opening ceremony of the United Nations Global Forum on Fighting Corruption and
Safeguarding Integrity, Sandton Convention Centre
2 April 2007
Director of Ceremonies,
Distinguished delegates and guests,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I would like to thank you most sincerely for giving me the opportunity to
address this important meeting convened to deal with one of the most critical
challenges facing all nations of the world. We have gathered here to engage the
difficult problem of corruption, which obstructs the achievement of the
important objective we all share, the objective of liberating billions of human
beings from the scourge of poverty.
The theme that informs the work of this conference, 'fighting corruption and
safeguarding integrity,' correctly presumes our ability as political leaders,
business leaders, civil society, public intellectuals and academics, and
others, to identify the root causes of corruption and accordingly work out the
most effective ways and means to combat it.
All of us are agreed about the negative consequences of corruption on the
lives of especially the ordinary people but also all the citizens of our
countries. We are equally agreed that for corruption to occur there must also
exist mutual agreement and collusion between the corruptor and the
corrupted.
Indeed, both the corrupter and the corrupted would, as a matter of
principle, agree to subject their souls to the dictates of graft, illegally to
line their pockets against the interests of the people to whom the stolen
resources are due.
From the experience of many in this room, we know that that corruption is
not necessarily caused by poverty. In any case, by definition and in general,
the poor are so excluded from the levers of power that they do not have the
possibility to extricate themselves out of poverty by corrupt means.
Rather, in many instances corruption serves as a sufficient condition for
the further entrenchment of poverty, negating the potential for development. We
know of many examples where corruption robs a large section of humanity of
their right to homes, food, transport, education, health, clean water, and many
other essential services.
The incidence of corruption in modern society seems to reinforce the view
postulated by the English philosopher, Thomas Hobbes, when he wrote about what
he considered to be what has been described as 'the natural condition of
humanity.' He advanced the concept of "bellum omnium contra omnes" � the "war
of all against all" � and the notion that in a so-called 'state of nature,'
human society, not governed by a benevolent dictator, renders all human life
"solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short." Specifically, in his 'Leviathan,'
he wrote that:
"because the basic condition of man� is a condition of war of every one
against every one; in which case every one is governed by his own reason; and
there is nothing he can make use of, that may not be a help unto him, in
preserving his life against his enemies; it followeth, that in such a condition
every man has a right to everything; even to another's body. And therefore, as
long as this natural right of every man to everything endureth, there can be no
security to any man, how strong or wise soever he be, of living out the time,
which nature ordinarily alloweth men to live."
(Leviathan, Collier Macmillan, 1974, p 103).
The incidence of corruption, especially as it occurs within the context of a
global social order that deifies the personal acquisition of wealth regardless
of the social cost, that advocates the creation of a world in which wealth,
profit and conspicuous consumption are pursued by individuals and corporations
at all costs, naturally raises the question whether Thomas Hobbes was not
correct after all. But if he was, the question would arise � is contemporary
society therefore obliged to accept that to avoid a situation of "war of all
against all," it has no choice but to accept rule by benevolent dictators!
I am certain that all of us proceed from the position that we cannot accept
any suggestion that we can revert to the 'natural condition of humanity' as
conceptualised by Thomas Hobbes, and therefore accept the inevitable
consequence to accommodate ourselves to the necessity of a benevolent
autocracy.
Instead, we would advance the proposition that the 'natural condition of
humanity' dictates the need to govern human society according to a value system
based on the principles and practice of human solidarity, caring and compassion
towards one's neighbour.
In this regard we would argue that social cohesion in all communal
societies, before their fragmentation in class terms, was guaranteed by the
pre-eminence of the principle and practice of sharing, rather than the notion -
everybody for himself or herself, and the devil take the hindmost.
Ousmane Sembene's character Houdia M'Baye, in his well-known novel, 'God's
Bits of Wood,' recalls the words of another character (Ramatoulaye) who said,
"Real misfortune is not just a matter of being hungry and thirsty; it is a
matter of knowing that there are people who want you to be hungry and thirsty �
and that is the way it is with us."
Here Ousmane Sembene is pointing to the relationship between poverty and
power, and the conscious abuse of power for personal enrichment at the expense
of the powerless. For Sembene, there are people and, by extension, systems and
institutions, whose existence and success is predicated on the deprivation of
another, as a consequence of which Ramatoulaye said � "that is the way it is
with us."
