Addis Ababa — Professor Piet Naude, Ethics Professor at the Nelson Mandela Business School (South Africa), and currently the president of Business Ethics Network of Africa (BEN-Africa) was in Addis Ababa to chair the three day 7th annual conference of the network from August 1-3, 2007.

The conference which was sponsored by Dashen Bank and Midroc Group was hosted by the Ethiopian chapter of BEN-Africa.

Prof. Piet Naude who argues that it is not impossible to change the image of Africa abroad from negative one to a positive one, says that the answer to Africa's problem is not to accept Afro-pessimism but rather to commit oneself towards achieving that aim.

The Reporter's Bruck Shewareged had the chance to talk to Prof. Naude about the network's aims and activities. Excerpts.

What was in your mind when you set up the organization?

BEN-Africa was set up seven years ago by Africans in Africa. We have chapters in 25 countries in the continent from South Africa up to the north in what we specifically call the English-speaking part of Africa. We are a network organization. What we do is that we try and make stronger government organizations working on anti-corruption, or a non-government organization that fights for more openness in business.

Our big aim is to make sure that the image of Africa as a corrupt continent is changed. We want to change that by not doing things for governments but by empowering them to fight corruption.

Our conference is attended by not only government officials but also private sector people, legal people, psychology people, people in charge of anti-corruption units etc. We have built a network around Africa. That's what our name means.

How do you particularly define ethics in terms of your profession?

I think you should distinguish two things here. Some of our people are professionals themselves. So they are auditors, lawyers, certified psychologists. All of them are subject to the codes of their own profession.

When you say certified psychologists...?

We have psychologists registered with the network council. They would sometimes work in the anti-fraud section or human resources section. So they work under the code of ethics of their profession.

But the very simple definition of ethics is to leave out that which is not good in business relationships amongst partners. That is different from culture to culture, we know that. For instance, the big divide is, "When is a gift so big that is becomes fraud?" This is culturally determined.

It is a fluid concept. It differs, as you say, from culture to culture. So what is your standard?

What we need is some agreements where the different cultural conceptions can meet one another. For instance, a multi-national company that is working in Nigeria also works in the United Kingdom and in Russia. We are trying to work towards the point where the issue of corruption is treated on a universal scale where cultures can agree on some principles like honesty, not stealing money etc. We find it is not impossible to do so. You know, a hundred years ago very few people agreed on human rights. Today human rights is a kind of universal principle.

But practically lack of ethics or transparency is hampering business in many parts of Africa, even choking the flow of foreign direct investment (FDI). Can Africa afford to wait for another hundred years in the face of abject poverty?

The point is, you need two things. First, you need to create an image attractive enough for foreign investors. By far, business in Africa is dominated by governments. Most economic activities are undertaken by governments. They build the roads, run the hospitals or the clinics etc. Their private sector is actually quite small.

But we must not forget that private firms from the so-called North, are sometimes the organizations responsible for bribes. It doesn't always begin in Africa. So the first thing that we must fight is this perception.

The second thing is, in each country we need to take our own responsibility to ensure that business practices on the ground are subject to review. When contracts are awarded, we need to make sure that the process is fair, that the best person or bidder is given the contract, that everything is clean, that no money is siphoned off to be given later as bribe etc. Things must change. But we know that it takes time to change the perception about Africa.

Since, as you said earlier, governments have dominance, if not monopoly, over economic activities and no real rival from the private sector, do they have the incentive to put their houses in order?

Simply, the incentive comes from two points. The first incentive is that international aid is dependent upon anti-corruptions activities. We have a very important case of heavily indebted African countries that owe a lot of money to the IMF and the World Bank. What did the IMF and WB do some years ago?

They said, "We are willing to write off the debt, but not of all countries, only of those that subscribe to certain publicly announced forms of governance." Around 38 billion dollars of debt were written off. But about another 12 billion were not written off. Twelve billion dollars is a lot of money. If that is not incentive, I don't know what will change your way.

Secondly, as Africa becomes more democratic, and we hope it will continue to do so, the pressure will be from the people who will say "we are sick and tired of people who look after themselves only. They got Swiss banks accounts while our roads and clinics are so bad."

