By James Hall
MBABANE, Mar 31 2005 (IPS)

Sipho Shongwe, a traditional chief who last year was appointed by King Mswati as the minister in charge of health and social welfare, sounded shocked and wounded following his first encounters with the depths of corruption in government.

Of all the acts of bribery and nepotism, kickbacks by private contractors of public funds to government officials and patronage that finds the public service bloated with officials’ family members, it was mischief at the fuel pump that set off the minister.

‘’On many occasions when the fuel consumption in a government car is compared with the kilometres the car was supposed to have travelled, there is a huge difference which shows that the car has been diverted for personal errands,’’ said Shongwe at the hand-over of two vehicles to the health ministry, gifts from the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

At the same time the minister was promising the UNICEF representative that the donated cars would not be misused, former justice minister Magwagwa Mduli was regaling his colleagues in parliament with accusations that some cabinet ministers were switching registration plates on their government vehicles to get away with their use for personal matters.

Such petty corruption, well known even in the world’s richest countries, is more than an annoyance in a small, impoverished nation like Swaziland. The finance ministry two weeks ago cited the first estimation of the cost of government corruption. A private consultant found that the national treasury loses about 80 million dollars a year to various rip-offs conducted by government officials, often in collaboration with private interests.

Finance Minister Majozi Sithole broke this news to parliamentarians when he delivered his budget speech Mar. 9. ‘’The twin evils of bribery and corruption have become the order of the day in the country,’’ he said.

In a prelude to what the finance ministry hopes will be the first real attempt to address government corruption in Swaziland’s 38 years since independence, Sithole said malpractices are killing the economy by a thousand cuts. He said ‘’highly placed individuals connive with government officials to inflate contracts or even make government pay for services that were never rendered’’.

Sithole said construction projects were particularly lucrative for the corruption conspirators, though no area of public spending is immune.

Charles Ginindza, a businessman who commutes on the nation’s roads, said anyone could see there is corruption in the public works ministry, judging by the quality of the nation’s infrastructure.

‘’Roads start falling apart even before they are completed, as if they are made of sand. But the costs during construction keep going up and up, way over budget. Where does the money go? Not to quality materials, that is certain,’’ Ginindza says.

Two weeks ago the minister for public works and construction, Elijah Shongwe, made front-page news when he admitted his ministry was the most corrupt in government. But he conceded only small offences.

‘’The roads department sold bags of cement during construction of one of the local bridges, and some (workers) took bribes like goats from residents who asked them to clear space for their homes (with ministry tractors),” Shongwe said. Forget about the goats, Swazis were saying, what about the hundreds of millions of dollars over the years that allegedly went into the pockets of crooked contractors and their government cohorts?

As for government’s Central Transportation Authority (CTA), which both minister of health Shongwe and minister of transport Shongwe complained about, a bill authorising the privatisation of the facility was passed way back in 1975. But no action was taken to implement privatisation as government officials and bureaucrats for decades have allegedly stolen car parts and filled up their petrol tanks for free and with impunity.

‘’It is a matter of political will to address corruption. Otherwise, officials are just being fashionable condemning corruption as if they intend to do something about it,’’ said an Mbabane attorney and member of Lawyers for Human Rights Swaziland.

He cited government’s Anti-Corruption Unit, in operation since 1996, but which has accomplished absolutely nothing. Not a single investigation has been seen through to a conviction, in part, critics argue, because corruption is so pervasive that once prosecutions begin, they would never end, as lower-run bureaucrats finger ever-higher officials.

Finance Minister Sithole told MPs two weeks ago, ‘’I certainly look forward to the Ministry of Justice and Constitutional Affairs presenting a bill to give teeth to the Anti-corruption Unit this year.’’

A Company Bill is also ready for tabling before parliament, which will make it easier for government prosecutors to put away executives who squander their companies’ resources.

Given Swaziland’s dependence on foreign aid and donors’ increasing insistence that aid be tied to good governance rid of corruption, the justice ministry may have no choice but to promulgate such legislation.

The independent ‘Times of Swaziland’, which called corruption ‘’the country’s second currency’’, has its doubts. The newspaper implicated the finance minister himself in the illegal use of about 4.5 million dollars.

It also pointed out that the former justice minister who headed a special parliamentary investigative team on corruption which, among other things, found a former house speaker guilty of misappropriating government funds, was himself found guilty in court of election fraud.

Wrote commentator Vusi Sibisi, ‘’Those fingered in shady deals find themselves appointed to top political and other positions of authority. That is confirmation enough that corruption is an unofficial policy of government and a badge of honour for recognition and upward mobility in the Kingdom of Swaziland.’’

Sibisi doubts that national leadership has the political will to fight corruption, and echoes the views of much of civil society that only international pressure will bring reform.

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