always think of the top
hierarchy especially executive. Rather I think the major problem is the large
group of public officials.
In my experience, I discovered that for many reasons these public officials
found themselves in positions where they have to exercise discretionary
powers affecting the rights of people of citizens in thousands of bureaucratic
transactions everyday in our respective countries. These people are often not
well informed about the incredible power they wield in relation to making
our democracies credible and making them work in a transparent and
accountable fashion. They are not trained in understanding the laws they
have to apply. They don’t understand the basic principles of administering
law, of the principle of legality. Often I found that matters which should be
decided by officials just knowing their duties, knowing to find the provisions
and law which they are sent for legal interpretation to the office of the
Attorney General only because the administrative officials are not trained in
the basics of their job i.e. knowing administrative law.
On the other side, I think much more resources should be spent on that side
of the administration of our legal systems on that level. I think that is very
important that maximum resources and very practical ways are added to
training officials in manning their tremendously important work, doing their
job properly. I think our citizens should exercises their rights under our
constitutions which by and large are good. The new constitutions in our
there and exercise their rights. We have a clause under the basic human
rights, giving everyone of us a right to judicial administrative justice. We

can claim in our constitution that administrative officials including Cabinet
Ministers act fairly and reasonably but I cannot think of one single case in
the past five years of any consequence in which any administrative decision
has been challenged in the court. There was a lot of bickering and there was
a lot of criticism and so on in our free press. This is excellent, it is good, but
it is not remedial. It raises an expectation of a remedial action but it is not a
remedial action, that must come from the courts. The court must then be
supported obviously by the government if it means business with the
constitution and good governance. Ordinary citizens must be educated and
must be encouraged to assert their basic rights including their rights to do
their official jobs properly. And if we have a couple of these cases of official
reviews we would see very soon that there would be acknowledgement on
the ground by administrative officials. Again the cabinet that they may be
brought to book and that could be called to account publicly and openly and
the could be humiliated if they cannot show that they have done their work
or understood their work sometimes. It will have a very wholesome effect on
the whole system. I don’t think it is just writing out laws or merely
publishing them in government gazettes, it transcends it by a big margin and
it takes us to the realm of real people. Where people would be trying to do
their job on the one hand and real people are to be educated to claim their
rights saying I have the right to a clean government and it does not take me
too much to actually affect it. Review proceeding is not a big thing but it
must be done and it is the citizen, the ordinary citizen, who should be
encouraged to do that. It is a basic human right. It is there to be taken and it
must be taken. It is part of nation building. It is part of government and
definitely it is part of democracy and well obviously the protection and
building of human rights culture. I thank you.
Mrs. Oby Ezekwesili:
When we talk about the judiciary in terms of corruption, I come from a
country where the trenchant state of corruption has eaten deep into the fabric
of every arm of government that would have provided the last succor for the
poor people who have to carry the injustice that corruption portends. My
country can actually begin to export constitutions, so it is not a question of
whether the laws are there or a question of whether the rules are there. They
certainly are there. But we have a system where everybody has been running
roughshod and as far as the actors in the judicial process are concerned they
are equally battling with survival. We have a judiciary where the judge has
to attend to probably 50 cases in a day. He has to take down all his notes in

long hand. He does not have the basic infrastructures. Some of the judges
actually have to buy the stationery they use and then to demonstrate the
absurdity of the situation with our judiciary, even the No. 2 person in our
government did get up and said that he knows of judges who normally have
two judgements and that they bring out a particular judgement depending on
the person who settles them before the day of judgement. So, it is not for
want of the laws, it is not for want of the rules. It is something much more
than that. I think that takes us to the issue of the moral fabric of our various
nations. Someone was talking in the morning, I can’t remember who. He
said, corruption is a cultural thing. I disagree completely because I do know
that prior to colonization and prior to Christianity and the likes of other
religion that got transported to Africa, there was an identification with a god
that we did not know but whom we know existed and there were attitudes
that there was some moral sanction involved in anything that was considered
as being wrong and all of these things are things that touched on corruption.
A lot of those things were not done but suddenly the establishment of state
apparati meant that the people got alienated from the super-structure and
what then happened was that in my own particular area, in Nigeria, I am an
Igbo speaking Nigerian, what we call the civil service work is Olu Oyibo,
what this means is the whiteman’s job. So it does not in anyway mean our
job, it is somebody elses’ nobody feels that it affects me. What I do on that
job affects the other man.
There is that total alienation and then the problems of development, crisis of
underdevelopment and the trenchant poverty because a lot of judges actually
are earning salaries that are below the salary of who would I talk about
probably a clerk in any of the European countries and a lot of them have
responsibilities that goes with their position in society. Social
responsibilities that come along with the status they occupy in the society.
Let me say that it was all in realization of the fact that these judges can
easily fall prey to temptations that come from executives that made the
erstwhile president of Nigeria donate Mercedez Benz cars to justices of the
Supreme Court and of course the case is even in court as we talk here today.
In fact, what the deal has done is that it has compromised the trial that is
going on of Chief Abiola, who won the 1993 presidential elections. What
has happened is that the Supreme Court cannot meet because it was Chief
Abiola’s newspapers that prior to the election and the problem that came
with it, published the story of gift to Supreme Court judges. The judges and
so these judges went to court saying that they were maligned that it was
libelous to have published such issue. Now, it now comes to be that Abiola’s

case has to be entertained in the Supreme Court and they cannot sit because
whatever judgement they give people would say that the judgement is not
objective. So in our own kind of place, when we talk about the judiciary and
corruption, we could find one big book to file. I would not agree with
anyone who just says it is the strengthening of the laws and rules, I think it is
strengthening of the character of the individuals involved.
Thank you.
Interjection from the floor:
I have three questions to the speaker. He said that democracy is for all
persons to influence legislation and for judges to effect the law. There was
recently an article on the position of judges in New York and how they are
having difficulties with the plea bargaining the system. The minority group
of Americans are in prison at the moment in the largest numbers because of
the plea bargaining system and a lot of the judges argued that they are
merely responsible for implementing the law. I don’t want to look at it in the
South African situation during the old regime that we have had but I feel that
we need to apply our minds as to whether if we have agreement I think we
have the independence of the judiciary. We should not find a way in which
we can also make sure that judges were allowed to use to the benefit of
society as a whole. The expertise that they have acquired. That is one point.
The second point is one which I differ very strongly where the speaker said,
the raising of revenue should be decentralized and then said that the
decentralization of the raising and the expenditure of revenue increase
accountability. I think that one needs to look at that within our own
individual country that we come from. We may for example find that there
could be some political regions that are much more economically stronger
than others and how does one then create a balance based on equitable
distribution of resources.
The third point, Mr Chairman, is something that has been listed by the
speaker and I want to ask his opinion on that which is that it does not help
and I think the previous speaker has also allowed to that that he does not
have very much to help the laws and you don’t have people that can look at
the application thereof and that brings in the responsibility of those who
have to deal with policing, who have to look at the application law and order
in the society and very often we find that in our countries these people are
not adequately trained to do the necessary investigative work but to make it

possible for the legal process to be fair especially in so far as it relates to the
victims of these acts of corruption.
Anthony Deary:
I just want to have the benefit of information on the question of publication
of tender results. In Zimbabwe, although tender results are published but
these relates to central government tender supply for the parastatals and that
is where the main development issue occur. Other tender results are not
published. The mechanism is that the tenders are opened in public and the
names of tenderers and the price they have tendered are declared. Very
often, it is impossible to tell from those prices exactly what the tenderers
have specified in the particular tender and the likelihood for variation. There
is another new trick built into the system. It is absolutely designed to
encourage corruption. I mean it could be tailor made to facilitate corruption.
That is where you have a system of packages. There are usually two
packages. One contains technical specifications and the other package is
financial package. The financial packages are quite separate and it is not
opened as at the time the technical packages are opened and the names of the
tenderers are specified. This is justified on the ground that the particular
technology has to be examined independent of the price to make quite sure
that the right technology is selected. How you can choose the best value
system before you open the price I don’t know.
What you can certainly tell, who paid you most you to get their system into
the country and that’s exactly what seems to happen. The opening of a
financial package takes place in private with the organization which has
agreed to tender and the only packages that are opened are the financial
packages of two top tenderers, just to see that there are not too many
discrepancies in terms of the technology selected. It just hasn’t worked in
terms of keeping the system straight. The final point, I’m glad somebody has
mentioned God. There is a lack morality in the world today and I think it has
a great deal to do with out lack of any serious attention to our God with
whom we all identify with or should we say a lot of us identify with. I think
that one sees very clearly in countries where there has been redistribution of
wealth, where you have a great deal of more inequality such as in the
developed countries where, instead of crime being on the decrease, crime is
still on the increase and violent crimes are there. And where the lack of
morality in society leads to greed that is absolutely destroying the fabric of

the society. The power of carrying guns in various countries in the world and
the extent to which these guns are carried and used.
Another point you may set up a commission, the intention may be good, you
may enact a legislation, but if do not have the trained personnel who can
investigate acts of corruption, acts of human rights violations, it doesn’t help
the legal system in anyway, because, very often the magistrate or the judge
would have to sit over a case in which there is insufficient information and
quite often perpetrators of these acts would have very solid legal defence on
their side and such cases are thrown out of court because of what is called
lack of evidence. Therefore, I want to say that if you look at the legal and the
judicial system, what is important is that we should not divorce it from the
importance of the investigation.
When we talk of enforces, we only thing of the magistrates and the judges,
but I think that as you rightly pointed out, there is whole lot of people who
are involved in the judgement and they are important and very critical in the
whole judicial systems. Your tax collector, your administrator who issues a
stamp on your passport is a person who is carrying out an important judicial
role because that person has got the power to deny or to delay the issuance
of that stamp. So from even the ordinary clerk who sits there, those people
actually wield a lot of power. How to ensure that they actually act in terms
of the law is a two way process, is a way of their particular training, but it is
also the training of the consumers as well to actually insist on their rights to
say. I do have a right to be treated in this way and I’ve got the right to the
stamp now not tomorrow and so on. It is a process.
Beyers Naude:
May I ask, if you remember in the discussion, there was a reference that
came from Namibia, of the urgent need for the training of officials. Now is it
clear in the minds of the conference what exactly we mean and what kind of
training do we want to take place Have we got examples for instance, in
countries in which such training has taken place successfully or is it a field
that we feel should be looked at much more carefully than has been done up
till now Is there any response on the part of those that have any knowledge
or experience. It seems to be that, it would be helpful just to comment on
that. Otherwise it may affect us very seriously, there is need for it as it was
part of the agenda.

Ismail Adams:
Corruption on the one had is specific. Therefore, the issues that were raised
in terms of balance between centralization and decentralization and question
of tenders are country specific. However, there is an international dimension.
My view is that anything in that direction rests upon the availability of
information.
The question here is whether the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the
World Bank and the United Nations Organisation (UNO) as international
organizations have put forward rules and regulations in terms of
international tenders and other things where countries are required to strictly
adhere to these principle. My question is that in the corruption domain that
we are discussing here whether these international organizations have put
forward documents or have documented some of these training programmes
to put forward to developed and developing countries criteria upon which to
assess either the degree of corruption taking place in their countries. I am
constrained to note that has not taken place. My contribution here is that the
ALF should organize an international conference on corruption just as we
have had international conferences on environment, women and children, to
bring to bear global pressure on corruption. Although it is country specific, it
permeates across countries. In this particular instance, the international
dimension of a conference on international corruption will identify at least
some of the issues that have been arranged before the law in terms of
procurement, economic specific areas. Now the other thing I just want to say
here is that the issue of the whole morning and whole day in fact we have
been talking of the issue of transparency and accountability.
During the tea break, I spoke to Dr. Beyers Naude and I said, looking at
South Africa at the moment, we are becoming so transparent that we cannot
see anymore and I think that one has to be careful in that particular sense
that we want to put into place enforcement techniques. We are just putting
things in place but without knowing which direction we are really going.
Response form the floor:
I would try and say a few words on the remarks that has just been made by
Mr. Adams. I would say something the procurement rules of the
international organization I know better but it must be roughly the same with
the World Bank and others. It provides for transparent procurement systems

and procedures they really specifically deal with the problem of corruption.
In the text it is said that, I remember our own general rules there is one basic
sentence that the bidder must commit itself from the beginning, this is the
general rule too I think is to abide by the laws and regulations of the country.
Of course that is very general and is probably not sufficient and there is
another clause somewhere in our rule, that is, if somebody is convicted of
corruption then he will be exclude from further tendering or something but it
is rare that somebody will be convicted of corruption. You have a lot of
presumptions that it has happened. You receive knowledge that it has really
been proved and more really convicted. This is that, we leave that for
tomorrow’s discussion of Jeremy Pope, this is where T.I. promoting
something which goes beyond these text, and for which we find something
per se and with lesson for others which will be called the anti-bribery
commitment, say on the top of the general commitment to abide by the law
we expect and testing by now in Latin America in Ecuador in particular that
any tenderer as part of his offer of his bid, introduced a formal statement
signed by the Chief executive of the firm he will make known any
commission paid by himself or any of his representatives in any procedure
leading to a contract and in the contract implementation.
Finally, I want to get a clarification with regard to public tender system.
There are notices in their applications to be issued. Now, what I wanted to
know is at what stage would objections come in. I did not get you correctly
because it is a noble idea and I would like it adopted, it is very important, it
is never done in the majority of the countries no objectives whatsoever. At
what stage should that objection take place I suppose it is public objection.
Beyers Naude:
In public tender system, objections are already in place in certain
administrative procedures, for example, in town and country planning
whenever there is a certain proposal objection is implemented in a particular
manner and the public is given a number of days within which to object, if
there is no objection the scheme goes ahead as proposed. The same principle
can be extended also to the question of tendering probably in a modified
way. What is key and what is important is the publicity surrounding the
question of tendering. If the result, for example, of tenders over a period of
time were published and say if most of the jobs were won by a particular
company repeatedly that in itself can be so embarrassing to a corrupt system
that you may actually find job after job, job after job won by the same

