Can South Sudan combat corruption?
Monday, 11 June 2012 06:24 Interviews >>> . South Sudan is desperately in need of funds after its oil production, which accounts for 98% of its revenue, was shut down in row over transit fees with Sudan in January. Despite the oil, South Sudan remains one of Africa's least developed countries with poor infrastructure, few roads, poor health facilities and educational standards. The new nation, which split from Sudan in July 2011, stands to benefit from her oil wealth which accounted for more than 75 percent of Sudan's oil export before the split. However, continuous conflict with Khartoum, lack of economic development and corruption cloud its immediate future. The World Bank on its reports last month cautioned of likely "state collapse" if South Sudan runs out of foreign exchange reserves, which it said could be depleted by July. According to South Sudan's Auditor-General's earlier report, over $1bn from oil revenues was unaccounted for during 2005 and 2006. The report also said that for two consecutive years there was no financial reporting of what happened to non-oil revenues that were collected in taxes by the national government or states. Billions more were feared missing between 2007 and 2011. On 3rd May, President Salva Kiir wrote to 75 current and former government officials, asking them to return $4 billion they have stolen from state resources. Radio Miraya hosted commissioner of the Anti-Corruption Commission, Elisama Wani Daniel, and Director for the Center for Strategic Research and Analysis, Peter Biar, to discuss the recovery of the stolen $4 billion and to give an update on work of the anti-corruption commission. Wani said that South Sudan will join the United Nations Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC) to foster efforts of repatriating money that have been stolen and taken out of the country. "The most important aspect of UNCAC is international cooperation. Once your country ascends to UNCAC, you can request funds – if you have established that these funds were stolen from your country, you have traced and you have proven – to be repatriated back," the commissioner explained the merit of being a member of such an organization. However, Biar was not enthusiastic that UNCAC might be effective in recovering the money in a short time. "This is a very tricky business and I think we are looking at the start of a very long process that will be extremely tedious with a lot of legal proceedings and also would require serious and skilled diplomacy to compliment it because the legal groundwork is extremely important. Countries will not do things that they are not obligated to do," director Wani eloborated. Gabriel Shadar: Last time we discussed the filling of asset declaration forms. From that stage, what happened, and where are we now? Elisama Wani Daniel: Indeed, we are here to tell the people of South Sudan, that it was an obligation for them based on the constitution, but even more so, the presidential order that was issued last December. The president issued a presidential order that senior civil servants and constitutional post holders must declare their assets, income and liabilities. A deadline was given up to the 30th of March this year. That was actually an extension from the previous deadline. And then we came to elaborate on that. By the end of last month, we met the president and delivered our reports, where we gave him full reports of those who declared and we also gave him a report of those who did not declare from the constitutional post holders only because we could not estimate the number of other senior civil servants who did not submit. Initially, we had asked every institution to send us their lists so that we know who is obliged to declare, but not all institutions complied. Of course, for the constitutional post holders are common knowledge: we know who are the ministers, the undersecretaries, commissioners and so forth. So from there we were able to give our final report to the president, and so far right now, according to the presidential order, I think that resulted into him taking these actions. Gabriel Shadar: It seems like there are constitutional post holders who have not filled the forms, right? Elisama Wani Daniel: Yes, there were some constitutional post holders and senior civil servants. I am talking about commissioners, undersecretaries. Gabriel Shadar: Any explanation as to why they didn't do that? Elisama Wani Daniel: We don't know. We don't know whether there was a reason but they have not come to us. They have not declared any of their assets. Gabriel Shadar: Do you think the message of the president is related to your reports? Elisama Wani Daniel: Fighting corruption needs cumulative efforts. It is not the effort of one person doing it, but efforts of many. When the president established the Anti-Corruption Commission, he was not saying that you Anti-Corruption Commission go and fight corruption. He was saying, come and help me fight corruption. So it is a war not for anti-corruption only but it is a war of the president; it is a war of a minister. It is everybody's war. Any concerned citizen must join the war. Corruption is evil. It is an enemy of all. So what the president is doing is in conformity with what a nation should strive for. Gabriel Shadar: The letter from the president says that about $4 billion have been lost. Economically speaking, what can be the impact of this kind loss of this amount of money? Peter Biar: When trying to think about this amount of cash, it is a serious number. I think from the whole amount that South Sudan received during the transition period; it is something like a third. So if we are talking about a third of the entire oil earnings during the transition period of six years disappearing through this sort of behavior, it is something that is a serious loss to the country. And also, it is quite unfortunate to learn from the president's letter that most of this money is in foreign countries; in foreign banks and in foreign assets away