NO POLITICAL WILL TO FIGHT CORRUPTION

We once a had a Finance minister who estimated that the kingdom bled about E80 million a month to corruption. It never was clear how he came to that conclusion and what formula he used to get to that amount. It raised many eyebrows and for some weird reason, he was somehow the centre of negative attention for making this expose. It didn’t really matter to me how he came to that conclusion and if indeed the figure was accurate.I was prepared to take it as it was coming from a then politician who had been in that ministry for so many terms that it was not unusual to have someone in any treasurer capacity in organisations being referred to as the ‘Majozi’ of the organisation.

Opinion

This erstwhile minister had been in the position long enough to have a fairly educated opinion on the quantum of corruption. E80 million a month, which makes it E960 a year, is a lot of money, by any standards. At that time (2011) it was double the annual allocation for social services. I can already estimate that this would be sufficient enough to upgrade this one stretch of barely passable rocky road by my parental home to probase and give relief to many. Staggering as this amount may be, I am still convinced that was just a tip of the iceberg.   
Now over a decade later, I’ve been asking myself just about where this figure stands now. If government efforts, or lack thereof, to clamp down on corruption over the years is anything to go by, then it’s almost certain that there has been an exponential hike in this number. If one looks at the trends in procurement, where it has been institutionalised and normalised that as a businessperson, you can’t just walk away with all you’re going to make in the business, you know we far from wining this fight.

Benefit

In procurement it is no longer strange that someone or some people must benefit from the tender awarded other than just you as the businessperson. Even before the tender is awarded, a specific percentage is demanded as though it is the law. There may be also a need to pay the accountant to disburse your cheque at the end of the project. At the end of the day, as a businessperson you must be grateful to take home just a fraction of what is due to you. Afterall, where would you have got the business, you comfort yourself.

Recently, we learnt of that the Anti-Corruption has many cases it is investigating but this does not correlate to the number of arrests and prosecutions of the culprits. Months later, we still have no finality to the probe on the thievery taking place within the public health space. Several allegations of graft taking place in the International Conventional Centre and Five Star Hotel project have not been investigated and there just appears to be no political will to expose the rot there and bring the culprits to book. I can cite hundreds of example even in simple service delivery transactions where corruption is the norm rather than the exception. Many civil servants live in houses and have lifestyles way beyond their means. Corruption is our new normal and the impunity will not be coming to an end anytime soon.

Exploit

Human beings, where there is generally a weak legal framework and enforcement of laws, will always exploit the loopholes for their benefit. I think that is precisely the case in Eswatini. Government has spoken many times of its commitment to fight corruption but we see very little, if anything at all on the ground. The Anti-Corruption Commission is too quiet for its own good and you just can’t help but wonder if emaSwati are getting any value for the resources being channeled to that entity. We are not convincing at all as a country that we want to root out corruption. Instead, I see a society that is embracing corruption and creating a social order and value system that not only condones corruption, but promotes it.

The absence of a law to protect whistleblowers in this day and age is really telling. We still do not even have a law that entitles citizens to the right to information which means a lot still gets done away from public scrutiny. Transparency International ranks the kingdom number 113 out of 180 least corrupt countries and that is a very bad rating. I am particularly concerned about the mushrooming of companies that enjoy immunities not legally reserved for their directors. In an economy as fragile and weak as ours, the ordinary liSwati will not survive.     

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