company or related company and if it is a requirement that such information
be published, then, that becomes a deterrent. Since someone can pick that up
and say why is this happening like that That raises a lot of question. Also as
some contributors have already pointed out the real corruption can actually
begin after the tender has been won. And that is usually done by the
submissions, variations and so on. But for any amendment and other things,
those terms must be published so that if after the tender has been won and
has been awarded to Company A and you see in the gazette that this tender
has been reviewed and revalued so much then questions are going to be
asked about that particular issue. Is this question of publicity that becomes
very important and for any intended review and so on. Interested party can
then object which include also other companies which might have tendered
for that particular job because they actually know what is happening in that
field and then they would come back and say look this tender is faulty in A
B C D or sometimes when we think about the public participating in these
things we think about the public is just a mass of people but by public also.
Let us look at also other participants in the tendering system who actually do
posses expert knowledge and a things turn, once the tender has been won or
they have lost the tender, they have known way of coming back and asking
questions they keep quiet and say next time we would try whatever trick the
other company did to win the tender.
Then, the whole situation becomes self-perpetuating and becomes endemic.
Ben Hlatshwayo:
I thank you very much for those questions because they also give me
opportunity to explain further the point that I was trying to make on the
position of judges. We talk so much about the independence of the judiciary
usually by that we mean independence from the executive or from the
influence and control of the executive branch of government. But I think we
should broaden our understanding of the judiciary, I think the representative
from Nigeria has also pointed out that judges can be susceptible to corrupt
influence by individual litigants. But broader than that judges can also be
susceptible to corruption by entrenched sectional interest within the society.
Therefore, when we are talking about the independence of the judiciary we
mean independence from all those extraneous of the judiciary we mean
independence from all those extraneous influences which mean logically that
the judge has to be concerned almost exclusively now with the application of
the law itself. That means the judge is not sensitive to other issues

surrounding the problem at hand. It means that the judges are then able to
give a judgement free from those other influences. It will be very difficult. I
know it is very controversial but I can give an example on the question of
Zimbabwe.
When Zimbabwe passed its appropriation legislation our Chief Justice came
out strongly, which was very unprecedented, and said that, he would not
uphold the law passed by parliament on appropriation because in his
opinion, the law violated fundamental principles or pillars of the
constitution.
Now, as far as I am concerned, fundamental pillars of the constitution should
be reflected in the constitution itself but should not be left to the
interpretation of individual judges. Otherwise, the judge begins to read too
much into the law and through that way he can match consciously or
unconsciously, the interest of particular sections and not the interest of the
society as reflected in the law itself. America also is a good example,
because in America in 60s there was a lot of judicial activism. However, we
can have judicial activism of the left during the time of trying to bring into
fruition social engineering processes. Over the years in United States there
has been a backlash in the sense that then Republic government began to
pack the supreme court bench with right wingers. Today, we are facing an
America supreme court with judicial activism of the right. So, my position is
that judicial activism is a doublet edge sword that must be wielded with
court. So it better to turn that sword that must be wielded with court. So it
better to turn that sword into a ploughshare and not have activism of the
right or the left and leave activism of the political processes to where they
truly belong – to the parliament. That doesn’t mean that within the limited
area of manoeuvre, the judge cannot then use his or her sense of sensitivity
to solve a problem or to advance a particular point. But I think judges should
be aware that they are dealing with a very narrow field. They should not take
the short cut, they should know that the matter can go to the parliament
where it has to be worked out. In fact, recently, a supreme court judge in
Zimbabwe came up with an interesting judgement.
The national social security system was challenged in the supreme court on
the basis that it was an unlawful appropriation of private property without
compensation. The only way in which it could be spared being found
unconstitutional, was for the supreme court to rule that social security
contribution is a form of taxation. The supreme court came up with a

decision that indeed social security contribution is a tax. As far as I am
concerned, it was a beautiful socially conscious judgement, but all the same
a wrong judgement. It is not true that social security contribution is a tax
because tax. Because tax is a public. It is a measure of contribution imposed
on the public which is going to be used for public benefits and public
benefits is not related to the contribution of a particular individual to social
security system. But I think they should have been legalistic and allowed the
government to go back to parliament to amend the constitution and not to
allow those social security contributions to be raised compulsorily. I like this
judgement, but I think it is still based on the wrong interpretation of the law
in the constitution and I criticize if from the stand point that everyone else in
Zimbabwe have access to social security, but it is not correct to say that
social security contributions are a tax. There is a difference between the two
and the supreme court should have said that.
On the question of decentralisation, and raising of revenue. I am personally
in support of decentralisation in both cases. If you decentralize the raising of
taxes and the expenditure, then you improve the transparency and
accountability in the process. A lot of local governments get their funding
from the central government directly and therefore their constituencies see
only the expenditure. I would like to believe and insist that if the local
government structures were allowed powers to raise revenue and to spend
revenue, then their tax payers will literally see with their own eyes, the
schools, the roads, hospitals, which they built with the revenues and the
taxes that are paid. If those schools are not there, they will ask questions.
Because if all the money is put into this big national pot, its disappearance is
not obvious for everybody. In effect, decentralisation of sufficient powers of
raising and spending to local level means increase accountability and
transparency.
Similarly, with non-governmental organization, non-governmental
organizations especially in developing countries go for high visibility
projects. They choose those projects not sometimes in line with central
government planning and development. I will be a bit contradictory here.
My position is that for large capital expenditures, the contribution of nongovernmental
organizations should be centralized and be distributed from a
central purse. This should guard against it being given to specific interest
groups without it fitting within a uniform planning process. Of course, that
appears to be recentralising but the way you can ensure it still fits within

decentralisation is to involve also representatives from the decentralized
structure at this apex organization as well.
Also for churches and organizations which sprout so well in a lot of
countries going through the so-called structural adjustment programme. It is
probably better also to encourage their membership to assist on transparency
in the accounting and expenditure for their contribution.
There are a lots of money which people contribute in some of these
churches. Usually some of the monies go back to the headquarters of those
organizations which usually are not in the developing countries but in
developed countries but they come back in aids and sometimes in terms of
bags of used clothing as well and there is not proper accountability. Why not
try to encourage the involvement of states in the operations of nongovernmental
organization or church organizations but what one is saying is
that there should be public accountability and the state can actually insist
through legislation that those organization be accountable to their
membership. So that when people make those contributions they should be
fully accounted for and when they once spend there should be useful
accountability.
There is no need for me to spend a lot of time on tender systems. There is
accountability and the law can help in that process. In fact, talking of that
reminds me of a joke about one Ministers in a particular African country,
who had a penchant for demanding bribe. He became so infamous that he
was nicknamed Mr.10% because of his demand for kickbacks on
government contracts. On one occasion, the Head of State of his country
called this minister to his office. This Head of State actually used to beat up
his ministers. He normally carries a cane and used the same to beat his
minister. This minister went crawling and groveling before the Head of
State. The Head of State lifted his stick as it was customary of him and said
to him “I hear you are called Mr. 10%” “I understand that you are
collecting 10% on every government contract and pocket it. Where is my
share, where is my share.’ With each question came a whack on the head of
the minister. The minister apologized profusely with a promise to deliver.
Thus instead of the Head of State really solving the problem, he was only
demanding his share and perpetuating corruption. But that can be reduced if
there is transparency, if there is publicity of the processes leading to the
tendering and the results of that tendering.

With the advent of the Structural Adjustment Programmes and
privatization/commercial going on in a lot of developing countries, this is
going to be extremely critical. If there is no requirement for publicity, in
fact, the mere requirement of publicity or publication in a government
gazette is in itself a small thing but it is such a useful restriction. It means
that one cannot simply say I like this contract and must take it tomorrow. If
there is a prior requirement of publication in the government gazette, it
would delay that deal, until perhaps like in Zimbabwe, the government
gazette comes out the next Friday.
But more than that it means then that there should be possibility the law can
allow objections and comments by members of the public so there could be
that intervention. And the contracts signed thereafter also be available and
published so that people know the terms that have been agreed. Upon. Those
small legal steps are very important and I emphasized right form the start
because at times we tend to demand too much from the law as if the law can
solve all our problems but if we really insist on the law, those administrative
steps and processes to be taken then we are likely to get more from the law
than trying to get actually grand result from it. So I will be more cautious in
terms of what I demand from the law and if one demands all those things the
law can actually work quite effectively in that regard.
I was going to discuss about our on going efforts in Zimbabwe to try and
come up with a Chapter of TI in Zimbabwe. The process it has taken is long,
but probably the patience that is required to bring the process about we make
sure that when the chapter is fully and formally inaugurated it is going to be
a strong one. But the process involves getting the private sector, government
officials having interested parties identifying with the principles of TI. The
process also involve those parties talking to each other and trying to find out
the best way in which such a chapter can be incorporated and what activities
are going to be undertaken. I think at the end of the day if it is less ambitious
we will be effective and successful, because you cannot solve the problem of
corruption outright overnight and take the basic steps of ensuring
transparency in a number of activities and so on and that is generally
agreeable. It would leave a very sound basis on which to crawl and become
very strong.

I will to point out also that there is a need to balance inequitable
development of various regions, but that can be done even in a decentralized
system. You decentralize the raising of revenue and expenditure thereof, but
you take care of the inequitable development of the regions by having a
system whereby certain % of revenue raised in other areas are pooled into
the common pool and then redistributed. I heard that Chile tried that system
and that it was working very well. We know that especially under apartheid
or oppressive regimes, there is an uneven and inequitable development that
takes place and therefore certain regions do not have the financial resources
or sources of raising revenue but you allow them to raise as much as they
can but you can get the people involved at the local level also at the central
level or you’ve got the redistribution of locally raised revenue. The locally
raised revenue is important in order to have the electorate that understands
that if it wants certain services, it has to pay for them. An electorate that is
not also indifferent to the way in which its revenues are expended.
Decentralisation could also help in achieving that. What one is not happy
about is a situation in which localities or local authorities simply receive
from the central government certain monies. But usually those localities are
contributing to the central purge in a way that is not transparent. It does not
ensure that it is actually their money, the revenue that they’ve raised that is
coming back to them.
All one is interested in is a more transparent process and if that system
becomes transparent, then there is more accountability. There is the demand
from the electorate itself on how their revenue has been expended and how
the expenditure could be proved in the future. I am also of the believe that
apart from the laws themselves, you have to train the people. You have to
make them sensitive and so in their application, make them consultative.
Sometimes we do have the law but we do use them ineffectively on very
basic things.
If there is time, so that I don’t have to come back again, the chairman with
your permission. Allow me also to make a comment on the question of the
issue of international loans given to corrupt regimes and expended by those
corrupt regimes. It is a challenge to international law because we know that
in terms of the law of contracts, any person in a contractual system is
supposed to minimize their loses as much as possible. But a lot of
international financial organizations have continued to pump in loans to such
regimes that they know very well are expending monies corruptly and not
for the populace of those countries and then they are going to demand

epayments of these loans. Some legal scholars have said that this could be
the basis on which democratic regimes can refuse to bear the burden of loans
incurred by past corrupt regimes. It is a challenge to international law so that
international financial organizations should also be careful when they are
lending to corrupt regimes. This, of course, raise some questions about the
structural adjustment programme. Probably the international financial
organizations wanting to be responsible in the lending and insisting the
money is used in an accountable manner. In a way, there is something
positive there.
The field of judicial system is a very wide one so you’ll forgive me that I
just picked and choose those areas, if you like, which were closest to my
heart and probably left out a lot of important things I do agree with you that
the enforcement mechanisms are complicated, that they are expensive the
way out is to simplify them. But not simplifying them by sacrificing a lot of
due process issues. More legal aid to help and para-legal forms rather than
straight expensive adjucation could be utilized. I have in my outline talked
about the office of OMBUDSMAN or the public prosector system and other
systems that can be widened in their area of activity could be widen. So that
they can take up issues in their own rights without waiting for a complaints
to come before them so that the system becomes self enforcing. There are
also self regulatory measure which are really outside the strict laws of court
or courts and a number of institutions and organizations should be
encouraged to actually play a rule in that regard.
In most societies, there are consumer councils and other civil organizations
which could be encouraged to take active role on issues of corruption so that
we don’t delay so much with individual redress. But also deal with
continuing system of monitoring and the question of preach and so on. On
the attitude problem, there could be simple sadistic solution take up all those
justices with bad attitudes and shoot them. But that is not how you solve
problems in life. You have to engage in a process of education, you have to
engage also in a process of ensuring that a lot of civil organizations and
others also make certain representations. And processes also of nominating
and appointing the people to the bench should be transparent and above
board and involved more than simply the executive act of saying I am
appointing so and so which could be done also as a way of patronage and
paying back past political allies and so on. When they have outlived their
usefulness as political allies they are shooed out of the bench to carry out
other functions but if the profession, the legal profession and so on were

more active in that role and of course the law which allows them to actually
participate, then we may actually have better quality on the bench. But it is a
continuous process and the existence of a norm must be applied as a kind of
check to those attitudes. There is a need for ongoing continuous learning and
so on in order to continue sensitizing the bulk of the people to the problems
of the time.
Thank you.

