Michael Dingake
15 April 2008
column
Corruption is a millstone around our neck as a nation, and the world as a whole. No nation, developed or undeveloped is corruption-free. There are of course different levels at which various countries engage in corruption.
The developed countries engage in corruption big time. Take the Enron scandal in the US. The corruption ran into billions of dollars and the victims into millions of Americans, including the working poor. The directors were charged and sentenced to terms of imprisonment but how big an issue was it in the media and at international forums?
Corruption scandals in developing countries are blown out of proportion while in the developed countries it is treated as normal. This is not to say our world must acquiesce in corruption.
While democracy is the best government system known to mankind; the human being, though a political animal, does not live by politics alone but by economics as well! And though the politics of democracy advocates equality, the economics of the system advocates naked inequality. Political and economic equality are weighed on different scales of inequity. A little boy is said to have asked his father, "Papa, how do fish live in the water?" And the father answered: "Why, my son! Just like men live on the land. The big ones eat the small ones."
In our economic world, or the so-called free market economy classically called capitalist, inequality is the norm. You either have capital in the form of land, buildings, other forms of property - mines, factories, buses, ships, aircraft or you have nothing but your hands and mind to labour for the propertied class for remuneration determined by supply and demand in the labour market. Jack London in his introduction to Upton Sinclair's 'The Cry for Justice' states:
"No person, no matter how soft and secluded his own life has been, can read this Holy Book ("The Cry for Justice") and not be aware that the world is filled with a vast mass of unfairness, cruelty and suffering. He will learn that the world can be fashioned a fair world indeed by the thinkers, the seers, the poets and the philosophers ...that the world be fashioned a fair world indeed by the humans who inhabit it, by the very simple, and yet most difficult process of coming to and understanding of the world."
I often wonder whether people who inhabit this earth, this living space, know that they live in an unfair, unjust, unequal, unfree and immoral world in spite of all the platitudes, principles and ideals expressed by our democratic constitutions and mouthed on a daily basis in political orations and religious homilies. And do we know, fellow-citizens, the fault is not in the political blabbers and bible thumpers but in ourselves that we are passivists?
Jack London says it: "... the world can be fashioned a fair world indeed by the humans who inhabit it, by the very simple and yet most difficult process of coming to and understanding of the world." Do we understand our world? And do we think it should be changed and that we are capable of changing it?Jack London was one of the writers of the time, known as muckrakers. They wrote to expose corruption at the turn of the last century in the USA. They saw capitalist society as "a society based upon blood."
"Everyone here steals, how should they not in a country where the recognition of the greatest service lasts for not quite a month.. there is nothing real, nothing that survives disgrace, save money." Wrote, Stendhal.
Everyone here steals. The big guys steal big time. The little guys, taking their cue from the biggies, steal small time. "Everyone steals!" The root cause of corruption in the world and in the country is the deafening silence on corruption. Jack London and his fellow muckrakers in the States at the time were outspoken on corruption. You may say, 'but what did they achieve? America is still as corrupt as ever.' We do not know whether it would not be worse than it is, were it not for the 'muckrakers.' They have bequeathed us, the International Anti-corruption Conferences, at least!
On February 23, 1999 a number of representatives from African countries met in Washington DC under the auspices of the Global Coalition for Africa to discuss a "Collaborative Framework to address Corruption." The meeting was opened by James D Wolfensohn (the same one of big time corruption with the girl friend), President of the World Bank, and attended by representatives of Africa's partners for development. Among the countries and organizations represented: Canada, Denmark, France, The Netherlands, Switzerland, United Kingdom, United States - co-organizer of the meeting - the OECD.
After discussion, the African participants (Botswana included ) agreed on 25 principles to combat corruption in Africa. Among these were, that governments should:
* Demonstrate the leadership and political will to combat and eradicate corruption in all sectors of government and society...
* Eliminate conflicts of interest,...enforcing, ... codes of conduct .. which include.. requirements for ... disclosure of financial interests, assets, liabilities, gifts and other transactions.
* Prohibit individuals found guilty of corruption from bidding on public contracts or otherwise doing business with governments..Has our government, since, demonstrated leadership and political will to combat and eradicate corruption? Does the Nchindo trial blaze the trail? We watch in anticipation. What about eliminating conflict of interest...disclosure of financial interests, assets, liabilities, gifts and other transactions?
Definitely not. The cabinet unashamedly killed Hon Joy Phumaphi's motion of 1996! Has the government, ensured that anti-corruption agencies are autonomous, independent, governed by a clear body of law...? No. It has stuffed cotton wool in its ears. One worries, that with the fate of Scorpions in SA, bales of cotton wool will be stuffed in the already, deaf ears. Has the government prohibited individuals found guilty of (or confessed) corruption from bidding on public contracts or ...doing business with government? An emphatic no! The private media has played a big role in exposing corruption. Some Media Houses more than others. Congratulations! What about the general public? We all need to be volunteer whistleblowers - muckrakers, to uproot corruption.
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