Samwel Rambaya
13 April 2005
Nairobi — The Church yesterday termed as hypocritical the donor community's onslaught against the Government over corruption.
Catholic and Anglican bishops from the African region questioned the donors' silence over looted African wealth stashed in western countries.
"If they are honest as they want us to believe, they must first repatriate the money stashed abroad by corrupt African leaders," they told a news conference in Nairobi.
The bishops, from Eastern and Southern Africa, also demanded the review of World Trade Organisation systems and policies.
They further demanded the prosecution of corrupt individuals in Government and parliamentary approval of any donor funding.
The clerics, who were speaking at the Anglican Church office, included Zambia's Catholic Archbishop, Rt Reverend Terese Mpundu, Kenyan Anglican bishop, Right Rev Gedion Ireri and Joseph Zusa, a Catholic bishop from Malawi.
Mr Oduor Ong'wen, a lobbyist and country director of Southern and Eastern Africa Trade Information and Negotiation Institute, accompanied them.
The clerics spoke after President Kibaki led a Government delegation to a donors' consultative group meeting in Nairobi on Monday.
Donors, mainly from the European Union, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, have set the war on graft as one of the key conditions for releasing aid to Kenya.
The bishops came together to express solidarity with farmers, workers, traders and the civil society at the Global Week of Action, which focuses on poverty and injustices of international trade.
The church leaders were, however, unequivocal over the issue of debt cancellation and suspension of donor aid.
Bishop Ireri said: "I am for cancellation, but what do you do when you still have corrupt people in the corridors of power?"
Archbishop Mpundu said the media was the last front on which the war on corruption would be won.
"The media should keep corruption on the spot, arouse public anger and force legal action against the vice," he said.
They said the WTO favoured the rich south at the expense of Africa.
"We are deeply concerned at the lack of transparency and democracy in WTO system and processes: its rule-making, negotiations, monitoring and dispute settlement."
Africa, they said, has not reaped its fair entitlement, with its world's merchandise exports standing at 2.5 per cent in 2000, down from 6.3 per cent in 1980.
The bishops cited the proposed reduction of industrial tariffs that undermine developing countries' ability to attain the Millennium Development Goals.
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