Critics and watchers of the country’s recovery efforts often point to corruption as the undoing of the Sirleaf Administration. In their view, had the government been straightforward in its combat of corruption, the nation would be better off than it is now – given the inflow of international goodwill and the rising volume of foreign investment, which public planners put at US $18 billion. But speaking from “the heart” yesterday, the President said the problem is not due to the lack of trying to subdue corruption, but that the challenge is so enormous that it requires a national crusade. The Analyst has been looking at what the President has found out about corruption and what her administration has done or is doing about it.

President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf told International Anti-Corruption Day celebration audience yesterday at the Monrovia City Hall that corruption in Liberia is refractory to common combat methods because it is systemic as well as societal.

The President, who spoke extemporaneously during the ceremony, said these two personas or forms of corruption were so complementary that it was near impossible to fight from the public sector using available means or appealing to such traditional methods as “naming and shaming”.

Extent and tenacity of corruption

“One may use two words to describe it: systemic and societal. That means we have found it very pervasive all over the place – at high levels, external and internal; whether we’re dealing with the sale of government properties, the sale of government passports, the sale of honorary consuls,” President Sirleaf said of corruption in Liberia.

She the government was presently fighting a number of corruption cases abroad, which relate to bribery, kickback, and non-conformism to policy procedures and procedural laws.

She said nothing about the statuses of those cases, neither did she name those involved, but she noted that back home, corruption existed also at the lower level of government.

“We also have it at the low levels: collusion among people  at the financial management institutions, such as the Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Commerce, Central Bank, yes; at that level where we’re not supposed to touch them because we’d be downsizing …” she revealed.

She said anyone who thought that corruption stopped at the level of the government would be disappointed because it existed within the private sector, mainly within the ranks of the NGOs and the private contractors who often defaulted on government contracts after raking a chunk of the contract money.

Part of the problem, according to her, was that while it was possible to legislate public trust within the high hierarchy of the public sector, it was not as easy to apply same to the private sector or to the lower echelon of the public sector.

Another part of the problem, in her view, is the decline in the Liberian value system, which in some instances has put the “Where you tie the goat, there’s where it must eat” mentality over the traditional virtues of honesty, charity, hard work, achievement, and integrity.

She said the “Where you tie the goat, there’s where it must eat” mentality comes in the form of dependency and patronage that encourages begging from public officials, committing crime without expecting punishment, and expecting pay for no work done.

“We must learn to live with what we have; to earn what we want. Those are some of the basic tenets of integrity; of a value system, that appreciates honesty, hard work, and humility. Let’s all work towards that,” the Liberian leader said, noting that that was fundamental to the combat of corruption.

She said that due to the tenacity of the problems, she has often appeal to the public to prescribe an unorthodox means of fighting corruption in order to lift the burden of prosecution off the shoulders of the ministry of Justice and court system because “justice is slow”.

“But does this mean that the government is out of ideas and fighting power?” observers wonder.

President Sirleaf said that is impossible.

5-front corruption combat

“We’ve identified five components to fight corruption in such a way that we address it so that it can be sustained,” President Sirleaf said.

In the government’s arsenal, she said, was compensation to reduce vulnerability so that it will be easier to set desperation off from sheer greed as the mitigating factor for the breach of public trust.

With this tool, the government raised minimum monthly compensations of judicial workers and civil servants by more than 500 per cent from US $15 prior to the war to US $75. She said the efforts would ensure that the independence of the courts was not tied to the vulnerability of judges and public solicitors.

The second tool in the government anti-corruption arsenal, according to President Sirleaf, is the strengthening of existing and the building of additional public institutions to reduce personal discretion, something many agree facilitates corruption.

“That’s why we have, first of all, the Governance Commission to set the tone for the rationalization of government institutions; the General Auditing Commission which now [reports] to the Legislature, not to the Executive as it was before; [and] the Anti-Corruption Commission,” the Liberian leader said.

