Maputo — No government agency can, on its own, take responsibility for fighting corruption, prominent Mozambican jurist Abdul Carimo, director of the government's Legal Reform Technical Unit (UTREL), warned on Wednesday.
Speaking at Maputo commemorations of World Anti-Corruption Day, Carimo argued that "only a network of public institutions, each playing their role in dissuasion, denunciation, investigation and punishment of corrupt practices" could defeat corruption.
"The battle can only be won if public and private institutions act together and with the single purpose of guaranteeing that corruption does not subvert governance", he added.
Although corruption involves larger sums of money in rich countries than in poor ones, corruption is a worse problem in Africa than in Europe, because African countries "lack a system that reacts to the presence of corruption".
Such a system was the equivalent of the human immune system that reacts rapidly to infection. "Africa in general has not yet developed this defence system, which makes it hard to fight against the virus of corruption", said Carimo.
Certain basic conditions were required, he added. One was "political will, expressed not just in speeches but in concrete acts", and a second was a legal environment "that grants effective powers of investigation and clear rules of evidence, which helps to prosecute and judge crimes of corruption".
Carimo also called for "a clear, complete and coherent strategy for the fight against corruption". This would include not only the effective application of the law, and a fight against impunity, but also the elimination of opportunities for corruption.
This meant, for example, scrapping discretionary powers, "administrative improvisation", excessive centralisation and "obsolete management systems".
Carimo also called for educating the public about corruption, since "no authority can combat corruption without the support of citizens".
The objective of an anti-corruption strategy, he said, should be "on the one hand, to reduce corruption to the point where it does not undermine the construction of the state, the functioning of institutions and the transparency of business, and on the other to bring the people to regard it as a threat and to protect themselves from it".
The current anti-corruption law needed a major overhaul. Carimo pointed out that it is in conflict with other legislation, including the Penal Code, and does not cover certain types of crimes, that would normally be regarded as corruption, such as trafficking in influence, and illicit enrichment.
Furthermore the law is so poorly drafted that it only punishes people who are successfully corrupt, and not those whose attempts to demand bribes fail. The current law also deals exclusively with the public sector, and does not deal with corruption in the private sector.
So Carimo suggested that a new law should be passed covering all types of corruption, including within the private sector, and covering such issues as conflict of interests, abuse of public office, abuse of trust, and trafficking in influence. The legislation should be harmonised, so that the country did not possess laws that contradicted each other.
Carimo thought there should be provisions to encourage criminals to confess. Thus people who admit to corrupt behaviour, repay any stolen money, and blow the whistle on others involved in corrupt networks, should be pardoned or receive a suspended sentence.
Carimo also argued that the powers of the Central Office for the Fight against Corruption (GCCC), which operates out of the Attorney-General's Office, should be covered in a separate law. This should allow the GCCC not only to investigate cases, but also to prosecute them.
This would end the current anomaly whereby the GCCC, although consisting of prosecutors, cannot itself prosecute cases, but must hand them over to the provincial attorneys. The GCCC should also be empowered to take preventive measures to seize assets, preventing those suspected of corruption from selling off possessions they may have illicitly acquired.
A further new piece of legislation suggested by Carimo was for the protection of witnesses and whistle blowers. This was required, not only in cases of corruption, but in all forms of organised crime, including money laundering, and drug trafficking.
Source:allafrica.com/
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