CORRUPTION-SOUTHERN AFRICA: Poverty Fuels Corporate Bribery

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Anthony Stoppard

JOHANNESBURG, Aug 29 2003 (IPS) - Corporations stand accused of breeding corruption in Southern Africa as they pursue lucrative government contracts.

South African deputy president, Jacob Zuma, is fighting for his political life after the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) found prima facie evidence that he was involved in corruption in the government’s weapons acquisition programme.

Zuma was accused of taking money from French arms manufacturer, Thomson CSF, to help them secure contracts from the South African government.

The South African Director of Public Prosecutions, Bulelani Ngcuka says, while there is a prima facie case of corruption against Zuma, the prospects of a successful prosecution are not strong enough for him to lay charges in a court of law.

"That means that we are not sure if we have a winnable case. Accordingly, we have decided not to prosecute the deputy president," said Ngcuka at a press conference last week.

However, Schabir Shaik, Zuma’s financial advisor, will be charged with corruption and fraud. The NPA will also be prosecuting the French arms company, Thomson CSF, which secured a large slice of the multi-million dollar arms deal.

Ironically, Zuma, who leads a government-sponsored national moral regeneration campaign, is now thought to be considering taking the NPA to court to clear his name.

The decision not to prosecute him was "not helping at all", said Zuma, at a trade union congress this week. "It had almost been a trial by media, many adjectives have been used to describe me with information leaked from the investigating unit," he said.

Zuma said he thought a prima facie case should be taken to the courts for a decision. The decision not to prosecute him, he said, "leaves suspicion". Senior Researcher at the Pretoria-based Institute for Security Studies (ISS), Hennie van Vuuren says, according to some research, between five and ten percent of the billions of U.S. dollars spent on arms deals across the world go towards the bribery and corruption of officials.

Emphasising that the onus for honest behaviour can never be removed from officials, Van Vuuren says large multinationals have budgets bigger than the gross domestic product of many developing countries. And that they can provide significant incentives for corrupt behaviour by officials. This is especially true in developing countries where the government does not have the resources to pay its workers sufficiently and many are unable to survive on their salaries and wages.

Van Vuuren believes one of the best ways to begin tackling corruption is for governments to put a strong legislative framework in place, which when enforced, will prevent officials from being tempted to take bribes.

South Africa has a number of pieces of legislation, including whistle-blowing and anti-corruption laws, in the pipeline. Nevertheless, Van Vuuren says, its investigating agencies have not been scared to tackle even the most senior politicians, "something that does not happen too often even in the mature democracies".

He says both the United States and the Organisation for Economic Development and Co-operation (OECD) – which is made up of 30 states committed to democracy and good governance – have laws that make it illegal for international companies to bribe and corrupt government officials.

However, Van Vuuren says, in many cases governments and companies in developed countries seem to be only paying lip service to these laws.

The South African Broadcasting Corporations (SABC) reported this week that about 15 international companies, believed to have been involved in bribery in the Lesotho Highlands Water Project, will be prosecuted soon. This comes after a German firm, Lahmeyer, was fined R10.5 million (1.46 million U.S. dollars) in the Lesotho High Court for bribery, aimed at securing lucrative contracts, this week.

Lahmeyer says it will appeal against both the conviction and the fine.

The former chief executive of the dam and hydro-electric power building programme, Masupha Sole, has been sentenced to 15 years in jail for receiving bribes amounting to over one million U.S. dollars.

The Lesotho government says its new policy on zero-tolerance on corruption will restore investor confidence in the kingdom. It warned that if international companies and top government officials involved in corruption are not prosecuted, others would follow suit.

Fine Maema, Lesotho’s Attorney General, said: "Investor confidence clearly would be diminished if there’s corruption and people thrive on bribery. We’re saying that once the international companies and the international community as a whole realise that there’s zero tolerance on corruption, then it clearly means that there’d be more investors coming to Lesotho".