I recently came across a few articles talking about corruption and the siphoning off of funds meant for Covid-19 support, and I was mad.
For me, that’s just foul.
In a post written by Mushtaq Khan and Pallavi Roy, I read in shock about instances of “padding in procurement contracts, leakages in distribution, including of emergency food supplies, and cronyistic appointments to head newly formed response agencies in countries as diverse as Colombia, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Romania, and Ukraine”. It shouldn’t have been shocking because a week before, I came across similar reports happening here in South Africa. It’s happening all around.
Yes, corruption is not new. It’s endemic to governance, business, and everyday life in most countries. But on occasions like this, it can be quite baffling to contend with.
In the context that we find ourselves in today, huge sums of public money are being mobilized and diverted to fund emergency measures. Governments need to identify, approve, and implement at a speed unfamiliar to the public sector on a normal day. Speed of course need not come at the expense of accountability. But for many countries already rife with weak and unaccountable public financial management systems, the risk of misused and wasted public resources is a flashing red light. The need for sturdier monitoring and feedback loops cannot be understated.
Post Map
What’s with the receipts?
As previously mentioned, corruption is not new, especially not to African countries. And yet, as we look to build stronger economies and democracies, the current crises present an opportunity to strengthen the social contract between the state and its citizens – establishing trust. We must reform our attitude. Providing clarity around budget allocations, for instance, can help deepen commitments to transparency, better governance, and accountability.
How do we do this?
Rooting out corruption involves increasing the frequency of audits and spending reviews, especially around urgent procurement transactions.
Reviewing spending and auditing accounting should be a public exercise available and accessible to all Ghanaians, that means discussed in local languages as well. People do not know what they do not know. But there’s a lot they need to know. Why? Because our tit-for-tat political bickering always comes back to this.
And in the absence of receipts and transparency about expenditures, the stage is set for finger-pointing, the spinning of tales, and (false) accusations. A fruitless exercise that oft leads to the formation of one committee or the other – a dramatic waste of the little taxpayer money, or worse, donor funding.
Regular reporting to the public with as best of the information as can be made available is necessary. As President Johnson-Sirleaf once shared regarding the Ebola crisis in Liberia, letting people know honestly what the situation is so they can accept the situation is key to the governance-accountability nexus. Why? It furthers transparency and also brings about compliance, making it a tad easier to execute and implement tough choices.
Seek and invite public engagement to nip corruption in international development
This can take various shapes including using radio call-ins like is done in Rwanda but with more follow-through. To know whether services were delivered satisfactorily is to ask the recipient. Bottom-up feedback is not one many politicians are used to or prefer. But it should be of utmost importance in a democratic state. After all, democracy as they say involves more than what happens on election day. It also encompasses what happens between elections.
Enforceable action against detractors; stamp out corrupt apples
Most importantly, where there are gaps in delivery, the government must follow through investigate, prosecute, and disassociate. The pandemic is hard enough as it is and those that are taking advantage to siphon off funds have no place in leadership. They must return the funds and face the music – dancing in full rhythm towards the jail.
It seems easy, what’s the catch?
What we’ve had to learn in Ghana is that uncovering corruption is not the difficult part. It’s quite easy. The challenge is cleaning up what we found from digging under the hood.
Following the GFA exposé, BOST Contaminated Fuel Scandal, $1,000 Website saga, and many other media-buzzing scandals, accountability and justice lagged. Today, what can you tell me about the follow through on either of these? Not much I presume.
One of the biggest issues we’ve had in Ghana is around the public office being a source of riches and largesse. What was shocking to me was that we have, in theory, a way to check this. Under Article 286 of the Ghanaian constitution, high-ranking public officials i.e. the President, Vice-president, Ministers, Ambassadors, etc must in fact make written declarations of all their property and assets to the Auditor General. Get this, it must be before taking office, at every four-year interval after that, and then again at the end of their term. Oh, and where assets cannot be reasonably attributed to their income or other legitimate sources, they may then be deemed to have been acquired in breach of the constitution. Did you know this?
And yet, Ghana is one of those places where our theoretical provisions are solid! In practice, however, these same provisions are often rendered impotent because we don’t have the legs to support them. For instance, with regards to the above, officials are required to make these declarations but are not required to declare their assets publicly. How then do we effectively monitor such a provision? Especially when it is not in the interest of our lawmakers to strengthen this provision; they will, after all, be the subjects of our scrutiny.
The dangers to our democratic ideals
The danger, as I have come to see, is that absent justice, the public becomes somewhat hardened and increasingly disinterested in the volume, and frequency, of such scandals. They simply switch off, touting: “they all do it”, “it will never change” or worse, “God is our only hope”.