from the country. You would think that if they are citizens of the country and they have taken this cash, they could economically contribute to South Sudan because what we need at this time is investment. Last year, the president went to the United States. The US was very good in hosting us and doing this engagement conference and the whole purpose of that was to attract investment from the rest of the world. So if $4 billion is disappearing from our country, that is a serious issue, aside from the money that is flowing out of the country through the regular capital flight. Gabriel Shadar: According to the president, he wrote letters to eight countries, asking for their help in retrieving the stolen money. Would you mention which countries are these? Elisama Wani Daniel: Well, the letter of the president does not show which countries. Gabriel Shadar: But I think when he was going to the United States, he mentioned some of these countries. He mentioned Australia, Switzerland, United Kingdom, even Kenya. Elisama Wani Daniel: In these countries, there is what they call 'suspicious transfers happening'. Many of these countries have what they call financial intelligence units. Some of these institutions are housed in the national banks. Other countries have these institutions independent. They generate reports of any suspicious transfers. So definitely there would be reports coming out and are fed into leadership of that country and this information will eventually leak out. Ali Surur: But what is the response of these countries; are they cooperating with the government of South Sudan? Elisama Wani Daniel: I don't have news about their response, but fighting corruption requires legal frameworks. And one of the good steps in our last meetings with the president was that we brought in the issue of the Republic of South Sudan or the president ascending to the United Nations Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC). This is one of the instruments that are being used to fight corruption beyond your national boundaries. It talks about five or six maintain things. First of all, it talks about prevention of corruption. And then it talks about criminalization and law enforcement. Thirdly, it talks about assets tracing and recovery. The fourth thing is about technical assistance. You can seek technical assistance from another country. And the most important aspect of UNCAC is international cooperation. Once your country ascends to UNCAC, you can request funds – if you have established that these funds were stolen from your country, you have traced and you have proven – to be repatriated back. That provision is all contained in the UNCAC, and when we shared with the president the issue of UNCAC, he was very positive and very soon we will witness South Sudan ascending to the UNCAC. Gabriel Shadar: Any kind of take on how this way of retrieving money that is stolen or controlling this asset that is stolen and retrieving it to the government, can succeed? Peter Biar: This is a very tricky business and I think we are looking at the start of a very long process that will be extremely tedious with a lot of legal proceedings and also would require serious and skilled diplomacy to compliment it because the legal ground work is extremely important. Countries will not do things that they are not obligated to do. If I have some friends of mind who are senior government officials in some countries, out of my own accord, I can find a way in which that country will not provide any information to deal with me if they don't have to. Now, if there is a legal frame work in which they have to cooperate, then it becomes an issue of international treaty and obligation and responsibility to which they states have signed up. The other second issue is internally how you identify this sort of process. Is it true really that money have gone outside? Isn't it really that money is going round inside here in the country and how do we explain some of these spontaneous wealth and things like that which have happened all over South Sudan? So that will also require another level of intelligence and will require another process that can allow this thing to happen. The first and important issue is why that money disappeared in the first place. And this is an issue of institutions. The institutions of the government are very weak. Just imagine, in 2006 when we were trying to establish a payroll; you did not even know how many people you are paying. No clear understanding about what happens if really there is money that is left over and no really direction from the government about the financial management. So this law was not passed during the whole time during which this money disappeared. There is then a question of the precedence, like what happened and what legal frame work are we talking about. And if we are talking about legal proceedings, are we talking from the Financial Management Act or we are talking about general frame works that were agreed as a result of JMA. All of these uncertainties create a lot different loopholes that could be used. Gabriel Shadar: The Anti-Corruption Commission has been empowered to take legal measures and jurisdictions to try people who have embezzled money. How far have you gone in establishing this? Elisama Wani Daniel: The Transitional Constitution 2011 has given us more powers. We now have the power to not only investigate but also prosecute but that needs an enabling law. The draft bill is finalized and it is now in the process of being submitted. Once that is done, those powers can now take effect. We will have the powers to take cases to court directly ourselves. That is what we are hoping. Ali Surur: How soon is this one going to be? It is like the more it takes time, then definitely things may not work right. Elisama Wani Daniel: There are challenges also attached to that. But I want to say that fighting corruption is not only costly; it is time consuming, but it is worth it. We are talking about funds that have been stolen since 2005 and 2006 and these issues