8
Mass Media and the Campaign
Against Corruption
by
Allister Sparks
In my first book, The Mind of South Africa, written in 1988 at a time when
many people in this country were obsessed with the fear that we were facing
a Total Onslaught by revolutionary forces intent on replacing apartheid with
communists, I wrote that my greatest fear for South Africa’s future was not
ideological. It was the fear of corruption. That I said is not communism or
any other ism, it was the cancer of Africa, the continent, bringing
debilitation and earth to country after country.
Today, seven years later, I am confirmed in that view. We can all see now
that communism was a bogey exploited by the apartheidists to justify the use
of ruthless methods to perpetuate their system of racial oppression. As was
evident at that time, the ANC is a pragmatic, not an ideologically driven
organization. But the threat of corruption is already evident, with some of
the heroes of our liberation struggle already fallen prey to its temptations.
If the great South African experiment fails, it is corruption that will cause its
failure.
Why is this so Why is this continent of ours so prone to this disease
Let me say right away that I believe all mankind is prone to it. Greed is
surely the most universal of the seven deadly sins. But Africa does indeed
seem to be particularly susceptible, and if we are to protect ourselves from
infection we should look to the reasons why and find the possible safeguards
to it.
First of all, it stems from poverty. When poor people who have never had
anything suddenly accede to power, with its perks and comforts and above

all its access to public funds, the temptations are often too great to resist.
Poverty and underdevelopment are another causative and are more
fundamental way as well. If a country’s resource base is too small then its
politics tends to degenerate into a struggle between competing elites to gain
control of what little there is. This leads to the phenomenon of the
patrimonial regime, in which an authoritarian leader survives through the
prodigious dispensation of corruption – funded patronage, while the
economy spins out of control. He makes copious payments to reward cronies
and allies and to buy off opponents, causing a spectacular fiscal
haemmorhage to the economy. Thus, the rulers live richly off what little fat
the land has, while the people starve.
What to do about it Prescribing a remedy is more difficult than making the
diagnosis. The diagnosis itself is relatively simple. The phenomenon stems
from having a government without accountability. In other words, an
undemocratic government without the instruments for ensuring that an
informed public is able to hold the government accountable, that is, a free
mass media.
Africa, grievously, lacks a free mass media. Those of you who read this
morning’s Business Day will have seen the results of a recent survey which
shows that 80% of Africa’s people do not have access to even a partly free
domestic press. According to this survey, by the New York-Based Freedom
House, only 4 out of 51 African countries have a free press. They are South
Africa, Namibia, Botswana and Malawi. (I am happy to note that all are in
our Southern African region). 19 were graded as partly free, and 28 not free
at all.
Some months ago, Judge Richard Goldstone, who headed the Commission
that investigated political violence in South Africa, uttered one of the
world’s fundamental truths when he addressed a Press Club lunch in Cape
Town. “Show me a country where there is not a free press”. Judge Goldstone
said, “and I will show you a country where human rights are trampled
upon”.
He might have added that he could then also show us a country where
corruption, waste and poor administration are rife and where aid projects are
money down the drain. For the most fundamental of all checks and balances
is an informed public. And to have that you must have a free and vigorous
mass media. It is not only that such a media is itself able to fulfil a watchdog

ole by exposing acts of corruption, but by keeping the public informed of
the affairs of the nation for the public itself to be able to call its rulers to
account.
To note this is to note where Africa went wrong. When African countries
first began moving towards independence, it became the conventional
wisdom that they could not afford such so-called First World “luxuries” as
democracy and a free press. Their primary needs were too great and too
urgent, it was argued, the need for health, housing, education and economic
infrastructure. All the resources of the nation had therefore to be mobilized
to provide these. The media, too, had to be geared to this primary task of
nation-building. It has to inform the public of government decisions and
government projects and mobilize their cooperation. The media could not be
allowed to criticize, for that would undermine confidence in government,
cause divisions and opposition and slow down the urgently-needed
development. Hence the one-party political systems and the emergence of
what I call “ventriloquist media”
The result, of course, was the opposite of what was proclaimed. Without
accountability, the ruling elites quickly entrenched themselves in power, and
with no checks and balances and no informed electorate to restrain them
they plundered the meager resources of the nation. Nepotism and corruption
flourished, and all the good development projects crumbled in the general
economic decline.
That, then, is the diagnosis. The remedy, as I said, is more difficult to apply.
We know now from bitter experience that successful development must
begin with successful democratic institutions to ensure accountability, and
that first among these institutions is a free media. But we know, too, that
there is nothing that entrenched dictatorships are more intent on preventing
than a free media.
Regrettably, too, there is nothing that is easier to prevent. A free press is a
fragile thing, easily crushed, especially in societies that have had no
experience of it and have therefore not learned to appreciate its importance
and defend it. Too often it is used as a scapegoat and is easily smeared. Too
often, also, it discredits itself through incompetence or sensationalist
reporting that hypes and distorts facts for the sake of increased audience.
Regrettably, the media has to survive in a commercial market place, which
means it always has to strive for sales, listenership and viewership to ensure

its commercial viability. Yet, it cannot survive other than in the market
place, for a state-owned press is by definition not free. That is, its structural
weakness, and there is so easy solution to it.
The only remedy I know, imperfect though it is, is to keep trying: to keep on
sensitizing the public to the importance of a free media, and to keep on
sensitising the media to the importance of its own role and of the need
constantly to maintain standards. It is essential to democracy, and thus to
corruption-free development, but it is as fragile as an eggshell and can easily
be crushed.

Mass Media and the Campaign
Against Corruption
by
Lebona Mosia
Introduction:
Although corruption is regarded as unacceptable worldwide, it is actually
increasing in many countries – often because of the complexity and
sophistication of modern economies, which allow it to remain unchecked for
long periods. Southern Africa is no exception, but in those countries in the
region that are less developed, the effects of corruption are particularly
serious.
There is a ray of hope, through the watchdog role of the media.
To put the problem of corruption in perspective, it should at once be pointed
out that, contrary to the focus given by some foreign press reports,
corruption is not a peculiarly African phenomenon. Indeed, no country is
exempt: the United States, Japan and the countries of Europe all have had,
and still have, their corruption scandals.
Although corruption is a problem in most African countries, there are
historical reasons for this. First, there has been the absence of democratic
governance with counter- balancing institutions capable of curbing
corruption. Moreover, the suppression of opposition parties in many African
countries and the absence of a free press have made it easier for corruption
to go unchecked.
A second reason is the psychological drive of people emerging from poverty
to acquire wealth. This has been true of all societies in the early stages of
change to democracy. (Russia, today, is a good example of this).

A third reason is that in the turbulent years following African independence,
those who managed to gain power were never sure ho long they would
remain in office. They need to “make hay” while the going was good often
became an overriding imperative.
Because of this historical legacy, very few African countries have introduced
effective laws to deal with corruption…or, fro that matter, codes of conduct
that force politicians, civil servants and business people to be more
accountable and transparent in their activities.
However, in those countries where the mass media is independent of
government, or shows signs of becoming so, media exposure of corruption
offers the best hope of reducing - or at least containing – corruption.
But what exactly is corruption
In a recent editorial, the Harare-based Southern Africa Political and
Economic Monthly (SAPEM) put it this way:
“Corruption has become such a common place word in contemporary
society that it now defies definition except as describing everything and
anything that is bad in society. For the person in the street, corruption is
associated with all that is unsavoury about those in power, bad government,
inefficiency and extortion. Corruption represents the degeneration of
leadership and officialdom, gross dishonesty and greed; it reflects the
highest level of unaccountability in a society which, therefore, can hardly be
democratic in its political, social and economic conduct. Corruption
provokes anger in the general population, most times exasperation and a
sense of helplessness against those – mainly those in a position of power and
influence – who are its perpetrators.” 39
The Berlin-based NGO, Transparency International, whose aim is to build
international and national and national coalitions against corruption, defines
two types of corruption. First, there is what is calls “grand corruption”,
which involves big business and highly placed individuals in society; and
second, there is “petty corruption”, which is characterized by small bribes in
exchange for favours. Those involved in the later form are usually public
officials or small to medium level business people.
39 SAPEM, June 1995, p.3

Transparency International (incidentally, one of its co-founders is the
detained Nigerian statesman Olusegun Obasanjo) says grand corruption is
mainly caused by greed and an insatiable desire to accumulate wealth by
whatever means. Petty corruption, on the other hand, results from poverty,
40 41
low wages and the every increasing cost of living.
But what the causes and motives for corruption, its cumulative effect east
away at African societies. The Director of South Africa’s Centre for African
Studies, Eugene Nyati, goes as far as to say that the main cause of Africa’s
problems has been its domestic corruption. He says a new ethos of
accountability has to be developed in the continent, adding that Africans
tend to worship their leaders too much, many of whom think they are not
accountable to their constituency. 42
Some analysts think that corruption thrives in countries where the state does
not play a dominant role in most spheres of life. Business practices are not
properly regulated, in many cases due to a lack of appropriate legislation.
This opens the way for corruption, often in the form of bribery by big
business and multinational corporations that have vested interests in
exploiting Africa’s resources at all costs.
Other analysts believe that excessive government intervention in the
economy crates the environment for criminal elements to profit at the
expense of the public. Situations where the state combines the roles of
employer, consumer, regulator and producer – coupled with a lack of
governmental transparency and a controlled or weak news media-provide
fertile ground for corruption.
However, as the new culture of democracy and openness begins to take hold
in some part of the continent, particularly in Southern Africa, the news
media is beginning to play a significant role in exposing corruption.
Moreover, the Windhoek-based Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA)
strictly monitors press freedom and possible government pressure on
journalists on an on-going basis.
40 SAPEM, June 1995, p. 5
41 Only 11 African governments have allowed TI offices to be established in their countries.
42 Business Day, November 3, 1993, p. 6.

But the role of the media in exposing and reporting corruption in Southern
Africa varies very much from country to country: so let’s now examine each
in turn.
In Malawi, Southern Africa’s newest democracy, President Bakili Mulizi has
undertaken to establish a commission to tackle corruption in industry and
within government itself. The press, comprising three dailies and at least ten
weekly newspapers, seems well positioned to expose corruption without fear
of a government crackdown.
Although some papers are more able to exercise editorial independence than
others, almost all have a sufficient degree of editorial autonomy to leave the
conclusion that Malawi has a free press. Indeed, the Editor-in-Chief of The
Nation, Alfred Ntonga, says he has never experienced interference with
editorial comment. As he puts it: We can bash the UDF Government, we can
bash the MCP, we can bash anybody. 43
At independence, Namibia inherited considerable corruption from the
system of eleven ethnic authorities set up by the former South African
administration in a bid to buy votes. Pension fraud was common and there
was evidence of “ghost” teachers and even “ghost” schools featuring on
ministry payrolls. Some returned exiles, joining the civil service, also
ignored the rules and sought short-cuts to riches.
But Namibia’s independent media has played an important role in
monitoring and reporting corruption. The press revealed that emergency
drought relief money in 1992-93 was used to sink boreholes on land
occupied by some government ministers.
A government commission of enquiry that was set up subsequently found
that “ministers, political office bearers and other individuals” received
“unfair advantage” in decisions on where boreholes would be drilled.
Since the release of the commission’s report last month (June), the European
Community has indicated that a Namibian government request for drought
aid will come under closer scrutiny. 44
43 African Business, July/August 1995, p. 38.
44 Sapa-AP, Citizen, 22 June 1995

Western governments have always regarded Botswana as a mode democracy
with a free press. However, this view, according to the opposition Botswana
National Front, is simplistic, and press freedom in Botswana has been
somewhat erratic.
In 1992, BNF official Paul Rantao – referring to a land scandal involving
two governments ministers – said previous reports damaging to the
government had always been suppressed. Echoing this view, BNF leader
Kenneth Koma said (quote): “the only difference now is that the media are
no longer afraid to expose government corruption. The papers, like
everybody in Botswana, knew about it, but they were scared to publish. That
fear is now gone.”
At the time, political commentators pointed out that the ministers concerned
would still have been in their posts had the press failed to expose this
corruption. 45
In 1994, Botswana was once again in the grips of another major financial
scandal. This time the press published details of huge loans made to top
ministers, including President Ketumile Masire, who was forced to repay the
money. After last year’s general election, political observers said the
revelations of corruption clearly contributed to the ruling party’s poorer
showing).
Though Botswana’s press has a legal right to publish what it chooses, the
Botswana government – like most governments – remains sensitive to
criticism. Government ministers frequently criticize the press and sometimes
threaten legal action. Earlier this year, President Masire went as far as to
criticize a journalist of The Gazette newspaper, after he had exposed
divisions within the ruling party.
All in all, it seems, then, that Botswana’s press is doing a reasonable job as a
watchdog, gnawing away at the bone of corruption, and, in turn, hopefully
contributing towards a more open democracy.
In Zimbabwe, the President of the Commission in charge of controlling state
expenditure, Alois Mangwende, has admitted that corruption in government
is a serious problem.
45 The Star, 17 March 1992.

