Macmillan banned by World Bank over Sudan bribes – Times Online.
Macmillan banned by World Bank over Sudan bribes – Times Online
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Category Archives: UK
Is the worst over for Kenyan horticulture? [with updates]
Nick Wadhams from Naivasha in The Guardian: European flight paralysis exacts high price on Kenyan flower trade:
The ash cloud over Europe stopped most flights out of Kenya last Wednesday night. Now the horticulture industry is losing about $2m a day from the disruption and thousands of casual labourers – some of whom make a few dollars a day – have been laid off.
Some farmers hope the worst may be over. Two cargo flights left Kenya early on Monday after a number of airports in southern Europe opened up, and a KLM cargo flight left in the afternoon.
“I don’t think that four days is going to bankrupt the Kenyan flower industry,” said Peter Szapary, owner of Wildfire Flowers in Naivasha. “But if it goes on for two weeks then it will be a problem for us.”
Oserian managed to fly 40 tonnes of flowers to Spain on Sunday morning. tTrucks were making the 30-hour trip to the UK and the Netherlands to deliver them to supermarkets and the Dutch flower auction.
The company is paying 60%-70% more in freight charges and does not yet know how much it has lost from the disruption. What it does know is that 3m flowers so far have been disposed of.
[Update] See this interesting post about Naivasha on Nick’s blog: “Murder on the Lake” :
Naivasha is in some ways emblematic of the larger problems facing Kenya. A handful of whites live in gorgeous houses along the shore of Lake Naivasha. Next to them are the flower farms that contribute so much to the economy but also pay their workers very poorly and suck huge amounts of water from the lake. And behind are the dusty slums where hundreds of thousands of people live in terrible poverty. The lake is gorgeous, and so are the flowers that grow next to it, but sometimes it seems that such beauty comes at too high a human cost.
[2nd Update]-“British skies to reopen as EU strikes ash deal”, TimesOnline
“With Flights to Europe Grounded, Kenya’s Produce Wilts”
With Flights to Europe Grounded, Kenya’s Produce Wilts Jeffrey Gettleman in the NYTimes
A good article, worth reading.
If farmers in Africa’s Great Rift Valley ever doubted that they were intricately tied into the global economy, they know now that they are. Because of a volcanic eruption more than 5,000 miles away, Kenyan horticulture, which as the top foreign exchange earner is a critical piece of the national economy, is losing $3 million a day and shedding jobs.
The pickers are not picking. The washers are not washing. Temporary workers have been told to go home because refrigerated warehouses at the airport are stuffed with ripening fruit, vegetables and flowers, and there is no room for more until planes can take away the produce. Already, millions of roses, lilies and carnations have wilted.
“Volcano, volcano, volcano,” grumbled Ronald Osotsi, whose $90-a-month job scrubbing baby courgettes, which are zucchinis, and French beans is now endangered. “That’s all anyone is talking about.” He sat on a log outside a vegetable processing plant in Nairobi, next to other glum-faced workers eating a cheap lunch of fried bread and beans.
Election-driven riots, the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and stunningly bad harvests have all left their mark on Kenya’s agriculture industry, which is based in the Rift Valley, Kenya’s breadbasket and the cradle of mankind.
But industry insiders say they have never suffered like this.
“It’s a terrible nightmare,” said Stephen Mbithi, the chief executive officer of the Fresh Produce Exporters Association of Kenya. He rattled off some figures: Two million pounds of fresh produce is normally shipped out of Kenya every night. Eighty-two percent of that goes to Europe, and more than a third goes solely to Britain, whose airports have been among those shut down by the volcano’s eruption. Five thousand Kenyan field hands have been laid off in the past few days, and others may be jobless soon. The only way to alleviate this would be to restore the air bridge to Europe, which would necessitate the equivalent of 10 Boeing 747s of cargo space — per night.
“There is no diversionary market,” Mr. Mbithi said. “Flowers and courgettes are not something the average Kenyan buys.”
The Education Scandal and Donor Accountability
One crucial question to ask in light of the scandal as to the looting of funds from the Free Primary Education program is how the donors missed the issue during the course of the first Kibaki administration and well into the second?
If the British had not initiated a joint audit last year, would the US have ever been the wiser? It is especially interesting to note from this story in the Daily Nation in December that one “siphon” for theft of funds has been an initiative called Kenya Education Sector Support Programme. “Introduced in 2005, the programme gets funds pooled by donors to support Kenya Government backed education programmes. It seeks to eliminate duplication and misuse of funds.”
While I applaud the actions taken by the US government to join the British in issuing travel bans and speaking strongly on the issue now, the fact remains that the program has seen funds diverted throughout its history, while never having enough money to be implemented to a level that would really provide an adequate opportunity for students in hugely overcrowded and undersupported classrooms.