So the incentive is two-way, international and internal pressure.

From your own observation, what is the level of business ethics exercise in your home country, South Africa?

You have to erase from your mind that South Africa is a corruption free country. We have done, of course, pretty well in legislation.

I'm not saying you are free of corruption. No country is. What experience can you share with others?

What we can share with the rest of Africa, I think, is our transition to a full democracy where the government was controlled by the few elite, in this case the white elite, hand power to the majority in a fairly peaceful process. We have a constitution that guarantees human rights, access to information etc. I think our country is trying to say. "We don't have everything right. But there are certain structural advantages."

Access to information is a key tool in fighting corruption. But unfortunately we lack that in many parts of Africa. Isn't that a challenge for you?

We have a law that if you can prove to the court that the government is withholding information that is of necessity for the exercise of your legal rights, the law forces the ministers to provide that information. For instance, how many murders occurred last year in our country. Only the police know that and they are ashamed to publish that. We take them to court. But even before the case reaches the court, they give us that information.

To which country did we sell oil from our energy company SASOL? We can demand that information. So no information can be withheld from me which is important to exercise my rights.

But that is only in South Africa?

It could be. But it is something that I recommend. If you want to stop corruption, you must allow the free flow of information.

You said earlier that most BEN-Africa members are from the English speaking African countries. Why is that? What historical factors led to this?

Simply, the language factor. The Francophone countries are not members in the organization as we would like them to be. We have not stretched to the Arabic speaking countries in the north of the continent.

We also don't have a lot of money as we are not a for-profit organization. We try to move our conferences to countries where there is a potential for new membership. For example, a lot of new members signed here in Addis Ababa. Two years from now, we will go to Mauritius and then maybe to Ghana. That way, we spread the message. So far, it is because of money and time restraints that we haven't made inroads into many part of the continent.

Some countries prefer to set up an anti-corruption commissions to fight corruption while others follow another approach. From your studies, if you have any, what kind of approach do you recommend?

Well, our research shows that the anti-corruption units are not very effective. They normally start off very well. But the moment they start chasing high profile people, political involvement begins.

The life span of a very a good anti-corruption unit rarely exceeds five years. The minute they start going after people in power, politics stops them. The reason for that is very simple; i.e. lack of separation of power.

The answer to your question does not lie in setting up anti-corruption units but by using the government itself to become anti-corrupt. For instance, in Ethiopia, parliament established the anti-corruption commission. What you need is to report to parliament but keep your independence. If the political commitment is not there, you can't move forward. Sadly, that is the story in many parts of Africa.

The negative image of Africa is so frustrating that it is hurting business in the continent. What can one do about it?

The answer is simple. Either you give up and accept Afro-pessimism as your philosophy and then emigrate to Australia. Or you can say I'm committed to this continent and the way to do this is to build credible relationships with powerful individuals or organizations like owners.

Next year, in Cape Town, there will be a meeting of all the network organizations that work on corporate governance ethics from all around the world, Latin American, North American, Europeans will come together. That way we strengthen the networks.

How do you fight perceptions?

Well you cannot go to the BBC and say, "Send only good stories about Africa," because we also have bad stories. You build perceptions one by one.

Some resort to pointing fingers towards corporate scandals like the Enron case in the US and be content with the fact that bad business practices are not Africa's alone while others say this doesn't help. Where do you stand regarding this argument?

We need to get away from the idea that corruption is an African phenomenon. That is totally nonsense. The biggest corporate frauds did not happen in Africa but in Europe and the United States. That corruption is an African phenomenon is part of the old colonial mindset which is unfair towards Africa.

We have a very small neighbor Lesotho. When they try to build big dams with a contract from South Africa to supply water to the latter, who were the companies involved in the bribery? They came from Europe, French companies.

Once I heard companies in France and Germany are exempted from paying taxes on money spent on bribing African officials to get big contracts because that money is considered as production cost and hence deducted from tax. It takes more than African efforts to fight corruption...

Just to correct you, the German situation is changed. It is now illegal. I'm not sure about the French. That practice, in whatever form is wrong because it creates an incentive for corruption. We must fight that.