Category Archives: Commentary

Will Afghanistan’s New Taliban Rulers Govern Corruptly?

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On August 15, 2021, the Taliban marched into Kabul unopposed, toppling the Western-backed government. The Taliban came to power in a very corrupt country. Afghan police regularly used informal checkpoints to extort truck drivers. Education and banking were also rife with corruption. Some estimates put the amount of bribes paid annually in Afghanistan at somewhere between $2 and $5 billion, or about 13 percent of the country’s GDP. Afghan military commanders siphoned off huge amounts of money by listing non-existent soldiers in their units, and then pocketing the salaries of these “ghost soldiers.” And on top of all this, former president Ashraf Ghani allegedly stole over $100 million on his way out of Afghanistan. From top to bottom, Afghanistan had a major corruption problem. 

The Taliban, by contrast, cultivated a reputation for relatively clean government. During the Taliban’s previous reign, from 1996 until 2001, bribes were uncommon, and the justice system was viewed as comparatively honest (and certainly less corrupt than that of the Western-backed government established after the Taliban’s ouster). Over the last two decades, the justice administered by Taliban judges in areas under Taliban control has been popular among many Afghans precisely because they perceive it as less corrupt and more efficient. This may explain why, despite the Taliban’s extremism and abysmal human rights record, the group was viewed favorably by many ordinary Afghans—at least when contrasted with the Western-backed government. Many commentators have suggested this factor contributed to the Taliban’s takeover of the country (see here and here). And since the Taliban has come to power, early reports suggest that it is governing in a relatedly non-corrupt manner. For example, business owners in Kabul—often the targets of shakedowns by security forces under the Ghani government—note that Taliban security forces check in on them regularly to offer help with security, without demanding bribes. Afghans also report that the police no longer extort bribe payments from truckers, who now just pay a single toll to the Taliban. More generally, citizens in places like Kabul have offered positive preliminary assessments, regarding the comparatively lower corruption of the new Taliban government.

Does this mean that, notwithstanding the Taliban’s terrible record on other issues, the Taliban government is likely to continue governing the country relatively cleanly? There is no way to know, but there are good reasons to be skeptical. Those who welcomed the Taliban as a less corrupt alternative to the Western-backed government are likely to be disappointed.

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Keep the Dogmatic Privatization Argument Out of Style

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It used to be trendy to talk about privatization as the solution for corruption. The World Bank, for example, declared back in 1997 that “any reform that increases the competitiveness of the economy will reduce incentives for corrupt behavior. Thus policies that lower controls on foreign trade, remove entry barriers to private industry, and privatize state firms in a way that ensures competition will all support the fight [against corruption].” (See also here, here, and here.) Although this theory declined rapidly after its peak in the 1990s, anticorruption policy ideas, like fashion, seem to be cyclical. Even as the privatization dogma has become démodé in Western anticorruption circles, it has gained new life elsewhere. As “privatization as a solution to corruption” debates reemerge in India and the Philippines, it’s worth reexamining the flaws in such policy proposals that made them fall out of favor twenty years ago.

The logic behind the idea that privatization inherently(or at least usually)decreases corruption is the notion that private shareholders are more interested than government bureaucrats in the efficient usage of whatever resources they control, and are therefore more likely to crack down on corruption. Relatedly, competition in the private market should favor those entities that can provide a service most efficiently—and if graft is inefficient, as many believe, market competition should drive corruption down. On top of this, private organizations also reduce corruption by offering more competitive wages, which means that employees aren’t forced to turn to corrupt means to supplement their incomes.

That’s the theory. The problem is that it isn’t supported by empirical evidence. Starting in the early 2000s and continuing well into the present, scholarship examining the aftermath of the privatization wave of the 1990s has repeatedly found that privatization has been largely unhelpful, and in some cases outright detrimental, to efforts to bring corruption under control (see here, here, here, here, here and here, to cite but a few sources). Why is this? Three main problems stand out:

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In Pari Delicto & Parens Patriae: Latin All Corruption Fighters Should Know

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In pari delicto, Latin for “of equal fault,” is a legal doctrine that prevented the government that succeeded Saddam Hussein’s from recovering hundreds of millions of dollars in damages from those involved in Saddam and cronies’ corruption. It has deterred other governments taking power after a kleptocrat’s fall from attempting to recover damages as well. Parens patriae, Latin for another legal doctrine, is one way around the result in pari delicto dictates in kleptocracy cases.

Corruption hunters thus have good reason to learn Latin. At least enough to ensure that those who profit from a kleptocrat’s reign don’t escape reckoning when there is a regime change.

The barrier in pari delicto raises to a government recovering damages from a kleptocrat’s accomplices was first revealed in a suit the post-Saddam government filed in 2008.

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Current and Former Mozambican Presidents, Other Higher Ups “Cleared” in Hidden Debt Scandal

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Last week the presiding judge in Mozambique’s hidden debt trial made it plain that the country’s current and former presidents and other senior members of the country’s ruling party would not have to answer for their role in the hidden scandal. The massive corruption scheme has cost the impoverished nation billions and ended any hope millions of its citizens could escape a life of abject poverty.

