corruption
Where there is war, there is corruption, and in Southern Africa there are many conflicts. David Le Page reports on the SADC
To find corruption in Southern Africa, first seek out war, tyranny and transition. These are the circumstances that create the space and opportunity for corruption, and among the 13 Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries it is war-torn Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo that are likely suffering the most.
Poverty and good old-fashioned greed undoubtedly contribute to corruption in the region, but more important is the scale and availability of the plunder.
Corruption in Angola is centred on the country’s diamond and oil industries – overseas mining companies and small
diggers routinely bribe officials in order to do business in the midst of the country’s long-running civil war.
Certificate of origin schemes which record the source of precious stones have been encouraged by the United Nations, to make it more difficult for Unita to break sanctions and sell its diamonds.
However the state diamond agency, Endiama, from which several senior figures were recently sacked, until recently ran a certificate of origin scheme which camouflaged illegal sales.
Even if the long-incumbent MPLA government had the inclination to do it, and there is much evidence to the contrary, building transparency and pursuing justice are impossible under current circumstances.
Corruption extends even into the ranks of the Angolan army, whose soldiers are selling fuel and weapons to the Unita rebel forces, while being bought off by arms sellers.
In South Africa, the African National Congress government has taken many laudable steps to build the institutions needed to fight corruption. However, the party could act more resolutely against those whose attitudes in many democracies would see them ignominiously discarded.
In President Thabo Mbeki’s government, those whose commitment to rooting out corruption could be considered less than whole-hearted include Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development Penuell Maduna. As minister of minerals and energy, Maduna reneged on promises to act on the recommendations of a commission investigating the Central Energy Fund scandal centred on Liberian “consultant” Emanuel Shaw II.
Despite the establishment in South Africa of bodies such as the Heath investigative unit, the perception of the region among foreign investors often remains negative.
In January the South Africa Initiative of the German Business Community warned regional governments that deteriorating security in the region, including corruption and judicial inefficiency, could be a reason to withhold or even withdraw investment.
The champion of corruption in the SADC is probably Zimbabwe. After 19 years in power, the ruling Zanu-PF party has an almost unbreakable hold on all the organs of the state. The party elite continue to accrue wealth, leading a life of luxury and excess while their people struggle with an rapidly escalating cost of living, following 1998’s calamitous economic decline.
The mayor of Harare and President Robert Mugabe’s wife Grace are notorious for having built huge mansions, often draining labour and resources from infrastructural maintenance.
A favourite target for corrupt officials is the tendering process, especially, according to one United States report, in the telecoms, power and aviation sectors.
While the higher orders of the Zimbabwean judiciary appear to remain honest and independent, and corruption cases have resulted in convictions, no cases involving high-level party or government officials have reached court. Where government interventions in state business are questioned by officials, those officials are often dismissed: in 1998 the state electricity supply authority’s board was dismissed after questioning the sale of a power station to a Malaysian company.
The Zimbabwean government is in a running battle with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), from which it seeks funding while being reluctant to meet the lender’s conditions for democracy, economic management and transparency.
Last week the Zimbabwean Ministry of Finance inadvertently revealed that the true spending on Mugabe’s military adventures in Congo is almost 10 times the amounts previously declared. That the Zimbabwean government could lie to the IMF for a year and get away with it amply demonstrates a lack of checks and balances. The Zimbabwean government claims its ministry’s release was incorrect.
One of the greatest pressures on governments in the region to deal effectively with corruption is their need for funds from the World Bank and the IMF.
While many would argue the merits of those organisations’ economic prescriptions, the demand for action against corruption is quite reasonable.
Tanzania, which ranks lowest among the SADC countries profiled in Transparency International’s 1998 Survey, has seen the corruption problem raised on the national agenda since President Benjamin Mkapa was elected in 1995. A report from his presidential commission against corruption was published swiftly, and constituted a wide-ranging indictment of government and judiciary.
Despite this progress, the extent of Tanzanian corruption seems to make it unlikely that further progress will come from the present government. Mkapa now stands largely alone, apparently immobilised by the criminality of those around him.
Botswana, Tanzania, South Africa, Malawi and Mozambique were among those Southern African countries which met in Washington in February under the auspices of the Global Coalition for Africa. The countries adopted various principles, which it was hoped might be the basis for an African anti-corruption convention.
Among the 25 principles adopted by the conference were calls for clear codes of ethical conduct for public officials and the establishment of clear procurement procedures.
Principle 13 called for independent anti-corruption bodies empowered to initiate and pursue investigations of corruption.
One such body exists in South Africa in the form of the public protector. However, other anti-corruption bodies such as the Heath investigative unit have to wait for proclamations from provincial authorities before they can pursue the corrupt.
The principles also called for the establishment of extradition treaties between countries to allow for the extraction of corrupt persons.
South Africa does not at present have extradition agreements with all its SADC partners. The Department of Justice lists formal agreements only with Botswana, Swaziland, Malawi and Lesotho. Semi- formal agreements exist with Namibia and Zimbabwe, but Mozambique, Angola, Tanzania and Zambia fall outside the net. The SADC did adopt a plan to develop extradition agreements in April 1998.
Unfortunately, a consistent regional extradition plan will have to wait on the day when all countries trust in the kind of justice that is being meted out by their partners.