He says illegal funds are obtained mainly by demanding bribes for
government contracts, and illegal benefits are involved in all purchases for
government departments.
Independent newspapers in Zimbabwe, though often prepared to expose
corruption, do so at considerable risk. This was revealed last year when the
Media Institute of Southern Africa announced last year that Zimbabwean
journalist Basildon Peta of the Daily Gazette had won the 1994 MISA Press
Freedom Award.
MISA said that after exposing massive tax evasion by companies owned by
the ruling Zanu-PF party, Peta was “repeatedly detained, interrogated and
finally charged by police in terms of Zimbabwe’s Official Secret Act”.
“During five days of incessant questioning”, MISA continues, police tried to
make Peta reveal who had given him the information. However, Peta
remained true to his professional ethics and refused to reveal his sources”.
(Regrettably, the Daily Gazette closed in December last year, after running
out of funds).
The London-based New-African magazine said in its March issue (on the eve
of the Zimbabwean elections) that there was increasing government control
of the news media. It said that now the Gazette had gone, only governmentcontrolled
dailies remained, and they “will certainly not be exposing any
scandals in the Zanu-Zimbabwe’s weeklies were also government-controlled
except for the business weekly, The Financial Gazette.
MISA has actually asked Zimbabwe’s Minister of Information, David
Karimanzira, to scrap his own ministry, because, it says, it is stifling press
freedom! The request follows threats by the Minister last year that he would
crack down on foreign correspondents, as well as ministerial criticism of
local journalists. 46
The South African Sunday Times reported last month (June) that
Zimbabwe’s state-controlled media failed to report on corruption involving
the deceased former Trade and Commerce Minister, Christopher
Ushewokunze, although the details came out in open court. State prosecutors
46 New African, March 1995, p. 31.

admitted that the late minister ordered a manager to milk an amount of
around R200,000 (Z$455,087) from a parastatal company in 1992. The
scandal was exposed only after legal sources leaked key documents,
including the High Court record.
Another view of press freedom in Zimbabwe is given by Tim Chogodo,
Editor of The Weekly Sun, which is one of a number of recently established
publications in the country. He says “The political climate in the 1980s
would not have allowed these papers. Zimbabwe now has a very free and
open society”.
This view is shared by the Editor of the rival Weekly Tribune, Douglas
Rinomhota, who says “There was a climate of fear before. You just got
scared. But now, there is more tolerance from the government. We are
producing a paper which gives information, even if it offends the
government”.
But despite this apparent openness, certain topics remain sacrosanct, as the
Financial Gazette discovered when it published alleged details of President
Mugabe’s private life. The criminal libel cases which followed is still
making its way through the courts.
In Zambia, there was a similar instance of presidential sensitivity last year,
when journalists of the Weekly Post were charged with insulting President
Frederick Chiluba. They had reported on a court case in which the President
was called a “twit” by a former government minister.
MISA commented at the time that recent developments in Zambia
threatened press freedom and the safety of journalists.
Last month, the Editor-in-Chief of The Post, Fred M’membe, was arrested,
following the publication of a report concerning the police interrogation of a
woman on suspicion that she might be the person who had leaked
information concerning the President’s private background. 47
47 According to M’membe, she was the President’s Zairean lover, with whom he has an eight-year-old
daughter.

Mr. M’membe says although the Zambian authorities have not banned any
publication so far, they often threaten to do so. In any case, he says, the
repressive media laws left by the colonial administration and the former oneparty
regime are still in place or have been expanded. He points out that a
Parliamentary and Ministerial Code of Conduct Act was passed last year to
further curtail public criticism of the actions of those in power. 48
However, corruption in Zambia remains a problem, as admitted by the acting
Director of Operations of Zambia’s Anti-Corruption Commission, Isaac
Mbewe. He points out that, in terms of the legislation that established his
Commission, corruption is too narrowly defined as merely involving bribes
or inducement. The definition, he says, needs to be expanded so that the
Commission can deal with cases of abuse of public office and other corrupt
practices not covered by the definition. 49
Corruption, then, in Zambia is a continuing problem, but voices such as
those of Fred M’membe continue – in the face of legal restraints – to expose
it.
Angola and Mozambique – both recovering from civil war – are bound to
have serious corruption problems while their governments struggle to assert
their authority throughout their vast territories. Perhaps, in these cases, it is
too early to examine in any depth the role of the press in exposing this
problem.
However, in April this year, the Sowetan newspaper reported that journalists
in Angola were under threat and that criticism of the government was a risky
business. The newspaper interviewed the widow of journalist Ricardo Mello,
Mrs. Arminda Mateus, who said her husband had been killed after he had
received a threat. Mello, Editor of the independent newspaper Imparcial
Fax, had been telephoned by a senior military official, who had told him to
stop publishing details of military activity.
According to Mrs. Mateus, her husband was shot because he dared to run an
independent newspaper critical of the government.
48 Business Day, July 9, 1994.
49 SAPEM, Jun 1995, p. 10.

Hopefully, this is an isolated incident (indeed, if there is substance in these
claims), and that as Angola moves towards democracy, it will commit itself
to a truly free and open media.
In Mozambique, the government has undertaken to create an anti-corruption
commission after opposition legislators said widespread graft would derail
development plans. Mozambique already has a reputation for much petty
corruption, typified by the ubiquitous prawn-smuggling rackets.
According to MISA, the press in Swaziland – at least a year ago – was under
pressure. It says Douglas Loffler, the owner of the country’s only
independent newspaper, The Times, was ordered to leave the country after
the authorities refused to extend his work permit.
Since then, Mr. Loffler has been allowed to return, and although he has
taken a back seat, the outspoken newspaper, edited by Vusi Ginindza,
continues to expose corruption fearlessly. Recently, it published details of
the so-called Swaziland Development and Savings Bank scandal in which
massive amounts in irregular loans were made to top officials and other
prominent people. The money should have gone to peasant farmers and
small businessmen, who find it difficult to get loans from commercial
banks. 50
The Times, then, remains a bean of light in a sea of government controlled
media. May it continue to shine.
In Southern Africa’s other kingdom, Lesotho, a vast improvement in press
freedom, has been reported since the government of Prime Minister Ntsu
Mokhehle was elected in 1993. The independent papers, Leselinyana and
Moeletsi, have no problem in criticizing or questioning the government.
Today, there are no reports of journalists being harassed, as was the case
under the previous military regimes and the one-party government.
Indeed, the government newspaper, Makatolle, is surprisingly free in its
views, also questioning the government when it feels it necessary. 51
Now let us turn our attention to South Africa.
50 Business Day, July 9, 1994 and correspondent.
51 Correspondent

The Southern Africa Political and Economic Monthly (SAPEM) says
corruptions levels in the country have escalated so dramatically that
international investors now perceive the country to be on a par with Nigeria.
It says the South African Regional Crime Combating Council estimates that
white collar crime amounts to more than R350 billion (over 95 billion US
dollars). 52
A so-called “corruption index”, published this month by Transparency
International, places South Africa 21 st on a list of the world’s most corrupt
major trading nations. (The least corruption country was New Zealand; with
Indonesia, China and Pakistan the most corrupt. Incidentally, Japan was
ranked 22 nd – only one better than South Africa).
Both the African National Congress and the South African Communist Part
have, however, discussed ways of stamping out corruption. The SACP
recently circulated a draft code of conduct aimed at preventing members
who may enter Parliament from becoming involved in corrupt practices.
In December last year, President Nelson Mandela himself called for a moral
crusade to put an end to rampant corruption in the public and private sectors.
He told the ANC party conference that in the last days of apartheid, South
Africa had become a society in which the dividing line between the legal and
the illegal had become blurred. To counter this he proposed a campaign,
with the participation of the religious community, to set the country on a
new moral footing.
While welcoming Mr. Mandela’s campaign, the independent weekly
newspaper, Mail and Guardian, suggested that it should begin with various
high-profile figures, including Dr. Allan Boesak, then Ambassadordesignate
to the UN in Geneva, who wa alleged to have been involved in the
misappropriation of funds donated by a Danish aid agency. 53
In February this year, the African National Congress instituted a strict code
of conduct for its members, as well as a disciplinary committee to probe
allegations of corruption by its officials. President Manadela, however,
acknowledged that compliance was not something which could be achieved
overnight.
52 SAPEM, June 1995, p. 12.
53 Mail and Guardian, December 23, 1994.

The same month, the Sowetan reported that an investigation carried out by
the newspaper had found that Members of Parliament were involved in the
embezzlement of R138 million intended for ex-political prisoners.
According to the newspaper, part of the money had been used by MPs to
purchase business properties both at home and abroad.
Last month, the Saturday Star reported that corrupt Home Affairs officials
were hampering police attempts to stem the tide of illegal immigrants into
South Africa. In 1994 alone, according to the report, police had arrested 23
Home Affairs officials for helping illegal immigrants to obtain passports and
identity documents.
South Africa’s corruption problem, however, reaches for back into the years
of apartheid rule, where it had become a virtual industry, particularly in the
upper echelons of the civil service.
In 1992, the Pickard Commission of Enquiry into the former Department of
Development Aid found that the Department was ‘rife with dishonesty and
abuse”, leaving a legacy of theft, corruption and maladminstration costing
millions, if not billions, in state funds.
As Judge Pickard himself put it: “One fact stands like a pole above the
water: namely that since 1984 at least the top management of the department
had thorough knowledge of these problems. The Commission could find no
indication that effective or successful measures were taken to bring about a
reversal of the situation”.
Another Commission of Enquiry – this time into corruption among top
prison and health officials – found a trail of dishonesty going back to 1986.
The inquiry found that senior officials of the departments of Correctional
Services and of Health had accepted bribes, which had resulted in expensive
but inferior soya-based foods being given to prisoners. The losses to the state
had amounted to millions of rands.
In 1993, commenting on rampant government corruption, Democratic Party
Member of Parliament Geoff Engel said that the President FW de Klerk was
running an administration that had cost the taxpayers R5 billion in the
previous 18 months alone, and had caused the economy to decline

significantly. Mr. Engel’s remarks were quoted in an in-depth report on
corruption published in the Sowetan newspaper. 54
Some of the worst corruption in South Africa was perpetrated in the former
homelands of Bantustans, as financial controls were poor, and central
government often turned a blind eye because of political considerations. As
the Sowetan’s Investigations Editor, Mathatha Tsedu put it: “Corruption was
necessary to keep the system going”.
A recent investigation by The Argus newspaper into corruption in the former
Transkei homeland over nearly two decades found that billions of rands had
gone astray. It concluded with this damning indictment: “in the end, in the
last days of the Transkei’s existence as a supposedly independent state, no
one was bothering to keep accounts”.
Now let us turn to the broadcasting medium.
Only South Africa and Namibia have legal guarantees for the independence
of national broadcasting. However, Mozambique has a liberal licensing
policy and several private and religious stations have taken advantage of
this. They include Radio Miramar, linked to an evangelical sect, and Radio
FM, secular station owned by the independent Multi-media Society.
In Zambia, after President Chiluba came to power, he appointed a new
Director of Broadcasting, who tried to establish an independent status. But
within a few months, he was dismissed and the Permanent Secretary of the
Ministry of Information was put in charge. 55
In its latest issue, New African Magazine says although it was Africa’s free
press that gained attention since democratic change began in 1990s, “It is in
radio where the real revolution is happening”. The magazine says the
number of radio sets in Africa has increased ten times from seven million in
the mid-1960s to 76 million today, and the market is still growing fast.
54 Sowetan, March 2, 1993
55 New African, July/August 1995, p. 17.

However, New African says African governments are unduly worried that
private radio stations will become political vehicles that can be used against
them; but most, it says, simply want to make money and entertain the public,
with politics quite far down the agenda. 56
Nevertheless, many of these stations are independent, and, as Africa’s new
culture of democracy and openness hopefully grows, some at least could
play a constructive role in talk-back shows, where public grievances and
concerns about corruption are aired.
Certainly, corruption in a serious problem both internationally and in our
own continent.
Transparency International estimates that 15 per cent of the amount involved
in all international transactions is paid in bribes and kickbacks to senior
government officials involved in business negotiations. The funds obtained
through such deals never see their way into Africa, as they are secretly
deposited in foreign bank accounts.
Confronted with the enormity of this problem, and the public’s frequent
need for scapegoats, some less professional journalists may be tempted to
resort to campaigns of personal vilification, often based on rumour; which,
in turn, may lead to justified counter-charges of a “witchhunt”. This can
prove to be very counter-productive.
Recently, the Star’s ombudsman looked into this problem and then posed the
question: “When does press reporting of scandal become a witchhunt” The
answer he gave was: “When it becomes clear that a publication is
determined to smear someone’s reputation without justification”.
Obviously, this is sometimes difficult to judge, but it certainly should not be
beyond the capacity of a seasoned editor.
Another instance where journalists can slip up is mentioned by Zambian
Post Editor, Fred M’membe, who warns against their being coopted by
government. Describing it as “the cancer of our profession”, he says in some
countries in the region journalists are recruited as press secretaries by
government to assist in censorship.
56 Star, July 14, 1995, p. 10.

“Let us retreat from pyramids of power”, he urges. “What should worry us is
the immense work in our profession that remains undone”.
This is a noble sentiment with which, I am sure, all journalists concerned
about exposing corruption will readily identify.
Diary Note: At a meeting of the World Economic Forum, held in May this
year, Southern Africa’s top business executives launched an initiative
against corruption, which will culminate in a major anti-corruption
conference to be held at the World Trade Centre at Kempton Park on August
15. Enquiries: (011) 7899463/4.

