Tightening the screws on corruption

For the poorest people, every opportunity that sees some extra money coming their way is quickly seized. When the whole country is poor, this becomes the ‘normal’ way everything is done, from the smallest transaction to the largest.

The Tanzanian Government is working on the wide range of measures that will lead to national culture change over time. I have blogged here and here about corruption, and today I see a Reuters report about the Tanzanian Public Procurement Regulatory Authority (PPRA), whose job is to regulate government tenders to ensure that the money goes to the project, and not into the pockets of officials.

According the World Bank’s country procurement assessment report for Tanzania issued in 2003, about 20% of government expenditure on procurement is lost through corruption, mainly in the form of kickbacks and bogus investments that eventually have to be written off. The report says,

Considering that public procurement accounts for about 70 per cent of the entire government expenditure budget, this translates to a loss of $300m (approx. 300bn/- at the time) per year, which is enough to finance the combined annual recurrent budgets of the ministries of health and education.

Clearly the PPRA has plenty of work ahead! Established two years ago, the PPRA will issue standard procurement procedures to government departments for running tenders, monitor the performance of tenders and investigate any irregularities. Head of PPRA, Ramadhan Mlinga, says,

Actually one of the serious things is lack of information. Basically all these efforts will be able to give some correct statistics on procurement.

Under Tanzania's new anti-corruption law anyone found guilty of graft through procurement could face fines of between 1.0 million shillings and three million, or three and five years in prison.

For another view on government effectiveness in fighting corruption in Tanzania, see a report (4 Sept 2007) in This Day, which quotes a recent assessment by the London-based Economist Intelligence Unit.

New laws, regulatory agencies with real power, professional development training and an alert media that keeps the spotlight on the problem – all of these things will contribute to a change in culture in coming years. Reducing corrupt practices at all levels of life will help reduce poverty and encourage faster economic growth.

That's good news for the kids at the School of St Jude. Your support will help them grow up well-equipped for a new society that is undergoing important social change.

Tanzania best for government effectiveness

A new World Bank report says that Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda have shown significant progress in the key aspects of improving governance over the past 10 years.

Tanzania has the best record of all three countries in its efforts to control corruption and also scores best under the "Rule of Law" category. Both Kenya and Tanzania score well under the "Voice and Accountability" section, while Uganda is said to be the least stable politically.

Tanzania is also said to be the country that rates highest in terms of government effectiveness.

The ratings are based on the views of East African citizens, businesses and other survey results taken over the past 10 years.

This is really good news for economic development in Tanzania because research shows a strong correlation between higher growth and reduced corruption.

I have blogged here about recent anti-corruption legislation in Tanzania and I am now interested to see that the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) have run 3-day training workshops for Tanzanian Prevention and Combating of Corruption Bureau (PCCB) prosecutors. The training brings prosecutors up to speed on the new Prevention and Combating of Corruption Act and offers techniques for diagnosing a case, developing a theory of the crime, getting evidence admitted in court, and speaking persuasively in court.

PCCB Director General Edward Hosea and DPP Assistant Director Augustine Shio (speaking) participate in PCCB prosecutor training

Through case studies and presentations by an experienced former U.S. federal prosecutor and talks by senior prosecutors and judges from the Department of Public Prosecution (DPP) and the Court of Appeal, the training is expected to bolster the number of successful corruption prosecutions carried out by the PCCB and DPP.

USAID is also providing PCCB with support for the development of an electronic case management system, information technology equipment, and vehicles to facilitate field investigations.

A lot of hard work like this goes into building the capacity for better governance. Tanzania is putting the hard work, with the help of the international community.

In the same way, the School of St Jude is putting in a lot work to develop better teaching practices so that bright children from poor families have the chance of a good education.



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New anti-corruption bill

The Tanzanian National Assembly has approved a new anti-corruption bill that will become law after approval by President Jakaya Kikwete.

This is a new milestone for the government. I have blogged here and here about how the Tanzanian government has been dragging its feet in addressing corruption. One cost has been the loss of some aid that is tied to milestones that have not been met.

In the recent sitting at Dodoma in central Tanzania, a record number of 57 members of parliament aired their opinion in the debate about the Prevention and Combating of Corruption Bill 2007.

The Prevention and Combating of Corruption Bill offers such new measures in the country's anti- corruption campaign as the formation of an anti-corruption board that will comprise the police, the national intelligence service and representatives from the private sector. Some of the powers of the director of public prosecutions will be reduced.

The bill will also spell out regulations for international agencies, companies, and non-governmental organizations operating in the country.

The bill has incorporated the proposed anti-corruption act the United Nations Convention Against Corruption, the African Union Convention on Prevention and Combating Corruption, the Southern African Development Community Protocol Against Corruption and Tanzania's public procurement act.

This is an important step in making governance better. It is vital that assistance to Tanzania comes at both the individual level and the national level. The children who are getting an excellent education at the School of St Jude, need to find work in a country that is well governed.

Tonight, at the book launch event I attended, Gemma spoke a little about corruption in Tanzania. She seems to have it sorted out! She says, “That’s just Africa”, and gets on with achieving her goals while protecting the school from blatant rorts.

