The good news is that the public prosecutor’s office or the Attorney General are busy with the arduous task of tracing the whereabouts of the hundreds of millions if not billions of the country’s financial assets stolen by former high government officials. According to the officials conducting the investigations, the assets are presumably stashed away in foreign banks whose names are not yet revealed. Some of them might have been disguised as phony investments used in money laundering operations by the suspects. Anyway, the big fight against grand corruption in Ethiopia is apparently regaining momentum, although much of the work was done in silence
In the recent past, the now-defunct EPRDF government systematically denied that corruption was a serious problem in Ethiopia. At one point it asserted that although corruption may exist to some extent, it was not as serious as the situation in certain African countries infamous for their misappropriation or abuse of public money. The official rhetoric on corruption was often superficial, pretentious and fake even in the face of evidence from international anti-corruption watchdogs such as Transparency International and others.
At one point, the authorities were talking about so-called thieves by categorizing them into “state thieves” and “private thieves” and promising to fight both of them. However, the promise was soon forgotten and it was back to square one. A long period of silence ensued until the anti-corruption commission came up with some kind of make-believe report to a docile national assembly that had no power to question those dimmed responsible for stealing public funds. Unfortunately, the anti-corruption drama was force-stopped before it reached its climax and a long period of silence ensued.
It is also to be remembered that the Auditor General’s office used to make regular annual reports to the same docile parliament, warning that critical state institutions were lacking transparency in their spending or purchases and that public procurement was not conducted according to the rules and regulations set by the legislative body itself. No one paid attention to those cries of foul play and the malpractice went on unabated until another annual report by the Auditor General came up with even more serious breaches of public trust. To make matters even worse, some of the vocal officials at both the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission were removed from their posts or sent abroad as ambassadors.
The theft of public funds continued without the watchful eyes of the public until it went too far and triggered the wrath of the people whose protests led to the ouster of the most corrupt faction within the defunct EPRDF leadership. The alleged corrupters and the corrupted went packing as soon as their dirty tricks were revealed after the onset of the political reform process now in full swing.
International anti-corruption watchdogs were also releasing annual reports in which they accused former Ethiopian authorities of stealing from the country and stashing their ill-gotten booties in foreign banks or investing them in lucrative businesses from America to Europe and the Middle East. Stories of Ethiopian billionaires shopping in luxurious and expensive boutiques in Dubai or Paris, buying luxurious villas worth tens of millions of dollars or opening new businesses in some Middle Eastern capitals have been circulating for years even before the full extent of the malpractice was revealed. Although the voice of anti-corruption watchdogs was loud and clear, it failed to bring the alleged thieves to their conscience until the people of Ethiopia passed a no appeal verdict by pushing them out of power back in 2018.
As it is the practice anywhere in the world, officials who leave power by hook or by crook are liable for the corrupt practices they engaged while they were in power. They are followed by the law, investigated and brought to court for judgment. The new reformist government had followed this line of action in the early months following the onset of the reforms. It has managed to catch some of the allegedly most notorious corrupt officials and brought them to justice.
Yet, as the process of bringing the alleged culprits to justice was not pursued with the necessary vigor and consistency, most of the allegedly corrupt officials had found enough time to hide their ill-gotten possessions and appear innocent to the public. The fact that the anti-corruption veered in many directions and lacked focus, these alleged looters used the break for laundering their moneys and put on public masks of innocence.
As the public well knew, high-level corruption or ‘grand corruption’ as it is often called, was one of the factors that triggered the popular revolt that brought down the defunct EPRDF regime and its allegedly greedy minions. The former state officials used to categorize corruption into grand and petty corruption. Whether you call it grand or petty, corruption remains theft of public funds and nothing else. Such categorization of corruption may be tolerable in rich countries where resources are vast and varied. However, for a country like Ethiopia that is one of the poorest in the world with tens of millions of people suffering from recurrent famines and generalized poverty, corruption should rather be considered and treated as a financial genocide that lead to the impoverishment and death from poverty and its attendant ills, of millions of Ethiopians although the deaths may often be often invisible and unaccounted.
