Sunday, January 10, 2010

Africa must expose corrupt leaders





I am particularly pleased with the way African nations such as Liberia and DR-Congo are seriously frowning on bribery and corruption which has been Africa's biggest headache.

This week several officials in the DR-Congo Ministry of Finance and other departments got to their offices to meet letters terminating their employment or forcing them to retire. They were fired on charges of mismanagement and bribery and corruption. Those asked to proceed on leave had refused to do so when their retirement was due. I think the President of DR-Congo must be applauded for taking such a bold step (provided the the allegations are true).

Liberia is the other country I would love to praise for frowning on Corruption in their country. In October last year, the information minister, Laurence Bropleh, was suspended over claims that he had misappropriated more than US$200,000. I pray these actions of intolerance for corruption will become the number one goal for all African leaders.

There are clear pieces of evidence of corruption and bribery in most Africa institutions, yet the leaders for no apparent reason fail to bring the culprits to book. Quite recently a journalist with Radio Gold filmed the immigration officers at the Ghana-Togo border extorting moneys equivalent to $4 from the people crossing the border. What happened to the free movement within the ECOWAS sub-region? I would not be surprised if the officials are still at post.

It is an open secret that the police on our roads who are to ensure that all drivers plying our roads have the skills and documentation,do not do so. They rather take moneys from offending drivers and just let them drive away. If Africa is to progress, these corrupt official need to be exposed.

Do African leaders have the guts Kabila has to expose such corrupt officials?

2 comments:

Nana said...

Good one there. But what we must also say is that the due process must be followed. As for the Radio Gold reporter case, the PRO of CEPS-Ghana said the officers are been recalled back to the capital for investigations. They have promised it will happen.

What I beg you to watch out is to ensure that you do not do the dirty work for the media outside of Africa who make corruption appear as if it is indigenous to Africa, that only Africans can be corrupt. That every African, or their governments are corrupt. DON'T DO THAT DIRTY WORK FOR THEM.

Do you know about the corruption scandal in the UK parliament where more than half of the house was found to be corrupt? They called it FRAUD (not CORRUPTION). So you defraud the state and the tax-payer and it is not corruption? Only the speaker of the house resigned and business goes on. The BBC was quite on it for a while. Less news stories came out of it.

Anonymous said...

I will not approve on it. I assume nice post. Especially the title attracted me to be familiar with the intact story.