Gemma Sisa at book launch in Sydney

For example, she described the 30 acres of land she has bought at Usa River. This was part of 130 acres. She asked the Government surveyor to measure off her 30 acres, and got a work team started on building security walls around her portion. She asked them to leave two ends of the walls unfinished till the survey was completed.

Then she asked a second surveyor to confirm the survey. Guess what? The Government surveyor had measured only 28 acres. The owners said her second survey was wrong. So she got a third survey – 28 acres. Still the owners argued. At this point she was glad that her father-in-law is a local man of some weight. They convened a meeting with the owners and the three surveyors and her father-in-law helped them all work through the issues.

The true 30 acres was agreed, the security walls were extended by 24 feet and the school has the amount of land they paid for.

“That’s Africa,” says Gemma Sisia, and gets on with building schools and educating kids.

Are you a supporter of the school? Have you visited the school? Met Gemma? Know someone who is helping at the school? Why not use the comment section to introduce yourself... We'd love to hear about you.




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Anti-corruption fights poverty

Corruption seems to be common in all very poor countries. It is one of the factors that feed the cycle of poverty – when donors see their aid syphoned off into private hands, they back away, and the poor remain poor.


Recently, donor countries have linked their donations to evidence of progress on anti-corruption measures. The Tanzanian government has been working on anti-corruption legislation that will provide better conditions for accessing information, improve the possibilities of sanctioning persons found guilty of corruption, and protect whistle blowers.

This legislation was due to be tabled in 2006 but the deadline was missed. Because of this, Denmark slashed 20% ($3.9 million) of its aid pledge to the Tanzanian government for budget support during the 2007/08 period, saying it was concerned about the delay in dealing with graft.

Denmark had granted general budget support to Tanzania of up $103.8 million for the period of 2006 to 2010. It was agreed by the two countries that 20% of the support be linked to specific achievement indicators of tabling anti-corruption legislation. The government says the Bill will be tabled in the House this year. That may help to ensure that they don’t have another 20% slashed next year!

The importance of anti-corruption legislation has been underlined by a news report in The Guardian this week. The report notes that in 2002 the UK's biggest arms supplier, BAE Systems, secretly paid a $12m commission into a Swiss account in a deal which led to Tanzania buying a controversial military radar system.

A Tanzanian middleman, who has a long-standing relationship with military and government figures, has admitted that the sum was covertly moved to a Swiss account by BAE Systems, which is under investigation by the British Serious Fraud Office.

The School of St Jude is run to benefit very poor children. It works hard to ensure that every dollar donated is used to provide excellent education for these bright children. Careful supervision of expenses and rigorous accounting ensure that money is well-spent. See the 2006 Annual Report on the school website.

Corruption and croneyism

A conference was held on 9 December by the Tanzanian Government to map out new strategies to tackle corruption. The conference will engage the Tanzanian Government and the key donor countries who contribute 41% of the Government’s annual income.

President Jakaya Kikwete

The anti-graft watchdog Transparency International (TI) pulled out of Tanzania citing the government's reluctance to wage a vigorous campaign against corruption. This underlined growing international unease with the manner in which President Kikwete has allowed corruption to fester despite official rhetoric about his government's determination to eliminate it.

Donors' indictment of President Kikwete followed a series of questionable decisions in the past 12 months that have resulted in economic performance hitting the lowest point in a decade in spite of increased infusion of aid. The low point came when all hydroelectric power plants closed causing an 18-hour daily electricity rationing. The economy is literally on its knees after manufacturing ground to a halt thanks to irregular supply of power - now reduced to less than six hours per day, seven days a week.

The one-year-old Kikiwete administration intends to persuade the donors that it has what it takes to turn around the wobbly economy. The forum is set to discuss the revised National Anti-Corruption Strategy and Action Plans (Nacsap), which was dismissed by donors as weak and ambiguous. The conference is expected to set benchmarks upon which the future donor funding would be pegged.

At the local level, the School of St Jude operates in a society where corruption is common at all levels. The School is careful to monitor and measure the goods that are provided by all kinds of suppliers to ensure that they are not over-charging. The fees charged by local officials for services (visa renewal, postal deliveries) seem to be flexible acccording to the perceived ability to pay.

I guess that at the local level, this kind of petty graft is driven largely by the desperate poverty of most lives. But at the higher levels where national government contracts are handed to friends and family, the motives are more like power and greed. And given the bad smell that lingers around the US Bush administration’s connections with favoured companies like Haliburton, it is clear that this doesn’t just happen in the poorest countries.

I hope that Tanzania can make some substantive progress on reducing corruption. When incompetent friends are favoured in important deals (e.g. electricity supply) then the whole nation suffers. Suffering in the poorest countries is a desperate business of deprivation and death, not just the kind of deprivation in First World countries, where people with only one television can feel ‘poor’.

Meanwhile, The School of St Jude spends all donations directly on providing excellent education to the poorest children for free. And it takes steps to ensure that its funds are not eaten up by the croneyism and featherbedding of local suppliers and officials.