In this setting, corruption becomes the way it is with us. Thus the
knowledge that there are others who intend that others should be poor becomes
even more painful than the resultant poverty � which constitutes the "real
misfortune" that Ramatoulaye decried.
The real misfortune lies in the fact that "there are people (in positions of
power) who want (others) to be hungry and thirsty," whose apparently
unstoppable actions distort and pervert the very essence of what it means to be
human.
Sembene's message is perfectly clear. It is that corruption implicates in
shared guilt both the corrupter and the corrupted, and defines both as
offenders against humanity itself. The ordinary folk who constitute his 'God's
bits of wood' understand this very well that corruption, in all its forms and
manifestations, constitutes a process that negates the democracy and
development that ordinary people need to transcend the boundaries of their
world of poverty, underdevelopment and disempowerment.
We have gathered here today from all corners of the globe because together
we understand the simple and obvious fact that corruption benefits the few, and
harms the majority. It is inimical to pro-poor sustainable growth and
development.
It distorts human values, exacerbates market inefficiencies, undermines
democracy, its institutions and ethos, engenders citizen frustration with
elected and appointed officials, seriously erodes confidence in the process of
governance, and is detrimental to the effective and efficient delivery of goods
and services to those most in need.
The corollary of this central thesis is that any anti-corruption strategy
and the necessary anti-corruption instruments while obviously absolutely
necessary, must not be seen as ends in themselves. They must be firmly located
within a development and anti-poverty discourse that promotes citizen
engagement, a people's contract that binds the democratic state to the
citizenry and promotes the values of human solidarity and public
accountability.
The anti-corruption discourse therefore is inseparable from broader goals of
socio-economic development. In the era of globalisation when vast wealth and
asset gaps exist among individuals, regions, and nations, the fight against
corruption must be rooted in common understandings across borders. It must go
beyond the rhetoric of perceptions and blame. It must constructively utilise
approaches developed in the multi-lateral setting, and must involve global
co-operation.
There can be no effective global anti-corruption strategy unless it is
intricately and intimately linked to a global agenda that promotes pro-poor
sustainable development. This is because in the current conjuncture of
globalisation, unregulated markets have become somewhat of a fetish and a
universally dominant value-system has increasingly put on a high pedestal
possessive individualism as the pinnacle of human success.
In September 2000, our country joined the rest of the international
community of nations to adopt the United Nations Millennium Declaration and its
eight Millennium Development Goals. We agreed to "spare no effort to free our
fellow men, women and children from the abject and dehumanising conditions of
extreme poverty, to which more than a billion of them are currently
subjected."
In this context, we too recognise the fact that while globalisation has
created immense opportunities for growth and the accumulation of wealth for
some, it has produced socio-economic conditions that make it difficult for many
countries on our continent to meet their Millennium Development Goals. In this
regard, the historic Millennium Summit Declaration proclaimed that:
"We believe that the central challenge we face today is to ensure that
globalisation becomes a positive force for all the world's people. For, while
globalisation offers great opportunities, at present its benefits are very
unevenly shared, while its costs are unevenly distributed. We recognise that
developing countries and countries with economies in transition face special
difficulties in responding to this central challenge. Thus, only through broad
and sustained efforts to create a shared future, based upon our common humanity
in all its diversity, can globalisation be made fully inclusive and
equitable.
Globalisation, unfettered and unchecked, creates an environment in which the
wealthy and the powerful can prey on the vulnerable in all countries, but
especially those of the South. Today and for the remainder of the time this
Forum engage in discussion, we need to remind ourselves that corruption worsens
this painful reality, and fundamentally hinders the realisation of the
Millennium Development Goals.
Our own people have assumed that we agreed to the Millennium Development
Goals (MDGs) because we are determined to eradicate poverty, unemployment and
underdevelopment, and that, consequently, we are equally committed to creating
a non-racial, a non-sexist, prosperous and democratic society, in which the
wealth created and generated is more equitably distributed especially to favour
the poor, while guaranteeing the possibility to create more wealth.
Accordingly, they will be entitled to ask of us what progress we have made
towards the realisation of the MDGs, and what we have done to fight corruption,
which they, 'God's bits of wood,' know from their experience undermines the
possibility to realise these Goals.
They have a right to hold us accountable for any lack of progress with
respect to the MDGs. They will be correct to inquire from us what we have
agreed to do collectively to deliver on our vision of a corruption free
world.