Building strong cases for prosecution takes time. The problem with time is that time, extended, can kill or bury enthusiasm. In the end, cases die out almost as quickly as they came up, but at less cost to the people who risked exposing these crimes. Ahmed Duale for instance lost his life for this very reason.
It seems sometimes that with governance, politics outdoes justice and with it, breeds a culture of impunity.
But it doesn’t end there
One of the major reasons why investors shy away from the African continent is not the actual but perceived risk of operating on the continent. Africa is on the cusp of seismic shift with a burgeoning population and rapidly urbanizing cities. To cater to this population, we need to create jobs, some 20 million each year at the very least. At current rates, only 100 of the 450 million additional working-age Africans added over the next decade can hope for decent work/stable employment – a crisis in the making.
Improving governance and reducing corruption is imperative to altering our narrative and building trust networks which we so lack on the continent. Why? Because then, to our investors and creditors, money foregone will be seen as used productively. Not used to grease greedy palms or siphoned into accounts never to benefit the domestic market.
We need not just fix things; we must change them completely.
The pandemic is bad. But there are opportunities to use this for good – check out my previous post on this. Instituting and instilling more transparency and accountability is one way to go about it, both at the national and local government level.
At some point, we need to do things differently. But what would it take dear friend?
PS: I am mad about the world today
Noelle Wonders
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The conclusion this leads me to assuming is that we cannot rely on the existing state infrastructure as the tool through which change can be driven. We need to look to different forms of agency and strengthen those vehicles through which this manifests. Such as social media activism. Using other forums that propel the voices of masses into the corridors of power. The formation of critical strategic alliances with international and local organizations. We also need to talk about how do African diaspora play a role in working with their counter-parts as well. My point is we all have different… Read more »
“those of us that have some form of social , political or economic capital need to be mobilized to be more active and having a genuine concern that moves into solution creation as opposed to problem identification.” – this my friend, is it! And we really no get time.
Most importantly, your point about organising power is super important. There is so much being done out there but as scattered forces, we wont go anyway im afraid. The wheels are turning brother…
Hi Noelle, I generally agree with all the arguments you have outlined in this post. The level of corruption in our governments is indeed demoralizing and our standards for accountability are not good enough. However, is there an incentive for the political elite to employ measures that reduce corruption and increase accountability? I don’t think so. Perhaps we (the masses) are not vociferous enough about change. We can do more! We are mistreated by our politicians because we accept mistreatment from our politicians. Clearly, we are not as involved in the political process as we like to think. As you’ve… Read more »
Thank you! There really is no strong incentive to do otherwise; we’ve accepted it so much that they get away with it. “That’s how these people are!” When we get close, they kick a fuss with along ethical/political party lines then we scatter.
We need to do so much better. We will not go far without dealing with the rot, among other things.
Thanks for engaging Richard! Look forward to exploring these topics more and acting on them with YOU involved!
You subscribed yet? 😂
Hmmm it is rather sickening. What I do wonder though, is that take the U.S. for example, even though $2trn was readily made available through Congress, the banks that are responsible for passing these on in the form of loans still have long bureaucratic processes that involve credit checks which can take weeks. So now the question is how do we balance the need for due diligence with the need for fast action? I know this is something African politicians love to use to play the people. Slow the process down enough to the point where the people eventually have… Read more »
Ooo, that’s one way to go about it. The assuming matter though…sigh.
I feel like maybe it seems big because we are looking too far up. Maybe we should consider sweeping changes across but put a brighter beam on local and sub national politics. Assemblyman and District level? But even those ones, how much power do they really have? I guess we don’t know what we don’t know and hence we must start from knowing more about who is responsible for what and with how much…maybe.
Lol. Don’t ask me what just said. Stream of consciousness
You are absolutely right, curbing corruption requires government openness, accountability, transparency and press freedom at all cost. I strongly believe breaking corruption network in organizations with a building of strong ethical culture is possible. Also, there is a legal framework against corruption in every country, but the problem is the lack of effective law enforcement that ensure the corrupt are punished and break the impunity cycle. So an independent and effective court system with a strong legal framework is needed in every level. And also a platform should be built to get citizens to participate in corruption fighting.
I couldnt agree more Beza. Politics has been shrouded in diplomacy for so long and i think perhaps that may be part of the long and slow process to get things done. I always wonder how we can get citizens informed and demanding of answers without being considered “disruptive”…
It is utterly disgusting that at a time like this relief funds are being stolen right in front of our eyes.
Policymakers must be responsive to corruption and actions needs to be followed through! I believe transparency should be our goal as a continent this decade, we must continuously push to find more effective ways to police corruption at all levels.
