I’m not one to encourage readers to kick a high-flying executive when he is down, but please feel free to do a little twirl around the office at some of the anticorruption news we have been receiving lately. It’s a trickle, really, but hopefully it will lead to a river of anticorruption cases and successes.
On Friday former Eskom contractor Michael Lomas, implicated in a R745m Kusile power station fraud and corruption case, landed at OR Tambo International Airport after being extradited from the UK, where he was arrested in 2021. Lomas is to stand trial alongside former Eskom managers France Hlakudi and Abram Masango, businessman Maphoko Kgomoeswana and Tubular Construction CEO Antonio Trindade on charges of fraud, corruption, money laundering and bribery.
On September 10 billionaire Alex Beard, who ran Glencore Plc’s oil division from 2007 to 2019, and five of his colleagues appeared in a London court charged with conspiring to make corrupt payments to benefit the commodities company’s operations in West Africa. The charges include conspiring to pay bribes to government officials and employees of state-owned oil firms in Nigeria from 2010 to 2014, and in Cameroon from 2007 to 2014.
All these individuals are, of course, presumed innocent until proven guilty.
Mine is not just schadenfreude directed at Lomas, Beard and their colleagues. It’s the principle. For too long it’s been permissible for global corporates and their executives in developing countries to pay bribes and return home to bemoan the blight of corruption in Africa, while they have participated in the practice with impunity.
We need to see the big fish in courts or in orange overalls not just in African jails but in European and US prisons too
For every bribe there is a giver and a taker. Both are corrupt and must be held to account. Seeing these prosecutions taking place is a win in itself — the dirty laundry is being aired.
Corruption is killing Africa. It is throttling business and robbing the continent of much-needed investment. Systemic corruption has led to instability, public distrust of governments, poverty and numerous other challenges. For as long as bribes are part of the deal-making culture among executives, African underdevelopment will not end.
UN Trade & Development’s “Economic Development in Africa Report 2020” says an estimated $88.6bn, equivalent to 3.7% of Africa’s GDP at the time of the report, leaves the continent as illicit capital flight every year. It says these outflows are nearly as much as the combined total annual inflows to African countries between 2013 and 2015 of official development assistance, valued at $48bn, and yearly foreign direct investment, pegged at $54bn.
That is why we should all do a little dance of joy whenever we hear that yet another senior executive is facing trial, or headed for jail due to acts of corruption anywhere. For global executives to be brought to account for corruption while working in Africa, where many think they will never get caught, is good for global accountability and ethical business.
Even more laudable is that, in the Glencore and Eskom cases, these are not employees at the bottom end of the food chain. The more powerful those are who are brought to account the more likely we are to see the back of the corruption that blights Africa. We need to see the big fish in courts or in orange overalls not just in African jails but in European and US prisons too. That will send a powerful message to bribers — and those who take the bribes.
Corruption that was aided and abetted by global business nearly destroyed South Africa in the 2010s. Bain & Co has been banned by the National Treasury from doing business with South Africa until 2032 because it “engaged in corrupt practices” when competing for a contract at the South African Revenue Service. Global business titans McKinsey, SAP and ABB have all paid fines for corrupt practices in South Africa.
These companies were working with local officials who solicited and pocketed eye-watering amounts. The charges and sanctions that are beginning to emerge in South Africa, the US and Europe are to be welcomed, but they are not enough. What we are seeing is a fraction of the corruption committed by global business and state officials on the continent.
We need more corruption to be exposed, we need to protect whistleblowers and we need African states to work continually to strengthen their institutions to ensure that those who take bribes are investigated, prosecuted and convicted locally too.
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