are being discussed now. I think that nobody should boast that they have stolen money in the past and the law will not catch up with them. One day, the law will catch up with them. It takes time; it is slow. We need resources. We don't have the resources. In fact, the commission is one of those underfunded institutions if you look at the last six-month budget. We are suffocated because of lack of funds. And some of these things involve travelling to foreign countries. They are very costly. We can't get the information that we need. We are working. Even before these issues came out, we have been working. We have cases that are half-way finished. We have cases that are three-quarters finished. But because we cannot get the information which is required from another jurisdiction, it makes work sometimes to stagnate. But we know we will get there. Like the issue of legal frame work, once it is finalized, it will help a lot of these hurdles. Gabriel Shadar: The mention here is about seventy government officials; ministers and former ministers receiving the letter from the president. Is this letter based on the information that you have given or there is something that the president has added to the list? Elisama Wani Daniel: I think I am not the right person to answer because we gave our report to the president and the president took action on his own based on the powers vested up on him by the constitution. So we have given him the information. He analyzed it. I am sure he has people, who can analyze the information, and based on the information he received from us and any other information; I think that was how he took action. Gabriel Shadar: Let us see how the approach of offering amnesty and then threatening with the tactics of naming and shamming. How can it work in retrieving this kind of money? Peter Biar: By the way, the process we are starting, I think, is good to first appreciate. It is complex. It is something that is new. But I think that if we also look at the experience of other countries, it is something that is extremely tedious. Leave alone that we are simply starting now with the legal process, not forgetting that the anti-corruption law itself is not passed. It will go through parliament with parliamentarians who may have received this sort of letter. We are at the very beginning and then now you think about once you have this commission and you have the powers, then actually you strengthen the commission. The commission is not fully strengthened. They need prosecutors. They need investigators. They need information. The threshold is quite huge. So if you are taking this to be a serious business, then it is going to cost. The third is actually now the reality when you go to the showdown. If you look at what is going on now in Kenya, I think now all the commissioners are fired and there is nobody in the anti-corruption in Kenya. So this is a different thing. The time of it depends also on the political mood on the ground, and the time we are entering is 2012. 2013 there will be SPLM National Convention. Who knows the politics of that? You are heading to possible elections of the candidates, and depending on whom this 75 are and the weight that they carry – all of these things matter. And then now putting in our own original scene that we saw ourselves after the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) – Ethnicity – which was not there during the liberation war, but soon after the CPA we embraced it. So now, the ethnic dimension of all of these, putting in the security, is a very complex web of activities, putting in also how the public is responding to this sort of thing. It is extremely complicated and we need to appreciate this process. We are looking maybe at a 20, 30-year process but it depends also on the political will of the president. If the president is very serious, things will move. If he is not, it is unlikely anything will move. Ali Surur: Let's look at the impact of encouraging impunity, what does this mean? Peter Biar: I think we have not really had this conversation when we came back from the war. If you think of the countries that took the experience South Sudan is trying to emulate now, like Nigeria for example, where everybody is opportunist. People look at short-term gains. The morality also disappears because people are looking at short-term interests, not looking at long term good. What you end up getting is a country that nobody really wants to die for. Look at the situation going on in Nigeria. They have an armed force that is not really committed to the defense of the country, period! It changes the culture of the nation, the identity of the nation itself. It changes the morals. This is extremely important in laying the foundation of the nations because what you want to build are moral citizens that care about the virtue of the society itself and most importantly the national good. Taking these things seriously is important because to get this country to where it has gone: over three million people died and when those people were making that sacrifices, they were not thinking about their selfish deeds, they were thinking about the nations and if we are laying the foundation of a nation that goes contrary to the sacrifices of those liberated it, then you are undoing the very identity of our nation. Gabriel Shadar: I think the anti-corruption commission is seriously in a dilemma because they are moving ahead while they are not really rooted. They are not there consolidated by law, empowerment and a lot of things. What is now the biggest challenge now awaiting you after this kind of letters? Peter Biar: The first thing that we need as people in South Sudan is to have the laws in place, strong laws to fight corruption, coupled by political will. And then we meet the other resources that are resources, human and material because you cannot fight corruption with the law and the resources are not there. Once we have a strong law and the political will, and I am talking about the political will not only from the president. The