The government also created the Liberia Anti-Corruption Commission (LACC) to investigate cases of corruption and speed up the prosecution process and the Public Procurement and Concessions Commission (PPCC), the mandate and constitution of which were currently undergoing revision to improve efficiency.

A robust Public Financial Management Law, which was slowly warming up to the fight, according to the President, buttresses the efforts of LACC and PPCC in the corruption combat efforts.

Besides these institutions, she said, the government was partnering with the international-linked investment watchdog, the Liberian Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (LEITI), to ensure accountability in both the public and private sectors.

“Today, Liberia was the first African country to be declared compliant and conforming to the requirements. In our concession agreements today, they are required to make reports to LEITI so that they whatever compensation, whatever they give to anybody, whether it is government revenue or to any individual, they are required to make those reports. That’s how come we became compliant,” the President revealed.

She said the government was also subscribing to the international standards of transparency and accountability by mandating cabinet officials to declare their assets prior to assuming public duties; something, which she said, has been successful so far.

“Today our budget, our fiscal reports, our concessional agreements are open to all. There’s no secrecy in our financial transactions, so please take advantage of that, ask for it, you are entitled to it, you can see what’s in it. We are now starting a system in the Ministry of Finance and our Customs Service and in many places to go to automation – automation that will reduce public and private discretion, where people can then change things,” the President said.

She said the computerization of public financial transactions would reduce personnel discretion and the temptation to engage in corruption.

“Direct deposits, to stop the payroll checks recycling, with people taking checks, rewriting them, voiding them. Today, your checks go directly to your account in the bank, to stop people from going to the Ministry of Finance in a line, and having to pay somebody to get your paycheck. It goes to the bank, then you go to the bank and take your money. So direct payment, even to contractors, to minimize their having to go and try to make deals with people and give kick-backs,” she said.

True the automaton of financial transaction is an innovation in Liberia, but observers say whether by itself it will fight corruption, remains, yet another question in a country where electricity, which ensures automation, is often a gem on certain days.

But President Sirleaf said it would not be difficult to see that it would because the government also has in place a number of auxiliary processes to maintain the integrity of financial conduits.

“An internal audit system is now getting started. With the support of the Auditor General and technical assistance from our partners, an entire internal auditing system is being built that’s going to be run autonomously. There will be a monitoring group that will be tied into Internal Auditors in all of our Ministries and Agencies, where they are going to have the monitoring on a continuing basis until the General Auditing Commission can come in on a periodic basis and make sure that people are conforming to the laws,” she revealed.

The President said the public and journalists needed to wade into the fight against corruption by making use of existing laws, mainly the “Whistleblower Act” created by an Executive Order to protect individuals who have evidence of corruption against public officials.

She said when used along with the recently enacted Freedom of Information Law, the public would go a long way in helping the government to crack down on corruption.

The fourth and fifth weapons in the government’s anti-corruption arsenal, the President revealed further, were personnel training and prosecution in the court of law.

She said the government felt the need to build the personal capacities of public servants because it had discovered that some of the cases of corruption were related to sheer ignorance of institutional procedures.

“You can’t implement a law when you don’t understand the law, when you don’t understand the procedures, and that’s much of our problem – the lack of capacity, at the working levels, to understand these laws and policies and to be able to adhere to them to implement them,” she said.

She said the government was solving this problem by extending scholarship benefits to deserving civil servants.

To what level that is helping the fight, she did not say, but she noted that the administration was working with the Supreme Court to speed up the prosecutorial process, which she said was crucial to the fight, and with the National Legislature to pass the Code of Conduct Bill into law.

The President has no hope that the Conduct of Conduct Bill would be passed into law anytime soon, not even next year; but she said prospects were good for the establishment of a fast track court to speed up the punishment process and the upgrading of the mandate of LACC to have litigation powers.

“It’s been languishing in the Legislature since 2006. It’s not going to come out next year, in an election year, I can tell you that. But let’s all put the pressure on them,” President Sirleaf said.

Source: http://allafrica.com