By Osoro Nyawangah, MWANZA Tanzania
With an average score of 33 out of 100, Sub-Saharan Africa shows no significant improvement on the 2021 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI).
The gains made by a handful of countries are
overshadowed by backsliding or stagnation in others and the region’s poor
performance overall, as 44 out of 49 countries assessed on the index
still score below 50.
With the COVID-19 pandemic severely hitting the
previously less-affected continent, alongside protracted armed
conflicts and rising terrorist
threats, 2021 was a turbulent year for Sub-Saharan Africa. These worrying
trends exacerbate the serious corruption problems that exist from long before.
To keep corruption out of the public
eye, governments across the region have limited information and cracked down on
independent voices calling out abuses of power.
On a continent where corruption
plunders precious
natural resources and impedes access to public services
for millions of people, the results of a decade of stagnation laid bare by
the 2021 CPI cannot be more devastating.
Seychelles (CPI score: 70) tops the
2021 index, while Cabo Verde (58) and Botswana (55) are the distant runners-up.
For countries at the bottom of the
index, such as Equatorial Guinea (17), Somalia (13) and South Sudan (11), the
way out of endemic corruption remains daunting.
The performance of Seychelles (70, up
18 points since 2012) has steadily risen on the CPI over the past decade.
During this time, substantial open government and anti-corruption reforms were
achieved.
These gains need to be further
solidified, not reversed. For example, the National Assembly of Seychelles
recently voted to remove
a requirement for spouses and family members of high-level government
officials to declare their assets, creating a new loophole.
Seychelles also needs to tackle the
financial secrecy which has made it an attractive destination for dirty money
from around the world.
Angola (29, up 7 points since 2012) marks a significant improvement on
the CPI following the election of President João Lourenço in 2017, who has
taken steps to crack down on corruption. Authorities have pursued high-profile
corruption investigations into the former ruling family. Among them was Isabel dos Santos, the former president’s daughter and
ex-chief of the state oil company Sonangol. Dos Santos was the subject of the Luanda
Leaks exposé and was also recently sanctioned by the US government for “significant
corruption”.
However, investigations are rarely
opened in other cases, raising doubts about selective justice. In a 2019 survey, 39 per cent of Angolans said that the
president was using the fight against corruption as a tool against political
rivals.
According to the same survey, the
majority also think that those who report corruption risk retaliation. People’s
concerns turned out to be justified when last June authorities charged a journalist with “abusing press
freedom” after he exposed corruption in one of the country’s provinces.
Senegal’s (43) performance on the CPI has significantly improved (from 36) in the last decade, gaining 9 points from 2012 to 2016. Advancements during this period include the creation of the Office for the Fight against Fraud and Corruption (OFNAC) and passage of the asset declaration law, among other reforms. But progress halted there, with Senegal’s 2021 score dropping 2 points compared to last year.
One of the top performers in the
region, Botswana (55) has hit a historic low in 2021, recording a
significant decline from a score of 65 in 2012. The result corroborates the
findings of Transparency International’s 2019 Global Corruption Barometer
survey, which showed that most people in Botswana thought corruption had increased. Concerns over impunity – such as
in the case of the alleged looting of the National Petroleum Fund which
implicated senior government officials – underscore the need to increase
accountability for high-level corruption in the continent’s oldest democracy.
Liberia (29), which dropped 12 points
(from 41) since 2012, is a significant decliner on the 2021 CPI. Unresolved
corruption allegations and a persistent culture of impunity are among the key concerns.
Inadequate resourcing of anti-graft institutions and a weak judiciary continue
to undermine the fight against corruption in the West African nation.
The 2021 CPI shows that 80 per cent of
countries across the region have stagnated in the last 10 years.
One of the biggest threats to progress
is grand corruption – systemic corruption involving high-level public officials
and vast sums of money, often accompanied by gross human rights violations. And
yet impunity has been the norm, rather than the exception.
All the while, the continent loses tens of billions of dollars annually in capital flight.