9
Civil Society and Mobilisation
Against Corruption
by
Eric Molobi
Transparency and accountability are words that have assumed pride of place
in the lexicon of the new South Africa. They are; the principles for which we
have waged our political struggle, and the cornerstone of a just and
democratic society free from poverty and oppression. They are enshrined in
our new constitution and entrenched in our Bill of Rights. They are some of
the beacons of hope that guide us towards a bright future.
But they are mere words, and words are cheap, particularly when they are
measured against the cost of corruption currently threatening our nations. It
is unnecessary the most murderous and callous nation in the world.
We only have to look at the frail edifies of the past, bending under the
weight of unprecedented change, to realize how serious the situation is. Our
police have been exposed as hopelessly understaffed, underpaid, unprepared,
even unwilling to confront the anarchy overtaking the country. Our courts
and jails are also buckling under bloated bureaucracies and technicalities
that serve the interests of criminals far more than the communities they
terrorise. And the crime is not restricted to street level. Corruptions seeping
through the corridors of power, as political peddlers pretend to reach out to
the people with one hand, while the other is lodged firmly in their own
pockets. Whether it is white collar crime, murky business transactions,
personal aggrandizement at the expense of community welfare, or, as
Archbishop Tutu has so eloquently put it, simply stopping the gravy rain
order to climb on, it is clear that South Africa is in danger of breeding a
culture of moral corruption.
But what has spawned this culture of corruption in South Africa And who
is to blame

It has become a cliché to point accusing fingers at the vices, avarices and
excesses of the previous regime. In many respects, the blame is justified.
After all, a worm enters a fruit only after it has begun to rot. Corrupt
practices are as old as the word itself afflicting ancient civilizations, modern
societies, developing nations and countries that have technologically
advanced with equal venom. And indeed, the moral decay had set in decades
ago through the grotesque appropriation of wealth by the apartheid
government and its cohort. We have been brutalized by injustice, raised in a
culture of authoritarianism, where rules of fair play did not exist. Denied
fundamental rights, victimized by institutions that were supposed to protect
us, and dehumanized. We were even forced into an adversarial role, using
whatever means at our disposal to fight for justice. For some of the
disenfranchised, crime was a way of securing redistribution; violence,
retribution, corruption and restitution.
Apartheid has finally been defeated, but the strains of crime and corruption
continue unabated. Apartheid believed that black lives were cheap. But
today, crime and corruption have rendered human life in general, worthless.
Yes, we are still recovering from the wounds of the past. But that does not
mean we must reaming its victims. Today, victim hood carries high status
but it does not assure victory and it certainly does not build a state. We have
triumphed because our struggle has been just. It has been a moral revolution
fought by millions of heroes. But it is one matter to win the battle and
another to maintain the moral driving force behind the revolution. Apartheid
was not only a lesson in corruption. It was a lesson about the human capacity
for evil, about the dangers of intolerance and about the redemptive power of
democracy.
Though it means nothing to blame a defeated enemy it means everything to
oppose an insidious enemy that continues to thrive on the plight of the poor,
and whose power derives from the victimization and exploitation of society.
Our battle is therefore against the destroyers of today, not the destroyers of
yesterday. The only way we can win this battle is by building sturdy
foundations for a moral society. Power must be accompanied by the moral
imperative to rule according to the principles of transparency, accountability
and open government.

The Reconstruction and Development Programme is the masthead of the
new government. It is a programme that is geared primarily towards
benefiting the disadvantaged members of society, and not those whose
recipes of success includes a twist of the tax laws, a concession here, a
monopoly there. To counter corporate sickness and political gluttony,
government must set the moral tone of this country and, by example,
encourage society to follow. In the past, Non-governmental Organisations
(NGOs) committed themselves to community empowerment, operating from
the ground up. This time we must instill moral values from the top
downwards. The government of national unity must show that justice, law
and order are not subject to the whims of power brokers. Our civil
institutions must be bolstered and our ethical values implemented by public
servants who must truly have the interest of the nation at heart. In short, we
must stop the moral rot that threatens to engulf our country. As D. L. Cohn
wrote in the New York Times several decades ago: “A little corruption in
government is too much corruption”.
After decades of isolation, we are at least welcome in the society of nations,
not only as a viable trading partner but as a participant in other crucial areas
as well. But our contribution to the international community is contingent on
moral and effective leadership. Corrupt or even negligent practices on the
part of our leaders will serve to distort official decision making, eroding the
socio-economic fabric of our country as well as imparting disastrous effects
on other developing countries. Although wealthy, technologically advanced
countries suffer just as much from corrupt practices as their less affluent
counterparts, the impact is cushioned by their established institutions, which
militate the effects on their national development. It is in the poorer
countries of the world that the effects of official corruption are most strongly
felt, especially by the most disadvantaged members of society.
In implementing a national strategy to counter this malaise, it is imperative
to involve every member of society. Most often anti-corruption drives
initiated by governments have faltered due to public skepticism. What is
needed is a two-pronged strategy combining popular support and
government cooperation on both national and international levels to effect
these drives.
To this end, organizations such as Transparency International (TI) are
making an essential contribution. As a non-profit non-governmental
organization, it is committed to an ethical, honest, responsible and open

government. It is also unequivocally opposed to corruption in international
business transactions and government practices. It aspires to be neither a
global police officer nor another Amnesty International. Its mission is not to
investigate nor to expose. Rather, it aims to tackle corruption effectively in
both business and government by implementing national strategies to
counter these abuses, as well as by initiating specific anti-corruption
procedures such as conflict of interest provisions, effective auditing
requirements and disclosure of assets and incomes by politicians.
In the aftermath of Cold War, there are increasing demands worldwide for
accountable governments. By building partnerships between governments,
the private sector, non-governmental organizations, parastatals and the civil
sector, we have the potential to effectively address the insidious problem of
corruption. There is sufficient concern and consensus across the political
spectrum to enable coalitions to emerge worldwide. But assistance from
every sector of society is essential to develop and sustain these initiatives.
The South African Chapter of Transparency International is ready to take its
place alongside like-minded countries in challenging this plague of
corruption on all levels. Painful experience has taught us that the fruits of a
nation are determined by the moral core of its leadership. In the political
struggle we have reached the summit. We must be wave as we descend.

Civil Society and Mobilisation
Against Corruption
by
Beyers Naude
The Africa Leadership Forum could not have selected a more appropriate
place in Southern Africa as the venue to hold this meeting than in South
Africa at this crucial period of our history. It equally could not have selected
a better time to hold this forum than currently. Our country in its new
political development has fully endorsed the principles of democracy and
human rights and is seriously seeking effective ways to implement these
principles in every sphere of our society. We have also indicated that we
wish to accept this task and to achieve this goal in closest collaboration with
the whole of Africa and especially Southern Africa. We are integrally part of
Africa – and we are proud to be part of our continent! We are further finding
ourselves in the very fortunate position that the State President of our
country is personally committed to build a society based on moral and
ethical principles of transparency, credibility and accountability. On more
than one occasion, President Mandela has called upon the economic sector
(and especially the business community, including bankers and
industrialists), human rights organizations, churches and religious bodies,
educational institutions, women’s organizations, youth bodies and all the
people of our country to assist in accepting this daunting challenge and to
build a democratic country based on justice, transparency and credibility,
where one of the issues that has to be faced and addressed is the question of
corruption, fraud and bribery. It has been announced that on 15 th August
1995 President Mandela will open a one-day consultation under the auspices
of COSAB (Council of Southern African Bankers) to draw up an action plan
to combat crime and corruption. I sincerely hope that many South Africans
at all levels of our society will participate in this consultation and that the
discussions held and the conclusions reached at this seminar would become
a very important contribution to the meeting of 15 th August.
I have been requested to speak specifically on the role which civil society
can play in mobilizing the forces of our community against corruption.
Allow me to mention five ways in which civil society should be actively

involved before I continue to list and deal with the major individual agencies
of civil society which, to my mind, ought to play an active role in this
process:
1. Civil society should be fully informed and educated to realize and
accept that corruption, apart from being morally and ethically
unacceptable, is economically destructive to the whole society. A
small number of people in a civil society will be convinced by the
moral and ethical argument of right and wrong, but the majority of our
community will only become interested in and be concerned about
this issue if a practice or system affects it detrimentally on the level of
personal finance, income and expenditure as well as costs of
livelihood. In order to get an active support of civil society in the
battle against corruption, its members must be convinced of its
economic destructive effect which it has not only on society as a
whole but also upon themselves as individuals, families and
communities. The knowledge and experience that we already have of
such destructive effects of corruption in many countries in Africa and
elsewhere in the world requires only a concerted effort on our part to
convey this information and the message that corruption only benefits
a very small group of those who see in such despicable actions the
ways of enriching themselves. Once this conviction has been
understood and accepted by civil society, the battle against corruption
has in principle bee won.
2. Civil society should also be made aware of the fact that corruption,
bribery and fraud has become such an immense problem in all parts of
the world that it cannot be solved on its own by a government, but by
legal or educational institutions, business concerns and religious
bodies with each acting individually in order to combat this evil.
Corruption had become a global issue as well as in Africa, including
Southern Africa and therefore it needs a global approach to solve it. If
we in “Southern Africa wish to make a meaningful contribution, it can
only be done successfully if all agencies comprising civil society take
hands and act in unison after indepth consultation.
3. Civil society in all of Southern Africa should look carefully at its own
situation, its history, its potential for mobilizing its community for
worthwhile goals and then devise strategies for dealing with the issue
of corruption in its midst. I cannot speak with any authority on the

situation in other Southern African countries but as far as Southern
Africa is concerned, when we deal with the issue of corruption, we
find ourselves in a very fortunate position. As I have earlier stated, our
Government is led by a State President who is deeply concerned about
this issue and wishes to do everything possible to remove forms of
corruption from our midst. We furthermore can build on a tradition of
churches and religious bodies of all faiths who all hold strong
convictions of the need to eliminate corruption from the body of our
society. Together these bodies with their wide network and
infrastructure would be able to convey this message very adequately
to every part of our country. In addition, educational institutions can
play a very meaningful role in promoting the cause of transparency
and accountability. We also have a large number of human rights
organization with a proud tradition of legal integrity and
accountability, who would be more than willing to male their
contribution and who could exert a tremendous influence to combat
corruption in our midst.
4. In its long struggle against apartheid, South African civil society has
taught us all a very important lesson, that in the struggle against any
evil system, success can only be ensured if the grassroots
communities, the ordinary people, see the need for such an action and
commit themselves to participate in such a struggle. Mobilisation
against corruption can be presented as an urgent request, yes a
passionate appeal from above but the lasting process of meaningful,
successful transformation always starts from below – the home (every
family), the educational institution (every teacher and student), local
civil councils and bodies (every civic groups, especially women and
mothers throughout the country), every political party (individually as
well as collectively), business concerns (especially every individual
small business, company or group). A culture of corruption in a
society only becomes acceptable and eventually successful if a culture
of transparency, accountability and integrity has been neglected or
allowed to die.
5. Civil society, with all the goodwill in the world, will find it impossible
to combat corruption if the main root causes which lead to such
corruption are not defined, addressed and removed. It is useless to
utter all kinds of pious statements of protest against dishonesty, or to
plead for integrity if we do not ask and face the technical question –

why do so many people, groups, organisations, yes and even
countries, become tempted to practise corruption on such a large
scale If, for instance, in the same country a society exists where there
is affluence, wealth, luxury and privileges along side one of desperate
poverty, serious unemployment, increasing homelessness, lack of the
possibility of substantial material change, it is inevitable that theft,
corruption and dishonesty will develop. Therefore civil society will
have to address all such conditions and ensure that adequate steps be
taken and policies evolved which will deal with valid reasons why
otherwise honest citizens are tempted to endorse, condone or to
participate in forms of corruption.
Let us now look at the individual agencies of civil society which should be
involved in eliminating corruption from society. I wish to mention six such
agencies, each of whom I believe can and should play a crucial role in
building an honest and open society:
1. Parliament and Political Parties: It is important to emphasise that a
civil society needs a parliamentary body as well as political
substructures to approve and uphold through legislation as well as by
persona example the principles of transparency and accountability.
This does not imply that where such a government does not exist,
corruption should not be resisted or opposed, but the active support
and cooperation of a parliament in such an action makes it much
easier to achieve that goal. Therefore, civil society has an important
duty to convey to parliament and all political parties its feelings and
expectations in this regard. Where necessary, legitimate pressures
must be applied on government to cooperate.
2. Business and Commerce: In every action which deals with corruption.
Bribery and fraud, the support of the business community to assist in
the struggle of combating such corruption is absolutely essential. In
the course of years, a number of business concerns, especially big
international companies operating on a global scale have developed
and approved subtle economic mechanisms, which can only be
described as forms of bribery and corruption, even if such measures
have received the blessing or official approval of the governments and
constitutional bodies under which they operate. More and more
responsible business concerns are discovering that it is in their own
interest, as well as to the benefit of the society within which they wish

to operate, that they must not allow bribery, corruption, dishonesty
and fraud to infiltrate and poison their profession and their trades. If
therefore business and commercial institutions take the lead to oppose
corruption and call upon civil society to support them, they should
receive the full enthusiastic approval of the whole community. In
addition, all other agencies should indicate publicly their support for
such action.
3. Human Rights Institutions: Every country which has a body of legal
people actively supporting the concept of human rights and legal
justice, should be deeply grateful for such a tradition and example.
Civil society should take note of such contributions and should ensure
that a legal system as well as a judiciary is established to guard
against forms of bribery and corruption. The presence and active
watch-role which human rights organisations play in any democratic
society should be applauded and supported.
4. Religious Bodies: Southern Africa has traditionally been a region
where churches and religious bodies have played a crucial and
sometimes, a decisive role in shaping the destiny of a particular
country or region. Let me again use the example of South Africa as
the country wherein the struggle against the evils of apartheid,
churches and religious bodies, including different faiths, have played
a crucial role in bringing to an end this unjust system. I am convinced
that in every country of our sub-region, churches and religious bodies
have played a meaningful role to assist in establishing the principles
of democracy and justice in the political field. In the same way
churches and religious bodies must support efforts of minimizing and
removing all forms of corruption and bribery from civil society.
Honestly, transparency and accountability are moral forces which
every religious body expound, teaches and proclaims. Therefore, civil
society must not hesitate to call on such bodies to ensure that they
support a sustained campaign to establish a culture of transparency
and accountability in society. This definitely implies that such bodies
should first of all set the example to honesty and integrity within its
own structures and systems otherwise they would loose all credibility
of participating in such an action.

5. Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs): Non-Governmental
Organisations, especially those dealing with development and
charitable work, have a great duty and an excellent opportunity to
ensure that corruption as far as they are concerned would not be
allowed to take root in the organisations which need the support of
NGOs. It is impossible for any government to control effectively the
programmes and projects of communities engaged in development or
charitable work of which all or part of such contributions emanate
from government sources. NGOs can and should play a crucial role in
promoting a discipline of honesty, financial accountability and sincere
commitment to serve the community.
6. Media: I have deliberately placed media at the end of my list of
individual agencies which should be involved not because the media
are playing a lesser role but just for the opposite reasons. I believe that
the media play a key and almost an exclusive role in promoting the
course of justice and resistance against all forms of corruption and
bribery and fraud. Let us look at Africa as a whole and look at
Southern Africa and ask ourselves: is it not true that in a country
where there is no free press, where the media are not free to report,
televise, print and comment the possibility of bribery, corruption and
fraud becomes much larger Allow me again to refer to South Africa
and the tremendous difference which the freedom of the media has
made to the political, economic, religious and educational
development in our country during the last three years. I refer here for
example to especially one publication which was consistently
concentrated on the whole question of revealing the truth about the
covert actions of the security forces in the previous government and
the need to make this known. I also refer to another newspaper which
has especially concentrated on the issue of developments within Kwa-
Zulu Natal. Such actions, if handled responsibly by newspapers,
magazines, and other media, can only assist in laying the foundation
for a more just, open and honest society. I agree that there is a danger
of sensationalism, manipulation of news and irresponsibly handling
the position of certain leaders. On the other hand, there is a desperate
need for objective, factually correct, and responsible reporting on all
issues, especially on issues relating to fraud, bribery and corruption,
regardless of who may be involved or affected. It is of vital
importance that the government (National as well as Provincial
Governments), individual political parties, business concerns,

churches and religious bodies, development and charitable
organisations, legal and academic institutions should all be aware of
the fact that, where the media which is to probe, determine and reveal
the truth about any form of corruption, bribery or fraud, all of us
should regardless of the privilege, give the necessary support to such
an action.
May I conclude by saying that if the above agencies cooperate actively with
one another with the same goal and aim of wishing to eliminate any form of
dishonesty, fraud, bribery and corruption from our midst, we should not only
express our verbal support, but consider very seriously where each of us, in
whatever organization or institution we may be involved, could make a
contribution to achieve this laudable and necessary goal in order to build a
future South Africa where the principles of democracy, integrity,
transparency and accountability are seen as an integral part of our whole
society. When that happens, we can, indeed, look forward to a development
within the whole of Southern Africa where our example can inspire and
challenge other parts of the world including Africa as a continent to build
together a global community free of the evil which otherwise could destroy
us as well as our whole society.
*************

Transparency International and the
Drive Against Corruption
by
Jeremy Pope
Whenever I fly over Johannesburg, I am intrigued yet again by the brightlycoloured
piles of mullock from the goldmines that littler the landscape.
Nearly all of them have processing machinery at work on them, with the
rubble being re-processed for the fourth, fifth or sixth time, as newer and
better gold extraction techniques are developed and applied. Now, of course,
the particles of gold being won are so small as to be invisible to the naked
eye.
It struck me that many of the academics who write on corruption are a little
today’s goldminers. They keep returning to the same old pile of rubble –
usually the times of Nkrumah’s Ghana or Marcos’ Philippines – and keep on
turning over the same piles of stones to see if they can find some
infinitesimal fleck of gold that those before them had overlooked. The
recycling of the mullock goes on, but unfortunately so, does the
phenomenon of corruption. And corruption, of course, is not static. It is a
living organism that rapidly adjusts all too readily to new environments. So
my first comment would be, don’t put too much faith in academics – too
many of them staunchly hold their backs to the present as they gaze firmly at
the past! 57
Breaking the Taboo:
My second is to say how refreshing it is that we can now freely discuss and
use what the Americans would probably call the “c” word. For corruption is
something that touches us all. Ministers from Southern Africa showed the
way in Pretoria last December when they met and formed a regional
ministerial forum against corruption under the chair of South Africa’s
Minister of Justice, Dullah Omar. And the same month the 35 elected
57 There are, of course, some who are highly relevant, motivated and are making constructive contributions
to change. TI is happy to be working with these. Sadly, at present they are the exceptions.

leaders of the Americans announced their own action plan in Miami,
becoming the first group of leaders frankly to acknowledge the problem.
Perhaps Commonwealth Heads of Government will be as open, honest and
as forthright when they meet in Auckland in October.
Culture and Colonialism:
It is sometimes claimed that corruption is a part of African culture. You will
all know of the powerfully strong denunciation of this claim by General
Olusegun Obasanjo, who as an African chief from the West Coast of Africa
can speak with some authority. But when we look at what we see, it is only
fair to reflect on the state of affairs which African countries inherited on
gaining independence. Colonialism was marked by a lack of accountability –
other than to London, Paris, Lisbon or elsewhere. It was marked by an
absence of transparency. The courts existed, not to do justice and enforce the
rule of law but to sustain the imposition of colonialism. The judges were
simply civil servants wearing wigs. And the style of governance was
characterized by government being “done” to the people, rather than a
people being governed by consent – and the instruments of repression were
handed over, intact, to the incoming administrations. Against such a
background, the positive achievements of some African countries have been
little sort of astonishing.
Corruption as a Universal Phenomenon:
This leads me to the third point: That corruption is not something that only
exists in the South. It is not a phenomenon of under-development nor of the
developmental process. Every society has corrupt elements within it, and
recent events in Europe show plainly that this is not a topic on which the
north can preach to the South. Even as we meet, Europe is wracked by
scandals, including massive frauds on the EU’s nonsensical agricultural
subsidies scheme. Nor, as a New Zealander, can I hide from you the fact that
our Auditor-General was recently arrested by the Serious Fraud Office!
Rather corruption is a topic on which experience can be shared and it is an
area in which cooperation is essential if the practice of corrupt leaders
salting ill-gotten gains away in European bank accounts is ever to be ended.

Bribes from the North:
Fourthly, much of the grand corruption that is so devastating in developing
countries has its origins in the North. The large “illicit payments” (that
distort decision-making and contract awards) are payments made usually by
European firms in quest of business. Hence, the litter of “white elephants”.
Many of you in this room will have had encounters with Greeks and many
other nationalities bearing gifts. And in the North this conduct is defended
vigorously. For example, in Britain, Lord Young, a former Cabinet Minister
and now Chairman of Cable and Wireless, claims that bribery abroad is job
creation at home. And in Germany, an errant Jesuit priest, Father Lay, warns
German businessmen that it is positively immoral not to bribe abroad if this
means a loss of jobs in Germany. (The exact quotes are in my papers, so
perhaps they might tempt you to read them). I also suggest that he would
probably defend the actions of Judas Iscariot on the grounds that Christ was
going to be crucified in any event, and the betrayal of him meant that the
cost of the exercise was at least increased by 30 pieces of silver.
Then, to make matters worse, European countries all allow these bribes
(however described) to be deductible for tax purposes, and refuse to regard
bribery of officials abroad as criminal conduct. The French and Norwegian
Finance Miniseries, to name just two, do not even require evidence that
bribes have been paid. There is an assumption that they have been up to set
percentages, which vary region from region.
So elements in the North and the South are in partnership against the
interests of ordinary people in the South. 58
Transparency International (TI) as a Response:
And that, in a word, is how Transparency International came to be formed –
as a result of discussions by African leaders in the Global Coalition for
Africa, but it was an idea that the Americas quickly bought in to. The
concept was to try a new approach – that is, to form a coalition against
58 There is hope for change. The OECD countries agreed in May 1994 on a non-binding recommendation
that members countries and others should end tax deductibility and criminalise international corruption.
Much work lies ahead to translate this in to reality. However, Commonwealth countries are poised to be
able to help each other already in the prosecution of these crimes through the Commonwealth Scheme for
Mutual Legal Assistance. The recommendation needs to be supported by non-member countries, including
most importantly, countries in Africa. It is equally true that developmental agencies in Europe have
supported the work of TI very strongly.

corruption, comprising governments both North and South, the private sector
and the public. A coalition that would work for consensus change in which
the rules for international procurement might change for all and at the same
time ensure that there were no winners and no losers, other than the
beneficiaries of the process. The private sector needed confidence that it
could stop bribing without suffering a loss of business. A coalition which
would provoke discussion of the problem, particularly in the North, and
break the taboo that surrounds the topic. A coalition, too, which would not
indulge in name-calling and condemnation but one which would work for
constructive change.
Systemic Corruption:
What can make corruption in a developing country a greater problem is that,
whereas in a developed country corruption can infest a single component of
the body politic – a major union, perhaps, or a political party – a developing
country is less well protected by institutions and corruption can actually
become a part of the system. It can become systemic. This is not a situation
in which a small clique or isolated individuals are behaving improperly, but
one in which virtually everyone has irregular arrangements simply to
survive.
Let me try to be a little more specific. In countries where corruption is
systemic, the pay scales are generally very low, A senior civil servant may
have an “arrangement”, whereby he contracts out his work for it to be done
(for a reasonable fee) by his own private consulting firm on weekends. Or
again, officials in an Education Department find that the only way they can
afford to send their children to school is to have textbooks diverted for it to
be sold back at a higher price to the Education Department.
Both categories of behaviour would be regarded as corrupt in a purest sense,
but it is hardly sinful corruption. It is simply a strategy for survival. These
people are not corrupt individuals and they do not see themselves as such;
rather we should think of them as victims of a systemically corrupt system.
Yet in a well-managed system these practices would not occur, or if they
did, swift disciplinary action would be expected to follow. And just as
surely, such conduct is not conducive to development in the countries where
this occurs. So let us focus on systems, and let them write; not point fingers,
see scapegoats and leave stable doors open wide.

Strategies to combat corruption in such countries have to be very different
from the reform that can be effected where a country’s institutions are
generally in good shape. In this latter category, we could place Botswana. A
country where corruption has not been a problem, yet it reared its head and
swift remedial action was taken both against culprits and institutional
arrangements which were demonstrated to be in need of repair was
tightened. Much of what I am going to say has little application to a
Botswana as it fine-tunes arrangements to meet changing challenges. As we
have heard here, too, Mauritius would fit this description. But I think my
fellow panelist would agree that the remarks may have some relevance to the
predicament in which Uganda has found itself.
The Danger to Civil Service Reform:
In an environment of systemic corruption, significant Civil Service Reform
(CSR) can be rendered a complete waste of time, money and energy if the
corruption element is ignored. It has the capacity to derail the whole process:
you can end up with a reformed and more efficient corrupt system. Indeed,
corruption must be consciously taken on board from the outset of the process
and dealt with as one of the component parts of the whole process.
And, of course, ways of containing corruption include the development of an
ethical culture, and the implementation of practices of accountability and
transparency.. Light, it is sometimes said, is the enemy of corruption. If a
deal is out on the table for all to see, then all are empowered to make up
their own minds about its propriety or otherwise.
But many of the steps taken for other good reasons in the course of CSR can
also have a positive effect towards restraining corruption. The abolition of
unnecessary procedures; the ending of unnecessary licences; the
simplification of a tax system; the creation of jobs which people value and
want to keep, rather than risk through corrupt conduct. All of these and
many more can and do make for better service delivery, but also reduce the
scope for corruption. Other steps, such as the monitoring of assets and
income of senior public officials, have a clear accountability and anticorruption
focus, but in so doing they also protect the notion of open
competitive tendering in public procurement exercises.