We must and i cannot wait for the sets of tools we come up with and hold people accountable to! We’ve gone way past that time.
The problem of corruption in Africa is something that has always sat so uncomfortably to me. The fact that in Nigeria for example, we have a COVID fund with massive amounts of domestically mobilised money missing has been the cherry on top of a disgustingly heartless pie, demonstrating the fact that our government doesn’t even care if it is caught. Unfortunately I feel like it stems from our dependence on natural resources for so long. Because a lot of the money that reaches government hands is not from the people (tax) but from resource rents, politicians have ingrained in them… Read more »
a real massive united effort indeed. I certainly think, or let me say have been taught to think, that raising more revenues would boost growth because of the accountability effect but even with that, unless we reform to more progressive systems, it will just increase the inequalities in our systems. We really do need to come up with creative ways to leverage our subsistence agriculture, non-diversified and largely informal sectors in order to widen the tax base, and turn the majority of our people into tax paying citizens with a voice. The antiquated systems of revenue generation that we have… Read more »
This is an insightful piece Marie- Noelle. It is really unfortunate that we keep seeing corruption at all levels and even in the face of a pandemic. I think that this is largely owing to the absence of pre-existing strong institutional structures to confront corrupt practices and stem them out. Here in Ghana, we are yet to see any tangible work of the Office of the Special prosecutor which was established to primarily deal with corruption. We really should be considering having expedited corruption trials. The gravity we place on corruption should propel this initiative. Set up special courts to… Read more »
Very well said Adubea.
We really need to do work. But how do we actually do it? Because we all know it and the poeple in power stand to benefit from the status quo, or so they think. How do we change it? What does that change look like?
Sometimes i feel like it has never really been a staple so we want change but our leaders, and sometimes all of us, actually do not know what to do to change or worse what change should look like and become…
nice article!
more accountability and transparency does create a more conducive investment environment.However there are short term agency costs associated with that and most politicians even of they know the right thing to do choose not to because these agency costs might hurt their campaigns.
I also think as much perceived risk does play a role, the cost of investment (actual risk) is our biggest issue. Western start-ups having better credit ratings and risk metrics than African government credit ratings says a lot about how risky our investment environment has been historically
You’re right and the actual risk perhaps does lay a larger role but the point is that we need to work on both. Any marketer will tell you how we underestimate perception in a lot of areas. Sometimes it feels like until we change that, the actual will suffer.
With politicians, should they do less or not choose to do the right thing because it might hurt them? Greater good of all eh? Selflessness is not really an option in politics on this side is it? Urgh, Paapa its just so annoying to try to understand how they operate.
perhaps you’ve seen this already but pretty interesting talk and interesting points raised on the business environment in Africa
I love her energy and her sense. It’s really something i have been saying. Government doesn’t create jobs – they literally cannot. Business can and they need to get out of the way and let businesses do their thing. Government’s job is to enable.
Wow, you’ve given me a person of interest! I am watching her documentary now as well. Thanks Paapa
So, I have quite a number of comments here, you are right on the money with this. 1. As you stated the first key to our development is the attitude and mindset, if we don’t change that, this country will never progress. We are not patriotic enough in this country, everyone is thinking about his/her own selfish gains and how this could impact the country and generations to come in the future. 2.Education, this point is beginning to sound like a broken record, but as you said you don’t know what you don’t know. The average Ghanaian is not aware… Read more »
Questions for the gods indeed. Spot on Samuel, spot ON. I have no words to add on.
Thanks for engaging!
Great article again Noelle. The pandemic really does provide an opportunity for Ghana to hit a reset on the way we Govern and build on that trust that’s been eroded due to Corruption. If only the leadership was assertive enough to follow through on punishment for those that breach this.. Who’s really willing to pull rank out here? How do you incentivise them? Can we get more Noelle’s in places of power and influence please!
Gassing me up!!!
You make good points about assertive leadership but yes, the how part. I imagine they know all these things and dont need me to tell them. I really just want to know why it’s not happening…
Thanks for stopping by!
Noelle, great thoughts as usual. What really struck me was the point about “perceived risk” investors see working within an African context, more so for African countries intimately knit with corruption. My pride wants to shout and say “Well take your money then, if you’re not even going to bother finding out what the actual risk of corruption is”, but I cannot confidently say that the results would dispel that perception (i.e., the actual risk could be higher than the perceived risk). We need to build strong state (gov’t) capacity, which is not threatened by an equally strong civilian state.… Read more »
Word!
Are we willing to buid something new? Maybe more important is what are we to do if the establishment is not interested in throwing out the old? How do we incentivize them to want to make such a change? What are the tools available and how far can we/should we/must me go?
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