Replying to an open letter from Bono, the French President Nicolas Sarkozy has written:

“… you bring up the need for transparency in the area of natural resources’ extraction in Africa. I completely agree with you. France is organising an experts’ conference on this issue in March in Paris. As of now, I have decided to ask the European Union to adopt, as speedily as possible, legislation to compel industries in the extractive sector to disclose their payments to all countries in which they operate.” [Extract from letter published on the Elysée website].

Excellent news ahead of next month’s EITI Global Conference in Paris.  I well recall taking part some years ago in a consultation at 10 Downing Street with President Chirac’s “sherpa” prior to his hosting of a G8 summit.  The subject of extractive industries transparency was considered, and reference to it was included in the post-conference statement, but there was no great energy behind it then.  Things have come a long way since … although there’s still a long way to go.

It took past British governments years to get around to ratifying the 1997 OECD Convention of the Bribery of Foreign Public Officials.  For a long time in the late-90s they even claimed to be already compliant, although almost no-one apart from a few civil servants fighting against change (and their badly-advised ministers) really believed it. I remember that period well, for at the time I was Deputy Chairman of Transparency International (UK).

Eventually a bit of anti-bribery law was incorporated into an anti-terrorism act, and so some progress had been made, but the mess that had been British anti-corruption legislation for decades was not cleared up until eventually last year a new Bribery Act was passed. Not only does this bring British anti-corruption legislation into line with the OECD Convention but it is also informed by the more recent, and more comprehensive, United Nations Convention.

The new law, which had been the subject of massive consultation over several years, was due to come into effect in a few weeks’ time … but that is now not going to happen.

Spurred on by some of the still-not-extinct ethical dynosaurs of the corporate world, out of line with the general thrust of current responsible business thought and backed up by ill-informed and irresponsibly misleading journalism, the Government has caved in.  It has postponed implementation of the Act for “further consultation”.  So much for the solemnity and apparent finality of a “Royal Assent”!

In my email this afternoon I  received a copy of a new paper by Transparency International (UK) debunking the “myths” about the Act promoted by its opponents. Personally I would go further and unequivocally “call a spade a spade”. These are not myths. They are lies!  I can write like that now, I suppose, because I have no continuing role in TI(UK).  In all fairness I guess they feel the need to be a little more polite.

The six “myths” identified by TI(UK) are as follows, and I have extracted also some key sentences from the paper’s responses.

1. Myth: It is ‘gold-plated legislation’  -  Reality: It is by no means stricter than the laws of other OECD member states.
2. Myth: ‘There has not been adequate consultation or time to prepare’  -  Reality: There has been extensive opportunity for the voice of business and other stakeholders to be heard. There have been 4 formal periods of consultation since 2005.
3. Myth: ‘It is impossible to do business without making facilitation payments which the Bribery Act bans’  -  Reality: Facilitation payments are already illegal under current laws so the Bribery Act is not creating a new bribery offence.
4. Myth: ‘Hospitality, gifts and promotional expenditure are a grey area in the Act – more clarity is needed’  -  Reality: Much corporate hospitality is legitimate and not intended to bribe. … This is adequately covered in the draft Guidance to Section 7 of the Bribery Act that the Ministry of Justice published for consultation last year. … Many UK companies are already in the ambit of the extra-territorial provisions of the [American] FCPA, and should therefore already be exercising care over the levels of hospitality they offer.
5. Myth: ‘Everyone else pays bribes. If British companies don’t they are at a competitive disadvantage’  -  Reality: Many leading UK companies already operate a no-bribes policy. … [ Furthermore] it is by no means a unilateral initiative by the UK.
6. Myth: ‘The Bribery Act is bad for UK plc’.  Reality: Corruption creates market distortions, leads to insecure contracts and adds costs to contracts that erode and sometimes eliminate their profitability.

The fact is that bribery is already illegal.  One of the great benefits of the new Act is that it makes the situation clear, in place of the confusion surrounding the previous multiplicity of itsy-bitsy legislation dating back into the late 19th century.

The rest of the world is coming to terms with the need to do something about this economic plague, as is indicated by the United Nations Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC).  An article in the Times (London) this morning pointed out that if China sees the need to clean up the corruption in its economy, as one of its key speakers at Davos said recently, surely in this country we should be doing likewise.

The UK should be leading the charge to clean up the global economy, not crawling back into the shameful murk of the past.

I recommend a reading of the full paper from Transparency International (UK),
Bribery Act: Myth and Reality.

Here in the West we hear much about companies allegedly sourcing products from businesses in the East which use illegal child labour.  This morning I came across a news report from India and thought I would share it here.

It is a mixture of good news and bad.  Firstly, I like the idea of a per-child penalty being paid by the exploitative manufacturing employers and of this amount being used for the rehabilitation of the child concerned, topped up with another 25% by the government. It sounds good, except that apparently it isn’t working. I see three issues here:

• The sheer scale of the problem. In Delhi alone it is estimated that there are half a million children in forced labour, often in cruel and degrading conditions.
• The rehabilitation process. This is hampered by the slow speed of the administrative system by which money is extracted from offending employers, and then by the rate of its disbursement. Furthermore, there is the geographic challenge of reuniting children with parents living hundreds of miles from the city, even if they know where they originally came from.
• The challenge of breaking down the networks of human trafficking that first of all bring children into cities, having effectively purchased them from parents living in dire poverty.

