Publication: The Financial Times Issued: Date: 2007-04-11 Reporter:

Second Take - Financial Times

 

Publication  The Financial Times
Date

2007-04-11

Web Link

www.bday.co.za

 

When the government of Tony Blair pulled the plug last December on a two-year-long probe into claims BAE Systems paid kickbacks to members of the Saudi royal family from a £40bn arms deal, British officials were to be found at a United Nations conference in Amman, delivering high-minded sermons on the evils of corruption. Barely three months on, however, Britain’s European partners have launched high-profile prosecutions against top companies. In the US, the department of justice is adopting the role of world policeman against the bribery of foreign officials.

Continental Europeans and Americans are also measuring Britain’s nugatory record in pursuing corruption against its condescending rhetoric ­ and smelling hypocrisy. Britain has always argued that government cannot interfere with the rule of law and emphasised the need for transparency and good governance to foster development. But Britain is starting to look appreciably worse than some of its peers.

Germany, derided in the UK for its crony Rhineland corporatism, has been making headlines with the vigour of its prosecutions. In France, long sneered at by Britain as a cradle of corruption, Total, the euro zone’s biggest company by market capitalisation, is under two judicial investigations. In the US, the justice department launched 15 new investigations last year into allegations of overseas bribery. Not one successful prosecution has been launched in the UK under the 2001 law criminalising the bribery of overseas public officials. While there are acknowledged shortcomings in the law, there is a far bigger problem of a failure of political will.

Corruption wrecks good governance, inhibits development and sustains despotism. This can translate into economic and societal failure: not only an affront to decency but the tinder that ignites conflict *1. Stamping out corruption altogether may be unrealistic. Making the world less hospitable to crooks is not.

London, 10 April 20-07

With acknowledgements to The Financial Times.


*1       It can hardly be put stronger than this.

Now is the time in South Africa to go after all the corrupt fish, however big or small.

There is evidence in Germany, Sweden, the United Kingdom, France and South Africa that with collaboration could result in a spate of successful convictions in all these countries that would strike a shocking and awesome blow for the crusade against corruption.