They will be correct to ask whether we are not continuing on an unproductive
path as we devote an inordinate amount of time to the task to apportion blame
for corruption, in many respects relying solely on perception projected as a
scientific measure of corruption.
In his novel, 'Wizard Of The Crow,' Ngugi wa Thiong'o writes of a Ruler and
his three sycophantic ministers who had undergone plastic surgery to enlarge,
respectively, their eyes, ears and tongue � the better to see, hear and
denounce dissent. For his birthday one of the Ministers suggests the Marching
To Heaven project - the building of a tower tall enough for the Ruler to be
able regularly and easily to consult the God-on-high.
The government then tried to persuade the Global Bank to provide loans to
fund the Marching To Heaven project. However, this initiative, which the Bank
would otherwise have funded and earned its returns, suffered a setback because
of opposition by the poor � and in particular by a group of militant women.
Reflecting on one of the central themes of the novel, Ngugi says that there
is a way in which the West tries to imply that corruption, longing, starvation
are peculiarly African � something to do with the biological character of the
African. Of the developed world he says:
"They wash their hands of what is happening, as if they have never had
anything to do with the corruption, with massacres, with backwardness. My
concern is with these colonial distortions. There are elements which are
indigenous, but they are also external. You can't understand one without the
other. The tendency is to leave out one of the elements in the equation. But an
equation without all its elements is no longer an equation."
And therein lies a particular complexity and a shared complicity. The global
discourse on corruption and anti-corruption must begin with the recognition
that corruption distorts human values and fundamental freedoms in all
countries. Everywhere it undermines democracy and good governance,
accountability and transparency. It also seriously compromises the beneficial
operation of economic markets, globally.
Corruption is a multifaceted, systemic and institutional global phenomenon
involving all sectors of human society. It takes a variety of forms including
theft, fraud, bribery, extortion, nepotism, patronage, and the laundering of
illicit proceeds.
Corruption exists in both developed and developing countries and destroys
the positive value systems of all societies and institutions. It replaces the
concept and practice of human solidarity with the unfettered pursuit of
individual gain, grafted onto the imperatives prescribed by free market
ideology.
It emasculates development and democracy and undermines the fight against
poverty by diverting key resources away from programmes designed to improve the
quality of life especially of the poor, globally.
In many instances, the response to corruption has been to blame either the
bribe givers or the bribe takers rather than to understand its structural
character as well as how it has embedded itself in relationships among
individuals and organisations in both the developed and developing world.
Its measurement has become the subject of a sophisticated statistical
modelling of perceptions rather than the greater effort we need to understand
the concrete circumstances of its social origin, as well as achieve the
systematic and sustained computation of the frequency and occurrences of
specific forms and types of corruption.
The perceptions I have just mentioned shape the understanding of the
powerful and influence the manner in which resources have been committed to
poor countries, and donor assistance provided.
We have an obligation properly to understand and to fight corruption in all
its forms and manifestations, as we seek to create a new world order that will
be responsive to the needs and aspirations of the poor billions we
represent.
The obvious need for us to respect our obligation to account to the people
will require that we deal with all these issues honestly. We will also have to
do this because our decisions will have to give real meaning to the
corruption-free social compact we seek to create.
Accordingly, we need to seize the opportunity provided by this Global Forum
constructively to strengthen the foundation we all need to carry out our
historic task to rid our world of the ravages of poverty, disease and
underdevelopment.
As we engage in the global fight against corruption, let us also be fully
conscious of the need to work on all the varied tracks and affirm a clear role
for the responsive democratic state in the fight to eradicate poverty,
unemployment and underdevelopment.
As an affirmation of our resolve to defeat corruption and its outcomes, we
must work together to deal with market related and market induced inequalities.
We must provide equality of opportunity to all our citizens. We must work to
develop social cohesion. We must promote peace and stability in our countries,
as well as regionally and globally.
Again as an affirmation of our determined opposition to corruption, we must
promote sustainable growth and development, as well as ecological and
environmental sustainability. We must address the glaring unequal division of
wealth at the global, regional and national levels.
All this we must do with the necessary sense of urgency and a common resolve
to act together to end the circumstance that billions across the globe are
still condemned to lead lives that are "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and
short."
On behalf of our government, the people of South Africa, and in my own name,
I wish the Global Forum against Corruption success in its deliberations.
Thank you.
Issued by: The Presidency
2 April 2007