Is Enforcement the Answer
It is sometimes said that all that needs to be done is for the law to be
enforced; that the crisis is one of enforcement. This surely cannot be right. If
it were just a matter of laws and enforcement, the problem would have been
solved long ago. The truth is that even the countries with the worst levels of
corruption all have laws outlawing corruption that are simply never
enforced, and have systems of accountability that are ignored. Most have
leadership codes strongly scented with good intentions, but which are, in
practice, totally moribund. Countering corruption cannot be simply a matter
of enacting laws, it is a matter of making systems work. It involves changing
the way people bahave – and this can only be done by altering the
environment in which they are behaving.
There are four broad scenarios when it comes to tackling systemic
corruption. The first is a good, old-fashioned revolution, followed with the
jailing of the former leaders (as in Bangladesh) or perhaps summarily
executing them (as in Ghana). This may or may not succeed: it has in Ghana,
but it has failed in Bangladesh. However, at an international conference such
as this we should hardly be discussing the feasibility of armed insurrection
by the populace. But we should recognize that corruption can, in the final
event, trigger events which completely and violently overturn the established
order. 59
The second scenario which is the most challenging and to which no answers
have yet been found – is how to reform a static system which is systemically
corrupt without demanding that the leaders commit political suicide, or go
into exile. Take an election in which the opposition parties boldly stated the
crimes with which they intended to charge the incumbents once they had
won the election. Surprised, they cannot win. Now those groups will be
forced to face up to reality: if a fundamental shift in political power is to take
place peacefully, it has to do so with the acquiescence, however, grudging,
of those who presently hold that power. And it is unrealistic to expect
someone in high office simply to step aside being aware that a jail sentence
awaits him. Blanket amnesties may be politically unpalatable, but some sort
of understanding may be necessary before such a change can take place
peacefully.
59 E.g. The Gambia.

Even more difficult is the generation of political will to reverse corruption at
the top. Kleptomania, it seems, is habit-forming, and many of the world’s
most corrupt leaders, already with more money than they could ever hope to
need, seem addicted to the acquisition of more. How can we persuade them
to accept that systems of transparency and accountability are needed to end
such practices, let alone ones which would reveal the extent of the riches
they had acquired
The third scenario is the Ugandan model: a society in transition which is
reforming an inherited system from top to bottom with the full package of
civil service reform. The is usually possible where the reforms take place in
the wake of a major shift in power and by a new establishment. But in a
transition process, time is short and there are too many instances where new
administrations have come to power full of promises to clamp down on
corruption and have been distracted by other issues, who have been
powerless as they have inherited systematically corrupt systems and who
have all too quickly themselves slumped into the practices of the past.
Uganda has shown that if this chance is seized quickly, more time can be
won for root and branch reform. There are others who have illustrated what
happens when time is not won.
The fourth is the enclave or island of integrity approach presently being
developed in Ecuador.
Ecuador and Islands of Integrity:
Ecuador is a country where corruption flourishes. It is systemic. It is
everywhere. It costs $1000 for a telephone connection; driving licences cost
$100; and everyone drives with money in the car for the unavoidable
policeman in need of a tip. In public procurement exercises, the best
estimates are that about 30% of the total sum outlayed for a project
disappears in bribes. This is high – even by some African standards. The
Vice-President of Ecuador, happily also Chair of TI’s Advisory Council,
invited TI to develop a unique procedure to try to combat this. We have done
just that, and it is now being tested on a major project.
The new procedure involves all those bidding also signing a pledge that they
will not bribe. Then they agree that whoever wins the contract will have to
make disclosure (certified by the CEO of the successful company) of
payments to third parties in respect of the contract and all performance

onuses paid to staff in connection with it. Then comes the real sting: The
unsuccessful tenderers are given the right to sue the successful tenderer if
they can prove that corruption was a factor in the deal, and, if they wish, to
sue for loss of profits as well. Civil society, through a civil organization is
then invited to observe the whole process. This makes it utterly transparent.
In these ways, the private sector (from where the bribes emanate) are first
introduced to the new process and made to agree to it. They become active
partners in the process. Then they are themselves empowered to police the
contract either through the civil courts or through international arbitration. In
these ways, the necessary confidence is built in the system and that the rules
of the game are changing in favour of everyone and that there will be no
losses or risks in being “first” or being out of step with competitors but
rather they all move together. This way, the public, through civic
involvement, can believe political statements that a meaningful change has
been achieved.
Initial indications are that those participating are confident with the pilot
exercise, and they have agreed to apply the same procedures to a second
large procurement in a few weeks’ time. The verdict by civil society is –
good, so far…
Coalitions for Change:
What this seems to demonstrate is that a partnership can, indeed, be
established between civil society and government, including the private
sector to pursue an issue in which all have a stake and which each party
views from slightly different perspectives.
And this is what Transparency International is all about: building these
partnerships – these coalitions – in which national chapters are established
and talking to their governments in a constructive but independent and,
where necessary, critical manner. And in this way helping in a catalytic
fashion to start a process in which local people draw up solutions to local
problems, but to do so while able to tap in a best practice form elsewhere.
Earlier this month, we scored a major first victory when we won over the
Federation of German Industry to our cause. Its president has called on the
private and the public sectors in Germany alike to join in this movement, not
– let it be said – only for the betterment of international trade, but for the
protection of integrity within German itself.

Some Best Practice from South Africa:
Some of the best of this practice comes from South Africa. I have not come
here to praise our host country, but simply to speak frankly. And speaking
frankly, we in TI have been deeply impressed by the efforts of the new
government to come to grips with ethics, transparency and accountability.
Let it be said that the apartheid state was characterized not just by racism,
but by some of the worst financial excesses of one-party rule – not to
mention secrecy. In those days, it was said that it was a long way to drive
from Johannesburg to Cape Town because you had to pass through the farms
of 12 cabinet ministers.
Within a short time after the elections, the ANC introduced codes of conduct
and assets declarations for all its office holders and elected members, the socalled
Asmal Code (the product of Kader Asmal who as Minister for Water
and Forests is now as active against corruption as he was in the past against
apartheid). More seriously, we in Berlin may be ignorant, but we are not
aware of any other country where a political party has produced this
mechanism, especially ahead of any mechanism at the parliamentary level
(though I understand that this, too, is being pushed forward).
The opening of accountability through parliament here has been spectacular,
and the work of Speaker Frene Ginwala places her at the very forefront of
the Commonwealth’s parliamentary speakers. All select committees must
meet in public, and if they wish to go in to closed session they must debate
the reasons for this in public: the journalists, used only to processing preprepared
government handouts, are now complaining that there is too much
for them to cover! Parliamentarians, too, have been empowered to call civil
servants to account for their estimates. This has been a frightening
experience for senior civil servants, accustomed to getting parliamentary
approval for their budgets literally on the nod. I should also mention that, as
quoted in the paper, the constitution of the country actually guarantees open,
fair and transparent government procurement, as well as access to
information and other guarantees of due process. In the hands of a highpowered
constitutional court such as has been appointed (again, in a very
transparent fashion), these constitutional provisions can be expected to bite.
Then, just a few weeks ago, there was the extraordinary spectacle in a South
African courtroom, where the ANC is arguing that the press should not be
unduly restrained by the laws of defamation when it comes to public figures

in their public duties. Have any of us ever heard to a government anywhere
arguing that its critics should have a greater freedom to criticize them, even
if they may be mistaken in their assertions Accountability through the
media is a vital strand in the whole process (even though in some countries
such as Singapore, a controlled press does not seem to have impeded anticorruption
efforts).
Though South Africa has daunting problems, the reform is driven by
committed leaders with both intellectual depth and an instinctive “feel” for
what makes for democratic accountability and transparency.
Constructing a Mosaic:
Many of these individual strategies could be applied elsewhere in
developing in particular the “enclave” or “islands of integrity” approach,
which has much to commend itself. A mosaic of non-corrupt areas of
government activity can be constructed starting with key areas, and in ways
in which reformers do not take on too many vested interests at the same
time. Certainly there needs to be a degree of leadership support if this is to
endure. The classic case to the contrary is that of Justice Plana. In well
documented reforms he drove corruption out of revenue collection in the
Philippines. The tax returns soared. Plana was promoted to a higher court.
And Marcos and his cronies simply helped themselves to the proceeds.
Today, the tax collection system in the Philippines is as shonky as ever. So it
can be done – but can it be sustained Can systemic corruption give way to
systemic integrity
The answers are affirmative. But it will only do so if the environment
(ethical and political) is such as to sustain and protect that change.
An Holistic Response to Fundamental Reform:
This is the most important point: there are many stakeholders in a country’s
integrity system – public service commissions, civil servants, law enforcers,
the Auditor-General, parliamentarians, the private sector and the general
public. Here, more than ever, an holistic approach is needed. A corrupt
government system simply cannot be trusted to reform itself. And ethics
cannot be changed without the public participating in the process.

It is too easy to say that the problem is overwhelming. We know that a
failure to act will only result in the problem getting worse. We need to look
for new ways in which to approach the topic. Traditional methods have
failed. Yet all but the corrupt have an interest in combating it. The
constituency is there, is does not have to be created but rather be empowered
to act.
The plague, that is, corruption is self-evident. We cannot sit all day and
complain about it. What we need to be doing is to be doing something to
counter it. What is transparency What is accountability How can these two
horses be harnessed effectively in our efforts to contain corruption And
what can we all, individually and collectively, actually do to help.

Press Release
Appendix A
Time and again throughout its deliberations, the conference recalled the
outstanding role which General Obasanjo has played in putting democracy
on the agenda for Africa in general and in assisting South Africans in
particular to gain their own freedom and democracy. Not only did he play a
crucial role in securing the release of President Mandela and in initiating
the negotiation process, but thereafter his good offices were used on several
occasion to help ease the negotiations through stages of particular difficulty.
In rejoicing in their own freedom, South African participants felt a special
obligation to plead for General Obasanjo’s own freedom in his hour of
need.
In saluting General Obasajo as one of the Africa’s most outstanding elder
statement and diplomats, and mindful of the urgent need in other parts of
Africa for his special skills in mediation, the conference asked the
representative of the Nigerian government present at their deliberations, to
convey to his government the grave concern felt for General Obasanjo and
the hope that it will forthwith take the steps necessary to enable him to
resume his urgent work in promoting democracy and accountability through
out the continent. They also pressed for the release of the others who have
been condemned after a secret trial, in defiance of international norms and
in conflict with essential principles of a fair trial.

List of Participants
Appendix B
1. H. E. Pascoal Mocumbi, Prime Minister of Mozambique, (Office)
Av. Belmino Obadias, Muianga No. 67, P. O. Box 2604, Maputo,
Mozambique, Tel: 426861/3, Fax: 426881.
2. Ismail Adams, (Office) Department of Economics, University of the
Western Cape, Private Bag X17, Bellvile 7535, Tel: 021-9592579,
Fax: 021-9593201; (Home) 3 Krieket Road, Crawforx, Cape 7764,
Tek: 021-6922298.
3. Ayodele Aderinwale, (Office) Director, Africa Leadership Forum, P.
O. Box 2286, Abeokuta, Ogun State, Nigeria, Tel: 234-(0)-90-406-
887, Fax: 234-(0)-1-264-7682.
4. Buhari Aliyu, (Office) Nigeria High Commission, 138, Beckett Street,
Arcadia, Pretoria, South Africa, Tel: 012-343-2021, Fax: 012-343-
1668; (Home) 250, Aquila Street, Waterkloof, Pretoria, South Africa,
Tel: 012-347-1588.
5. Vishnu Dutt Bassant, (Office) Ministry of Economic Planning and
Development, Level 9, Emmanuel Anquetil Building, Port Louis,
Mauritius, Tel: 2011577, Fax: 212-4124: (Home) 26, Colonel
Maingard Street, Beau Bassin, Mauritius, Tel: 4540784
6. Alexander Boraine, (Office) Justice in Transition, 183 Main Road
Rowdebosa, 770, Tel: 021-6866150, Fax: 021-6851584; (Home) 23
Brommersule Road, Constantia 7800, Tel: 021-794540.
7. Louis Joseph Chimango, M.P. (Office) Chimango Grading, Box
1104, Lilongwe, Malawi, Tel: 265-720-981, Fax: 265-720-981.

8. Jakkie Cilliers, (Office) Institute for Defence Policy, P. O. Box 4160,
Halfway House, 1685, South Africa, Tel: 011-3157096, Fax: 011-
3157099; (Home) 93A Valentine’s Road, Honeyden 2040, South
Africa, Tel: 011 – 7953848, Fax: 011-7953552.
9. John Anthony Deary, (Office) Data for Management (Pvt.) Ltd., P. O.
Box 1589, Harare, Zimbabwe, Tel: 744253; (Home) 19 Pendennis
Road, Mount Pleasant, Harare, Zimbabwe, Tel: 744253.
10. Oby Ezekwesill, (Office) Modern Finance Nig. Ltd., & Transparency
International – Nigeria, 69, Adeniran Ogunsanya Street, Surulere,
Lagos Tel: 801670-4, Fax: 2646335; (Home) 14, Chief Bereola Street,
Off Adisa Bashua Street, Surulere, Lagos, Nigeria, Tel: 234-1-
5842900, Fax: 5842900.
11. Dieter Frisch, (Office) Transparency International Heylstrasse 33,
10825, Berlin, Germany, Tel: +49-30-787-5908, Fax: + 49-30-787-
5908; (Home) 16, Av. De I’Yser, B1040, Brussels, Tel: 322/7335514,
Fax: 322/7335514.
12. Frene Ginwala, (Office) Parliament, P. O. Box 15, Cape Town, Tel:
021-403-2595, Fax: 021-4619462
13. Chris Heymans, (Office) OBSA, Box 1234, Halfway House, 1685,
Johannesburg, South Africa, Tel: 011-3133364, Fax: 011-3133533.
14. Ben Hlatshwayo, (Office) Department of Public Law, University of
Zimbabwe, P. O. Box 167 MP, Mount Pleasant, Harare, Zimbabwe,
Tel: 303211 Ext. 1291; (Home) 19 Epstein Close, Marlborough,
Harare, Tel/Fax: 300680.
15. Linus Lorhaa, Programme Officer, Africa Leadership Forum, P. O.
Box 2286, Abeokuta, Ogun State, Nigeria, Tel: 234-(0)-90-406-887,
Fax: 234-(0)-1-264-7682.
16. Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, (Office) Africa Bureau, United Nations
Development Program, New York, Tel: 212-906-5900, Fax: 212-906-
5423; (Home) Tel: 212-661-6979, Fax: 212-661-6979.