The defunct EPRDF regime even went as far as establishing what is known as the Ethnics and Anti-corruption Commission (EACC) that had no teeth that bite and whose ultimate function was to sweep all allegation of corruption under the carpet, cover up corruption cases and protect the regime’s image from domestic and foreign critics until its hidden crimes were at last revealed and lost power in shame and humiliation. The EACC was established with the explicit intention of preventing a genuine and independent anti-corruption body from emerging and exposing the dirty works. It was however a mockery of truth and justice when a government whose corruption records left much to be desired nonetheless set up an anti-corruption body to investigate its own dirty works. It was rather an Orwellian nightmare or a drama worthy of Shakespearian tragedy.
The reformist government now in power has taken certain measures against corruption in the public sphere whether grand or small. Nevertheless, these measures are not sustainable and all-inclusive. Corruption in the state sector is deeply ingrained and pervasive as well as invisible. It was embedded in the structures of the government and ruling party from top to bottom because the basic reason for people to join the ruling party was to benefit in some way from the crumbs that fall off the big table of corruption. One of the pressing challenges of the newly established Prosperity Party is therefore to rid itself of its past practices under EPRDF rule and set new rules of ethical conduct if it wants to emerge as a clean and dependable institution.
From the kebele, wereda, distric or zone levels right to the center of power, there is no place where corruption is not a living and thriving reality under the defunct EPRDF regime and even continues to this day. Regional and federal political and business elites were the main beneficiaries of the state-controlled economic system that prevailed for the last 27 years. Ordinary citizens were the losers in this evil drama that should be stopped right now.
All regional, party and state structures were infected with the virus and there is no evidence that the disease has disappeared now. Corruption is not something that vanishes just like that until strong legal measures are taken and corrupters exposed to the public. The muzzled media have been unable to engage in investigative reporting to expose these abuses and the situation does not seem to have taken a new course yet. Old habits die hard as they say and new habits take long to take roots.
The Attorney General office recently.
disclosed its intention to expose the true extent of corruption in Ethiopia and bring the corrupted to justice. It further said that it has traced the billions of stolen moneys stashed away by state officials and private businesspeople who have been working in tandem with to bleed the country of its limited financial assets in many ways.
If this job is well-done, it would be the first radical measure against corruption the public has been demanding for so long. And if the stolen booties are repatriated, they will go a long way into providing additional resources to the economic reform program and to job creation and other projects that might include and benefit the very people from whom the stolen billions were taken away. And that would represent a huge step in setting a good precedence for the future.
However, going after allegedly corrupt state officials or private sector collaborators should not be a one-time obsession but a systematic and sustainable national drive that should be followed with zeal, legality, expertise and the active participation of the public itself which is directly concerned. The national EACC should be deeply reformed in such a way as it could act as an independent watchdog free from executive interference, impartial in its activities and only accountable to the law. That function would be like the Guardians in the “Dialogues of Plato” who are righteous, strong and courageous enough to protect the ideal city from its local and foreign enemies.
The media should be free to conduct investigations against corruption at all levels and be provided with information to that end. The judiciary should be independent to conduct its own investigation against cases of corruption big or small. Police should be free to gather evidence that would incriminate the alleged corrupters. Without these reforms however, the campaign against corruption would reveal the tip of the iceberg while missing the big body that remains submerged under water. It is now or never that corruption in Ethiopia, that grew and thrived in silence for many decades and the fear and silence that protected it, should be done away with, eradicated from its roots and the devastating consequences of its dirty works exposed to the public.
No reform can succeed by letting corruption thrive in its midst and the lessons of the past should serve as guiding light for future actions against grand or petty corruption, both of which are bleeding the country dry in most visible or invisible ways. The return of Ethiopia’s stolen billions should be the top priority of all those engaged in the fight to reclaim the country’s legitimate financial assets irrespective of who the thieves are and however high their political or public standing. No one should be above the law, and by the same token, no one should be allowed to go free after looting the nation.
The Ethiopian Herald Sunday Edition 29 December 2019
BY MULUGETA GUDETA