president speaks about corruption and fighting corruption but the ministers, the advisors, everybody must also echo the same thing. It is not the business of the president and the anti-corruption commission alone. It is for everybody in the Council of Ministers; everybody in parliament; everybody in the any position of leadership, even in the ministries. Every ministry should take steps to combat corruption within itself. If you look at the code of conducts of some institutions, it spells out issues of corruption and how it is tackled. The anti-corruption commission comes in when they need external support. The citizens must be willing to report corruption. There are two things which we should be eliminated from our minds or from our vocabulary as South Sudanese: the issue of impunity and the issue of rewards. Sometimes, we feel after being in the wilderness for over twenty years, we now have to reward ourselves by looting own ourselves. These are resources that belong to our nation and I cannot personally want to loot for myself at the expense of my country. It is immoral. It is wrong. Listener (SMS): Is that step taken by the president not going to cause split in the ruling party because the letter by itself may involve big fishes in the party. Peter Biar: I think in case there is split within the ruling party; I would think it was something that was inevitable. I don't think any single event could have particularly caused it. But I think the SPLM is very united and I think this issue of corruption is what the party takes seriously and the party leadership also takes it seriously. So I don't think of any issue that emerges from there. The main issue is the question of strategy, and this is the time when it is really important to know that there are very competent people around the president who can advise him on how to manage this process because the best as we know from our illnesses, prevention is better than cure. When you deal with cure, there are issues of side effects. When you have headache and you take drugs for headache, for example, it may end up giving you fever. It gets rid of headache but gives you fever. So this issue of fighting corruption is something that the president needs to strategically think of but also balance it at the same time. How do you manage the resources you have now? Yes, you are trying to recover the resources that you lost, but what are you doing to prove that you are learning from the history? So the issue of our institutions, our reforms in the budgeting and thinking of our priorities is important. Instead of him limiting it to a single issue: we are fighting corruption, we are retrieving stolen money; in my view it should be (diversified). Our people, yes, we liberated the country, but now, what do we do – here are the challenges that we have. It is a question of really changing our thinking because the way the country is heading is really alarming. Our people are really becoming opportunists. They are losing all sorts of moral values. Our people are doing things just as whatever they think of. So it is extremely alarming: who do we build the citizenship. Ali Suru: Do you agree with assertions that it will be difficult to prosecute corrupt officials because they are big fishes? Peter Biar: This thing could be difficult. Of course, it is not going to be an easy process. But I don't agree with that premise that almost every is person is corrupt because I think that would be so unfortunate if it was the case. I want to believe that our leaders are still serious about where they are taking our country and I think many of our South Sudanese citizens share that concern as well. So let's say that there are some officials who are corrupt. There need to be some sort of process to be taken and it is good that the president is taking it. This thing is serious. The president is using words like "the credibility of our government is in the line." If you remember that World Bank report that was leaked, it said that there is a government that doesn't care about its people; a government that has no vision, hardly any values. These were the things being said about the government of South Sudan. So, of course, this issue of corruption, the president has to prioritize it. It also opened up cancer worms, like now that we shut down the oil and we trying to get others to come and help us out and people will say, first of all, you shut down your own oil – which by the way they don't understand because the oil was being stolen and we had to do that anyway. But the other second issue would be that you are stealing your own money. So then, it does not make the president look good when he sits among his peers and he is being accused that his people have no values, have no moral. Imagine when you president of Nigeria and when you are visiting and people are talking that way; it changes the image of what your people are. Gabriel Shadar: Somebody is asking why you aren't working independently? Elisama Wani Daniel: Even if you are independent, you still have to get your money from the government. So financially we are not independent. We dependent on the resources we get from our government. But we are a watch dog that even the president does not interfere with how we operate. That is the meaning of independence. It is not unique for us in South Sudan. Even the FBI which works independently is an independent institution. So all anti-corruption institutions in the world are independent but they are funded by the government. They are established by their own governments. Gabriel Shadar: If you are intimidated, if the big brother scares you, what will you do? Elisama Wani Daniel: Many people have shed their lives for the sake of this nation. I and many of my colleagues, we say we fear nobody but God. If we have to do anything, we want to please only God and for our country. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "South Sudan Info - The Kob" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. 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