Nineteen middle-level officials and accomplices are on trial in Maputo for accepting bribes to approve $2.1 billion in contracts to the Middle East shipbuilding company Privinvest and then taking more bribes to have the government secretly borrow the money to finance the projects. The economy tanked and poverty rates skyrocketed when the secret loans were revealed.

As he was finishing his testimony last Thursday, the General Director of the State Intelligence and Security Services, the highest ranking official on trial, complained to trial judge Efigénio Baptista, “I am here alone.” He said he was the only member of the Joint Command and the Operation Command, the inter-agency groups that cooked up the scheme, to be prosecuted.

“The former Minister of National Defense, Filipe Nyusi, and the former Minister of the Interior, Alberto Mondlane, should be answering. They were also part of the Joint Command.”

The judge explained that Nyusi, now the country’s president, and Mondlane, governor of an important province, were not charged because the prosecution had no evidence they had taken bribes.  He also helpfully went on to add that for the same reason Armando Guebuza, president when the contracts were let and the loans taken out, was not on trial. 

The above comes from the Centro para Democracia e Desenvolvimento reports on the trial. This one, recounting the state security director’s testimony, also helpfully reminded readers of the testimony of Jean Boustani at a 2018 trial in New York. There the Privinvest senior executive provided details about the bribes Privinvest paid Nyusi, Guebuza, and other officials not among the 19 on trial in Mozambique. Perhaps Judge Baptista and the Mozambican prosecutor have overlooked something?

Three Reasons Anticorruption Academics Fail: A Commentary on Rothstein

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Last week, Professor Bo Rothstein, one of the most influential senior researchers in the anticorruption field, published a blog post entitled “Three Reasons Anti-Corruption Programs Fail.” The post (which draws from Professor Rothstein’s earlier writings and his new book) sets out to explain why the anticorruption efforts sponsored by a combination of domestic reformers and the international development community have been a “huge policy failure.” The three reasons for this purported failure laid out in the post are (1) use of the wrong definition of corruption (2) use of the wrong social science theory to frame and analyze corruption, and (3) locating corruption “in the wrong social spaces.”

I am disappointed to report that I find little in the post that is correct. Professor Rothstein’s post does illustrate some important and ongoing failures in anticorruption thinking—just not in the way that he intended. Rather, the post inadvertently illustrates certain tendencies that afflict a certain strain of academic work on the corruption topic—tendencies that render scholarship on corruption far less useful to the world than it could or should be. I’m particularly troubled when I encounter bright young up-and-coming researchers who appear to be misled by these tendencies. So with all due respect to Professor Rothstein, I will use his post as a framing device to highlight the problems I see and to urge the new generation of anticorruption researchers to be mindful of them.

Before proceeding, an important note: Despite what I just said, and what I’m going to say in the remainder of the post, I like and respect Professor Rothstein. We have met on several occasions, and he has always treated me graciously. He was the driving force behind the founding and development of the University of Gothenburg’s Quality of Government Institute, which consistently produces excellent research and researchers. He is a prolific writer, and by all accounts a generous and supportive mentor, coauthor, and teacher. My objective in this post is most definitely not to entertain readers with the gratuitous academic blood-sport that is unfortunately too popular in some quarters. Yet at the same time, precisely because Professor Rothstein is such an influential figure in the field, his writings ought to be subjected to rigorous critical scrutiny, especially given the importance of the topic. This isn’t a game, and we must hold one another to very high standards, even when this means assessing harshly the work of people we generally like and respect. I suspect Professor Rothstein would agree with that last sentiment, though probably not with anything else in this post.

With that important note out of the way, let me highlight the three common tendencies in academic writing on corruption that Professor Rothstein’s post illustrates: (1) an unhealthy and unhelpful obsession with definitions; (2) misunderstanding and misuse of social science concepts, particularly a fixation on capital-T “Theories”; and (3) sweeping and uncharitable dismissiveness of prior work and thinking on the topic.

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Will FRELIMO Betray the Mozambican People to Protect Its Own?

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FRELIMO, Mozambique’s governing party, is at a historic crossroads. A party once known for the integrity of its leaders and its commitment to the welfare of all Mozambicans must choose: Pursue a lawsuit to recoup damages from the “hidden debt scandal” that will expose the role of Felipe Nyusi, its leader and the country’s president, in the corruption. Or scrap the suit to protect him.

The scandal arose from some $150 million Dubai-based shipbuilder Privinvest paid Mozambican officials to approve $2.1 billion in contracts to supply it with coastal patrol vessels, tuna boats, and a shipyard to maintain them. Privinvest kicked back $50 million from the deal to Credit Suisse executives in return for their arranging financing for the purchases. The loans they secured were not disclosed: either to the Mozambique parliament, as required by law, or to the IMF, as required under the terms of an IMF bailout loan. When the Wall Street Journal revealed them, donors cut funding, foreign investors pulled out, and the economy tanked.  

