Publication: Saturday Argus Issued: Date: 2006-08-19 Reporter: Moshoeshoe Monare Reporter:

Leon Accuses Mbeki of Hypocrisy about Corruption

 

Publication 

Saturday Argus

Date

2006-08-19

Reporter

 Moshoeshoe Monare

Web Link

www.capeargus.co.za

 

While President Thabo Mbeki cautioned African states against corruption yesterday, DA leader Tony Leon blasted him for allowing sleaze in his own government.

Both men wrote on the subject in their party weekly newsletters yesterday.

Mbeki, writing in ANC Today on the last day of the Southern African Development Community summit in Lesotho, detailed the scale of corruption by multinationals in the Lesotho Highland Water Project, and "the extraordinary story of what the government of Lesotho has done to confront this curse".

He urged African countries to abide by the African Convention on Preventing and Combating Corruption, saying this convention had now come into force, "binding all member states of the African Union to take the necessary steps to accede to it, and ensure its implementation".

"All of us as member states of the African Union would do well to draw on Lesotho's example and experience of challenging corporate immorality, as we honour our obligations as spelt out in the AU Convention on Preventing and Combating Corruption and the benchmarks set by the African Peer Review Mechanism," Mbeki wrote, also pointing to corruption in other multinationals such as Enron.

However, Leon, writing in SA Today, said Mbeki often lamented the negative perception of Africa, but his own administration was "busily undercutting in word and deed Mr Mbeki's much-publicised advocacy *1".

Leon was referring to Mbeki's column in ANC Today last week where the president criticised the media for its negative portrayal of Africa.

Leon also said while Mbeki, at the Nelson Mandela lecture, had decried those in the "new order" for whom "personal wealth" was "the only true measure of individual and social success", he was not truly committed to fighting corruption.

Referring to Mbeki's repeated statements that he could not recall meeting the French company implicated in the arms corruption with his ANC deputy Jacob Zuma, Leon writes: "The president, in short, cannot have it both ways. He cannot decry the rampant materialism of the new elite, and turn a blind eye to the excesses of ANC office-bearers.

"He cannot demand a new, positive imaging of Africa, when he condones the flagrant abuse of office, and squandering of public money, which typifies so much of this continent and provides ready ammunition to Africa's nay-sayers."

With acknowledgements to Moshoeshoe Monare and Saturday Argus.


*1       Mbeki's much-publicised advocacy is only relevant at the local level.

It is naturally not relevant to those among us who populate the Union Buildings (or Union Building a la Thetard).