So much remains to be done.  The rehabilitation process clearly needs to be energised, but until the underlying problem of extreme rural poverty is addressed and the viciously corrupt child trafficking “industry” is dismantled it is difficult to see an end to this situation.

Meanwhile, let buyers in more developed economies apply even greater diligence to ensuring that they source their wares only from reputable businesses and eliminate child labour from their supply chains.

(No rehabilitation for 95 percent of rescued child labourers, Calcutta News.Net, 25 January 2011)

In a recent article for the Mail & Guardian (Johannesburg) John Githongo, now chief executive of the Inuka Kenya Trust, commented on a little-noticed component of November’s G20 summit meeting in Seoul.  At the time the eyes of the media were chiefly focused on issues directly related to the global financial crisis.  What appears to have escaped much attention is what Githongo describes as “an impressive agreement on …  the scourge of corruption“.

As with all statements at the end of intergovernmental conferences the key question is how many of the twenty governments intended actually to do anything beyond agreeing to the document. Well, now they must be pressed to do so.  Among other things they called for the ratification of the United Nations Convention against Corruption by all twenty states, a seriously overdue agenda item for governments around the world.

There’s more.  I’ll not repeat the Githongo article.  Click the link here to read it.  However, I can’t resist noting the omission of a call for all G20 states to sign and implement the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, EITI.  Maybe next time!

Another Ocampo story.  The Guardian reported on Saturday, as part of its WikiLeaks series, that Luis Moreno-Ocampo, chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, has told the US authorities that he believes up to $9 billion of Sudanese oil money may have been stashed by the country’s president in Western banks, much of it in London.  Read more: Sudanese Oil Money and British Banks.

Back in 2009 I planned to relaunch this blog.  Unfortunately during long months of very variable health I’ve had to let many things go and focus on just a very few priorities.  It has simply not been possible to keep this going.

However, starting in January 2011 I’m going to make another attempt, not seeking to over-deliver but for the most part posting links to sites and stories that catch my eye.

Meanwhile, take a look at the latest on the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative.  Earlier this week the EITI Board announced that six candidate countries (Kazakhstan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mali, Mauritania, Niger and Peru) are now “close to compliance”. This is excellent news. Click on the link above for further details.

Then the following day came this announcement about Kenya:  “ICC Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo today requested the International Criminal Court to issue summonses to appear against six Kenyan citizens to face justice for massive crimes committed during the post-election violence (PEV) in Kenya.” (ICC Press Release)

That’s all for the moment. I hope to be back in the New Year.

I am getting seriously sickened by the current media campaign against members of our UK Parliament.  I have no doubt that the system needs overhauling, with tighter limits and increased transparency, but the fact is that almost all of the supposedly “disgraceful” expense claims have actually been within the rules.

What I would like to see is a detailed publication of journalists’ expenses.  They are very keen to discredit other people, but what about themselves?  Have they never “stretched the rules” in their claims?  MPs may have a crazy system of rules which need to be changed, but at least they’ve mostly operated within them.  One can’t help questioning, however, whether many of these self-righteous, iconoclastic men of the press have never themselves claimed for things well outside what was right and proper.

Corrupt politicians need to be exposed, but why should honest hard-working elected servants of the people be exposed to to calumny and ridicule when they’ve simply been working within their officially permitted limits?  Media ethics once again are shown up as having collapsed to nothing.

Last night I had the privilege of attending a ceremony in London at which two journalists were given Transparency International’s “Integrity Award” for their courageous and sustained investigation of corruption.

Roman Shleynov, from Moscow, has continued with this dangerous work in spite of one of his colleagues having been shot to death.

David Leigh of the Guardian newspaper in the UK has sustained his investigations into armaments-related corruption over many years, not giving up in spite of powerful business and political forces arrayed against his attempts to bring murky dealings out into the open.

We were also reminded of the seriousness of this work as we stood for a minute’s silence in memory of a Sri Lankan journalist, Lasantha Wickramatunga, a previous Integrity Award winner who was murdered just a few weeks ago after once again speaking out in his paper about corruptions within his country’s political system.

Each year Transparency International gives one or more awards of this kind. Past recipients have been not only journalists but people from a broad spectrum of professional backgrounds, with a wide variety of roles in their societies, and from many countries of the world. It is right that we should honour those who bravely stand for honesty and integrity within their societies.

After several months gap with no postings to our old blog we’re re-launching in a new format, on a new server, and using new (Wordpress) blogging technology.  This will allow far greater convenience of use at this end, greater clarity for the reader and considerably more flexibility in the way we organise the content.

- David Murray -

Three years ago John Githongo, head of President Mwai Kibaki’s anti-corruption programme (he was Permanent Secretary for Governance and Ethics) left the country in fear of his life. Since then he has been in England, working as an academic in Oxford.

It is good news that he now feels it is sufficiently safe for him to return (at least temporarily) to Nairobi - invited by the Prime Minister Raila Odinga.

More on this from:

• Reuters
• Daily Nation (Nairobi)

- David Murray -