Although not statistically
significant, Mozambique (26) has dropped 5 points (from 31) on the CPI since
2012. The country is still grappling with the impacts of the “hidden debt” corruption scandal, exposed in
2016. In this scheme, senior officials in Mozambique reportedly conspired with
bankers in Europe and businesspeople based in the Middle East to arrange a US$2
billion loan to the country. The funds were allegedly misappropriated,
including through bribes and kickbacks.
The ensuing financial crisis has meant that the Mozambican state is unable to fulfil its obligations, including protecting the rights of people displaced by the Cabo Delgado conflict. Individuals accused of orchestrating the hidden debt scheme went on trial in late 2021.
The scandal and its aftermath
exemplify the dangers of executive overreach and a lack of effective checks and balances – weak parliamentary
oversight, in particular. The ongoing high-profile case offers hope, but also serves as an accountability test.
In Nigeria (24) – which hit a historic low on the 2021 CPI – more than 100 powerful individuals were exposed as having used anonymous companies to buy properties with a total worth of £350 million in the United Kingdom alone. Secretive dealings among Nigeria’s power holders were previously reported as part of the Panama Papers and FinCEN Files investigations.
Inaction over past disclosures
has created a sense of impunity, stalling anti-corruption
progress in the country.
In late 2021, the Congo Hold-Up investigations
sent shockwaves across the Democratic Republic of the Congo (19). Individuals
in former president Joseph Kabila’s inner circle allegedly embezzled funds from Congo’s central bank, a
state-owned mining company and the tax authority, among others. Documents were
leaked to journalists from a DRC subsidiary of Gabon’s (31) BGFIBank Group – a
private bank allegedly used to move at least US$138 million between 2013 and 2018.
Fresh revelations by investigative
journalists show a fuller picture of kleptocracy in Equatorial Guinea (17). Oil
minister Gabriel Mbega Obiang Lima – President Teodoro Obiang’s son – is alleged to have siphoned off millions in public funds
and bribes abroad. Some justice was achieved in the case of another member of
the Obiang family – the infamous Vice President Teodorin Obiang – who was definitively convicted in France for corruption-related
offences. This historic ruling in a legal case brought by Transparency
International France and Sherpa also upheld the decision to confiscate Obiang’s
assets held in France, worth approximately EUR 150 million.
South Africa’s (44) former president
Jacob Zuma is one of the few heads of state to face corruption charges in their
own country. There have been positive steps to expose and address high-level
corruption, such as the commission of inquiry into state capture, known as the
Zondo Commission. And yet the weakened law enforcement and prosecutorial
agencies that were hollowed out during years of state capture have contributed
to the erosion of public confidence that corrupt officials will be
held accountable.
According to Afrobarometer’s latest surveys, a majority of people across
the region think corruption is on the rise, while simultaneously expressing
dissatisfaction with the way democracy works.
This is not surprising; persistent
corruption has gone hand-in-hand with unconstitutional changes of power in various parts of the
continent. Elsewhere, governments imposed disproportionate restrictions on civic freedoms – often
under the guise of containing the COVID-19 pandemic – limiting people’s ability
to hold power to account.
On the 2020
Democracy Index, Sub-Saharan Africa recorded its worst average score since
2006, primarily owing to a drop in countries’ civil liberties scores.
Repression continued in 2021, as governments used the COVID-19 pandemic and
armed conflicts as an excuse to further crack down on rights.
Mali’s (29) significant decline (from
35 in 2015) on the CPI has occurred concurrently with a drop in its civil
liberties score. The country is facing political, institutional and security
crises, having experienced three military coups since 2012. The ongoing armed
conflict undermines key state functions, leading to a vicious cycle of corruption and human rights abuses.
And while Ethiopia (39) registers a
significant improvement (from 33) since 2012, its decline on civil liberties
threatens to reverse any previous progress. The government has used the ongoing
armed conflict in the Tigray region as a pretext to silence independent voices.
In 2021, authorities shut down a popular independent media outlet and arrested dozens of journalists for their coverage of the
civil war.
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