17. Daniel Muchiwa Lisulo, former Prime Minister and former Attorney-
General of Zambia (Office) Lisulo & Co., 6 th Floor, Kulima Tower,
Katunjila Road, P. O. Box 32359, Lusaka, Zambia, Tel:
228627/228628/22583; (Home) Plot No. 3A/45 Roan Road,
Kabulonga, Lusaka, Zambia, Tel: 264351.
18. Eddie Makue, (Office) c/o S. A. Council of Churches, P. O. Box
4921, Johannesburg, South Africa, Tel: +27 11 492-1380, Fax: +27 11
492-1448; (Home) 49 Bokkeveld Cres, Eldorado Park, Johannesburg,
Tel: + 27 11 945 - 3847
19. Jannie Malan, (Office) ACCORD, c/o Unvieristy of the Western
Cape, Private Bag X17, Bellville, 7535, Tel: 021-959-3258, Fax: 021-
959-3362; (Home) 10 La Rochelle Road, La Rochelle, Bellville, 7530,
Tel: 021-99-5139.
20. Ibbo Mandaza, (Office) R. O. Sapes Trust, Box MP111, Mount
Pleasant, Harare, Zimbabwe, Tel: 722742, Fax: 732732; (Home) 4
Deary Avenue, Belgravia, Harare, Zimbabwe, Tel: 740154.
21. Aileen Marshall, (Office) Global Coalition for Africa, 1850 K St.,
NW; Suite 295, Washington D.C., 20006, USA, Tel: 202-676 1605,
Fax: 202-676 1014; (Home) 1847 California Street, NW, Washington
DC 20009, USA, Tel: 202-328-3060, Fax: 202-328-3060.
22. Manuel Mateus, First Secretary, (Office) Angolan Embassy, Tel:
012-466104, Fax: 012-466253; (Home) Leyds St/Muckleneuk,
612/Pretoria, Tel: 012-3439757, Fax: 012/3439-756.
23. Benedicta Monama, (Office) Legal Resources Centre, P. O. Box
7614, Pretoria, Tel: 012-323-7673,
24. Lebona Mosia, (Office) Channel Africa SABC, South Africa, Tel:
011-7142551, Fax: 011-742456; (Home) 8 Republic Circle, Brancy
Sander, Tel: 011-882-8196.
25. Bene M’poko, (Office) 269 Van de Walt, Pretoria, South Africa, Tel:
012-320-4360, Fax: 012-320-4353; 9Home) Tel: 012-472735, Fax:
012-320-4353.

26. Frank N. Mubebo, (Office) Zambian High Commission, Pretoria, Tel:
012-342-1541, Fax: 012-3424963; (Home) Tel:012-868971.
27. Beyers Naude, (Office) Ecumenical Advice Bureau, 7 th Floor,
Aucjland House, 185 Smit Street, Braamfontein 2017, Johannesburg,
Tel: 011-403-4319, Fax: 011-403-1485; (Home) 26 Hoylake Road,
Greenside, Johannesburg, South Africa, Tel: 011-646-4141, Fax: 011
– 646-4040.
28. Angelo Pangratis, South Africa.
29. Jeremy David Pope, (Office) Transparency International, Heylstrasse
33, 10825, Berlin, Germany, Tel: +49-30-787-5908, Fax: +49-30-787-
5908; (Home) Eisenacherstr. 52, D-10823, Berlin, Germany, Tel:
+49-30-784-5699.
30. Momazizi Ramaphosa, (Office) 2 nd Floor, Neobank Mail
Commissioner Street, 145 Johannesburg, South Africa, Tel: 3319726,
Fax: 3319728; (Home) Tel: 0025684477
31. Hartmut Ruppel, M. P. (Office) National Assembly, Parliament
Building, Windhoek, Box 85, Standard Bank Chamber, Windhoek,
Namibia, Tel: 264-61-233121; (Home) Calvyn Street, 43, Windhoek,
Namibia, Tel/Fax: 264-61-241617
32. Augustine Ruzindana, (Office) P. O. Box 1682, Kampala, Uganda,
Tel: 256-41-259723; (Home) 256-41-221674, Fax: 256-41-244-810
33. Silvestre Sechene, Director of the Prime Minister’s Office, Av.
Belmino Obadias Muianga, No. 67, P. O. Box 2604, Maputo,
Mozambique, Tel: 426861/3, Fax: 426881; (Home) Tel: 491534
34. Mafa Mosothoane Sejanamane, (Office) Director, Institute of
Southern African Studies, National University of Lesotho, P. O. Roma
180, Lesotho, Tel: 26-340247, fax: 266-340000; (Home) Har Paki, P.
O. Box 306, Mazenod 160, Lesotho, Tel: 266-350257

35. Allister H. Sparks, (Office) Institute for the Advancement of
Journalism, 9 Jubilee Road, Parktown, Johannesburg, Tel: 011-484-
1765, Fax: 011-484-4280; (Home) 5 Driffontein Road, Rivonia,
Sanpton, Joannesburg, Tel: 011-803-1661, Fax: 011-803-8235
36. Palo Thabane, (Office) Anglican Church, P. O. Box 1032, Pretoria,
South Africa, Tel: 01214-6570; (Home) 2081 H. Soshanguve, Tel:
01214-6570
37. Hanif (Mohammed) Vally, (Office) P. O. Box 7614, Pretoria, Tel:
012-323-7673, Fax: 012-216680
38. Cherie Muller Van Heerden, (Office) Development Bank of South
Africa, P. O. Box 1234, Halfway House 1685, South Africa, Tel: 011-
313-3564, Fax: 011-313-3086; (Home) 54, Ditton Ave. Auckland
Park 2092, Tel: 011-726-5834
39. Richard Zink, European Commission, Pretoria, South Africa, Fax:
436594
Press
40. Maria Torcato, AIM – Mozambique News Agency, Johannesburg
Office, 123 1 st Avenue, Melville 2092, Johannesburg, Tel: 7268343,
Fax: 7262192
41. Eugene Martin Yssel, (Office) BEECD, Forum Building,
Strubenstreet, Pretoria, Tel: 012-325-2878, Fax: 315-232, (Home)
Flowers Streest 31, Capital Park, Pretoria 0084, Tel: 012-325-6489
Secretariat:
42. Joseph Anwara, Accounts Officer, Africa Leadership Forum, P. O.
Box 2286, Abeokuta, Ogun State, Nigeria, Tel: 234-(0)-90-406-887,
Fax: 234-(0)-1-264-7682
43. Abraham T. Ojo, Project Secretary, Africa Leadership Forum, P. O.
Box 2286, Abeokuta, Ogun State, Nigeria, Tel: 234-(0)-90-406-887,
Fax: 234-(0)-1-264-7682

Conference Programme
Appendix C
30 July 1995:
2:00p.m.
Arrival and Registration
OPENING SESSION
31 July 1995:
8:30a.m. – 8:45a.m
8:45a.m – 9:00a.m
9:00a.m – 9:15a.m
9:15a.m – 9:30a.m
9:30a.m – 9:45a.m
9:45a.m – 11:15a.m
Session One:
11:15a.m – 11:45a.m
11:45a.m – 12:45p.m
12:45p.m – 2:45p.m
Welcome Address by Beyers Naude
Opening Remarks by Angelo Pangratis
Introducing the Background Paper by
Ayodele Aderinwale
Keynote Address by Hon. Frene Ginwala
Coffee Break
Discussion of Background Paper & Keynote
Address: Aileen Marshall
The North & Corruption In Africa
Corruption in Africa: The Role of the North
Lead Paper by Lawrence Crockfort
Lead Discussant: Jeremy Pope
Discussion Session
Lunch Break

Session Two:
2:45p.m – 3:45p.m
Effects of Corruption in Africa
Effects of Corruption on:
a) Development
- Dieter Frisch
- Ibbo Mandaza
3:45p.m – 5:15p.m
5:15p.m – 5:45p.m
5:45p.m – 7:15p.m
Discussion Session
Legal & Judicial System & Corruption
Lead Speaker: Ben Hlatshwayo
Discussion Session
1 st August 1995:
8:30a.m – 8:50a.m
8:50a.m – 10.30a.m
10:30a.m –11:00a.m
11:00a.m – 11:20a.m
11:20a.m – 1:00p.m
1:00p.m – 2:30p.m
2:30p.m – 2:50p.m
2:50p.m – 5:00p.m
Parliamentarians & Corruption & Human
Rights Abuse Lead Speaker: Alex Borraine
Lead Discussant: Louis Chimango
Discussion Session
Coffee Break
Civil Society and Mobilisation
Against Corruption
Lead Speaker: Beyers Naude
Discussion Session
Lunch Break
Mass Media & Campaign
Against Corruption
Lead Speaker: Allister Sparks
Lebona Mosia
Discussion Session

Session Three:
Mobilising Against Corruption & Human
Rights Abuse: Strategies from Africa
2 nd August 1995:
8:30a.m – 8:50a.m
8:50a.m – 10:30a.m
10:30a.m – 11:00a.m
11:00a.m – 1:00p.m
1:00p.m – 3:00p.m
3:00p.m - 6:00p.m
6:00p.m
Transparency International and the Drive
Against Corruption
Lead Speaker: Jeremy Pope
Discussion Session
Coffee Break
Consultative Session
Lunch
Consultative Session
Rapporteur’s Report

Background Note on the Africa
Leadership Forum (ALF)
Despite over a quarter of a century of political independence Africa’s
aspirations and hopes remain today largely unfulfilled. This has not been,
however, a period of unmitigated failure in the history of the continent; there
have been successes in education, public health, import substitution
industries, and in the continuing process of decolonization. The problems of
development, peace and security, the health of the world economy, and
improving the environment are interrelated global issues; they do not admit
of piecemeal solutions.
And yet all countries find that in the absence of true global cooperation, they
have to tackle particular aspects of them. At the national level in Africa, the
inadequacy of information, data, and resources render the problems
daunting. Regionally they are overwhelming.
African leaders have frequently come to their positions with limited
experience. Though most of them have battled on, confronting their
awesome problems of development and nation-building essentially not only
unprepared but unaided, their efforts have been at best only a qualified
success.
Africa cannot afford to continue with ill-prepared and unassisted leaders.
Those on whom the burden of leadership will fall in future must fully
comprehend their responsibilities, duties, and obligations. They must, that is,
have exposure and carefully planned preparation if they are to meet the
challenges that will face them.
The leaders of tomorrow, however, today have to be pursuing their
professional careers. They have little time to devote to gaining a
comprehensive knowledge of their own countries and their region, nor of the
cultures their diverse peoples. Nor even to learning about and understanding
the actions taken by their present leaders where they do not impinge on their
own areas of expertise.

Most young potential leaders have focused primarily on single issues,
lacking time to look at wider, critical regional and world challenges. Time
for comprehensive study and reflection, for sharing experiences with persons
inside, let alone outside, their countries, region, and field of concentration is
very limited. Opportunities for such detached discussion and contemplation
are even rarer.
There are no private institutions in Africa devoted to preparing potential
leaders with a global outlook, leaders who will be able to cooperate within
and across national, regional, and institutional boundaries. Further, it is
difficult, if not impossible, in many African countries to gain access to
relevant and timely information on most national, regional, and global
issues.
Experience in and out of Government and in international for a bears out this
situation, one which poses a challenge to address and remedy. One solution
is to launch the “Africa Leadership Forum” – conducting a series of
meetings which may be national, sub regional, regional and international in
dimension and may vary in duration. The purpose will be to enhance the
knowledge and awareness of current and young, potential African leaders,
placing special emphasis on diagnosing apparent failures of the past; on
understanding multiple dimensions and complex interrelations of local,
national, regional, and global problems; and on seeking possible approaches
to solutions.

Objectives
The purpose of the Forum is to encourage diagnosis, understanding, and an
informed search for solutions to local, regional and global problems, taking
full account of their interrelationships and mutual consequences.
To that end, the Forum will develop, organize and support programmes for
the training of young and promising Africans with leadership potential so as
to expose them to the demands, duties and obligations of leadership
positions and to prepare them systematically for assuming higher
responsibilities and meeting the challenges of an interdependent world.
The Forum will also endeavour to generate greater understanding and
enhance the knowledge and awareness of development and social problems
within a global context among young, potential leaders from all sectors of
society, cutting across national, regional, continental, professional and
institutional borders. This may foster close and enduring relationships
among participants, relationships promoting life-long association and
cooperation.
Further, the Forum will support and encourage the diagnosis and informed
search for appropriate and effective solutions to local and regional African
problems and to global problems from an African perspective – within the
framework of global interdependence, including consideration of phased
action programmes that can be initiated by various countries, sub-regions
and institutions.
In additions, there will be specific weekend seminars organized as Farm
House Dialogues to be held quarterly.