See my previous posts “Oops: What Gene Sperling Had to Say About Kenya’s Education Program Under the Coalition Government”, “Continuing Corruption Story on Primary School Funds”, “Another Shoe Dropping on Education Scandal?”, and “UK Takes Action on Kenyan Corruption–Ongoing Education Scandal”.
Also, “Another Education Scandal? No transparency in Kenya’s examination board”.
“Where Are the Global Anti-Corruption Leaders?” asks former GE General Counsel
In The Atlantic, Ben W. Heineman, Jr., the illustrious former general counsel of General Electric, pens a strongly worded criticism of the state of corruption in global business and the state of developed world commitment to combating it.
Of the recent BAE settlement, Heineman notes the years of stonewalling and denials, and the decision by the British government not to pursue the massive bribery case involving BAE sales to Saudi Arabia after key Saudi officials threatened to diminish terrorism cooperation–but also motivated Heineman says by an underlying reason: to protect British jobs and trade. He notes that only after the US initiated its own prosecution did the British act, and says that in spite of the “technical” nature of the charges to which BAE pled, “BAE would not pay $450 million for technical offenses”.
The BAE and Siemens cases are symbols of pervasive corruption across the globe and lack of senior leadership making anti-corruption an international imperative. Bribery and extortion in public sector activities–especially in the developing world–distorts competition, erodes legitimacy and rule of law, impedes economic growth, thwarts building of institutional infrastructure, injures the poor and supports criminals and terrorists who pose a threat to world order. Corruption thus directly and seriously implicates foreign policy, national security, economic, developmental and humanitarian concerns.
. . . .
The BAE and Siemens settlements are cases in point. If these iconic developed world companies had such widespread issues, it is reasonable to think that they are hardly alone. Although both Germany and the U.K. have had laws prohibiting foreign bribery by their multinational corporations since at least 1999, there had been little national enforcement prior to these cases. In both BAE and Siemens, the U.S. (which has a history of strong enforcing laws against foreign bribery) was deeply involved and helped push the companies to a major resolution because of their dependence on the U.S. market. . . .
. . . .
More importantly, a 2009 report by Transparency International, evaluated the enforcement activities of 36 nations which had signed the 1997 OECD Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials and enacted national laws giving it effect. (Disclosure: I am on the board of Transparency International-USA.) That report concluded that only 4 out of 36 countries evaluated are actively enforcing the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention, with moderate enforcement in 11 other countries and little to no enforcement in 21 or more than half. Among the obstacles noted by the report were: antiquated bribery laws, outright political obstruction of investigations, lack of adequate funding for prosecutors or curtailing the powers of investigative magistrates.
This problem is in the developed world (!!), not in the developing world ,where anti-corruption efforts are infinitely more complex given the varying histories and cultures of individual nations. . . .
Heineman identifies committed global leadership, by someone such as the US Secretary of State or the President of the World Bank, as the necessary step to move the developed world to act.
“We are aware that over two million dead people voted in 2007” says US Undersecretary Otero in Nairobi
Lead from the Standard (and today’s most read on-line story):
A US official revisited the controversial 2007 presidential election when she said her country was aware two million dead voters were not weeded from the electoral register as pressure on reforms mounted. US Undersecretary for Democracy and Global Affairs Maria Otero said America is aware that there were over two million dead voters whose names remained in the register and voted in 2007. “We are aware that over two million people voted in 2007, so we will support the process of compiling a new voter register. At a time the whole world is watching Kenya, we want to be there with our support,” Ms Otero said. She spoke on Thursday during a meeting with Prime Minister Raila Odinga in Nairobi where she affirmed the US pledge to fund the reform agenda, including new voter registration by the Interim Independent Electoral Commission. Otero, who was accompanied by US Ambassador Michael Ranneberger, said America will support the IIEC with the ambassador saying they are putting together “a couple of millions of dollars” for IIEC.
One of the devilish inconsistencies here, of course, is reflected in what the State Department’s Africa Bureau had to say about the 2007 election in a new edition of its “Background Notes” for Kenya issued January 10: “On December 27, 2007, Kenya held presidential, parliamentary, and local government elections. While the parliamentary and local government elections were largely credible, the presidential election was seriously flawed, with irregularities in the vote tabulation process as well as turnout in excess of 100% in some constituencies.” The problem of course is that 2 million dead people didn’t vote for President alone–they also voted for Members of Parliament. The Standard article ties Otero’s remarks to the report of the Kreigler Commission, which noted large numbers of dead voters on the roles, among many systemic failures and basically found the whole process deeply questionable (while declining to excercise its mandate to investigate the presidential voting and tallying specifically–citing lack of time and resources as well as lack of feasibility–not so surprising perhaps from a Commission reporting to the Kenyan President, which met privately with the President before reporting, and that was funded by at least one donor who was not supportive of that mandate). You really can’t have this both ways. If the major problem with the 2007 elections was systemic then you cannot plausibly act like there isn’t a problem about who did and didn’t end up in Parliament vis a vis how actual live Kenyans voted or intended to vote.
This matters a lot right now when you have the Constitutional Review process seemingly taken over by a Parliamentary Commission. My personal opinion is that both sets of election problems are fully real: the presence of dead voters and all the other across-the-board systemic failures identified by the Kreigler Commission are substantiated; likewise, the observations and allegations of specific misconduct in the presidential race asserted by civil society and international observers and diplomats are also real. Thus, we do not have a legitimate democratic government in Kenya and the notion that the present coalition of convenience could effectively govern the country for a full five year term and actually deliver major reforms is wishful thinking.
In the meantime, the British High Commissioner warned of the potential for 2012 poll violence.
FBI charges 22 over alleged attempt to bribe African defense minister
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/mobile/americas/8469117.stm
This is good news. People actually getting arrested–and before the fact, rather than years later. Note that this involved efforts to sell “small and light arms”. A good bit of State Department security assistance in places like Kenya is to combat traffic in this type of arms.
Also encouraging is the cooperation of UK authorities with those in the US.
Corruption: Kenya’s Cancer
This is a Sunday dose of impassioned moralism. It may not be to your taste.
AFRICOG has come out with a December report on the Maize Scandal. The Star reports that the Public Education Scandal is about to explode, indicating that the amount of directly missing funds is roughly Sh5.5B, with millions taken each year of the program during the whole course of the program! We are talking here about the rich and powerful exploiting hunger and the poverty of children to line their pockets that much more thickly.
This is not a traffic policeman shaking down a middle class driver for lunch money or petty bureaucratic clerk in a postal service. I don’t claim to be an expert on the world–and I am not arguing abstract development theory. Even if people like Ha-Joon Chang, and to a lesser extent Jeffrey Sachs, are right that Westerners from developed nations tend to overemphasize the importance and explanatory role of corruption in overall economic analysis, I think it is still clear that in Kenya today corruption is a metastasizing cancer that will be the death of meaningful democracy if left untreated. The fact that there is no defined “cure” does not mean that we shouldn’t do our best to treat it.
It is a fool’s errand to have high expectations of the kind of people who steal bread from the hungriest and school funds for the poorest–the bottom line is that they just don’t really care about anyone other than themselves. They can be counted on to be immoral or amoral at best and are not going to be actually subject to moral suasion as opposing to pretending. They might on some occasions for whatever reason do things that are desirable–they may have traits like physical courage or resoluteness or articulation skills that prove useful. But they can never be trusted. Likewise, people that steal elections are not democrats–and as the insightful quote in Michaela Wrong’s It’s Our Turn to Eat points out, stealing an election is pretty much the ultimate form of corruption in a democracy: it takes away the very sovereignty of the voting public and steals the most from those who have no other form of power other than the vote.
So what is the treatment? It’s not Tweets, nor, for that matter, blog posts. “Name and shame” doesn’t work where there is no shame. What is required is accountability which means prosecutions and asset seizures. If non-Kenyan actors and institutions want to help they will stop playing Hamlet and decide to consistently be in favor, and act in favor, of this type of actual accountability. The policy of my country, the United States, has been over a period of years, so inconsistent as to be incomprehensible. Likewise the British. France has become a big donor to Kenya for whatever reason–and has spoken some good words, but I haven’t picked up on much in terms of action.
We have arrived now at one of those times when both the US and the UK have shifted some in the direction of expressing dissatisfaction with part of the Kenyan political class in government. We have been here before and they have always in the past “gotten over it” before anyone went to jail or lost his or her ill gotten wealth. Before there was always a distraction or excuse that arose. Some other priority involving some neighboring country perhaps. I certainly hope that those lessons have now been learned. The patient is obviously sick and candy or sugar pills will not take the place of medicine.
Britain willing to help Kenya try graft cases/Daily Nation
Daily Nation – Britain willing to help Kenya try graft cases.
“Help try cases” means provide evidence from ongoing investigations. These corruption matters would still have to be handled by Kenyan judges and prosecutors.
UK Takes an Action on Kenyan Corruption–Ongoing Education Scandal
Daily Nation’s Jeff Otieno: UK Withholds Kenya Education Funding for Corruption, Wants Prosecution
Update December 14: As Much as 6 Billion Sh. Stolen from “Free Primary Education” Funding–http://www.nation.co.ke/News/-/1056/822668/-/vo33eb/-/index.html