This hidden debt scandal may well go down as the most damaging corruption scam in modern history. According to a recent estimate by a team from Mozambique’s Centro de Integridade Pública and Norway’s Chr. Michelsen Institute, the damages from the scandal over the 2016-2019 period alone equals $11 billion, $403 for every man, woman, and child in Mozambique. At the same time, the World Bank ranks it as the world’s third poorest nation with a GDP per capita for 2020 of a little over $1200.

Mozambique’s only chance to recover the enormous damage the scandal has done is a civil law suit the government filed against Privinvest, Credit Suisse, and many of the individuals involved.  Privinvest has now countered. At paragraph 22.5 of its defense, the shipbuilder claims Nyusi was “fully aware of, and/or participated, in [the corruption], and indeed was at the heart of the matters now complained of by the Republic.”

The threat is now on the table. If Mozambique continues to press the suit, Privinvest will produce in excruciating detail evidence of Nyusi’s involvement. The only way to avoid the likely discrediting of the party’s ruling elite is for Mozambique to scrap the suit.

Will a party once led by the likes of Eduardo Mondlane and Samora Machel sell out the Mozambican people to maintain its grip on power? Will those party members who were their colleagues and those whom they inspired with their dream of a free and prosperous Mozambique stand up?

Guest Post. Effective AML Strategy: A Small Country Perspective

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Smaller states are often thought to be more vulnerable to money laundering: less resources, fewer personnel, a lackadaisical attitude towards others’ problems. But as Charles Littrell explains in today’s guest post, even the smallest jurisdictions can prevent money laundering if there is the will to do so, and those don’t care or think they will benefit by turning a blind eye towards it are inviting a particularly virulent strain of cancer into their society.  Mr. Littrell is head of bank and trust company supervision for the Central Bank of The Bahamas, including AML supervision.  He was formerly an executive at the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority, and a member of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision. He founded and is the Convener of the International Research Conference on Empirical Approaches to Anti-Money Laundering. This post represents Mr. Littrell’s personal views.

This post outlines a suggested strategy for small states to engage in the international money laundering movement.  The strategy comprises three elements:

  • Know what you don’t want—which is engagement with dirty money and the people associated with dirty money.
  • Deploy locally successful AML tactics in a globally unsuccessful world.
  • Proactively manage the FATF relationship.

Despising dirty money and dirty people

The core element in a successful small state AML strategy is sincere and comprehensive rejection of foreign illicit money, and the people associated with that money. The world’s major league criminals and their financial facilitators are among the least attractive and most dangerous human beings on the planet, and a successful small state will absolutely not welcome such people, their money, or their activities.

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With a Dad’s Help? Home Mozambique President Filipe Nyusi’s Son Bought

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Not every 21-year-old has the means to buy a luxury house in one of Cape Town’s toniest neighborhoods. But somehow Jacinto Nyusi of Mozambique managed, plopping down 3.9 million rand, $350,000, for the home pictured above. In cash no less.  

While he isn’t saying where he got the money, many Mozambicans allege his father helped. The July 2014 purchase was made while father Felipe Nyusi was Minister of Defense and shortly after he had been tapped as ruling party FRELIMO’s candidate for president, guaranteeing victory at the January 2015 election. More significant, say many Mozambicans, is the house was bought while the country was swimming in money Middle East shipbuilding giant Privinest was allegedly doling out to Nyusi père and other senior officials to seal the deal on the hidden debt scandal, a corruption case which has wreaked more harm on more people than any in decades.

Thanks to sleuths from Mozambique’s Center for Public Integrity, CIP after its initials in Portuguese, the records documenting Jacinto’s purchase of the house are circulating freely in Maputo. Click here for them and for more on why so many think dad helped him buy it.

 

Proposed Method for Assessing the Transparency, Accountability, and Inclusiveness of the Return of Stolen Assets: Comments Requested

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France recently enacted an asset repatriation law enshrining GFAR-inspired principles of transparency, accountability, and inclusivity. Now that the principles are law, the French chapter of Transparency International has set out to ensure they are observed in practice.

To that end, it has developed a method for evaluating the return process on each of the three dimensions using indicators for each as shown in the diagram.

The organization plans to publish its methodology, alongside concrete examples from past restitution processes of good and weak practices, as a handbook. Publication is now scheduled for the beginning of October.

TI-France welcomes feedback and comments on its methodology. Click here for the French version of the paper explaining it and here for the English translation. The group would be pleased to receive thoughts and suggestions by September 10th.  They should be directed to Sara Brimbeuf and Rahima Zitoumbi at sara.brimbeuf@transparency-france.org and rahima.zitoumbi@transparency-france.org.

Mozambique Hidden Debt Case: South Africa Must Say Why It Thinks Chang Will Face Justice; Trial Summary

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Earlier today, August 27, the South African High Court blocked the extradition of former Mozambican Finance Minister Manuel Chang to Mozambique.

The order (here) came in response to an urgent request (here) by the Forum De Monitoria Do Orçamento, a coalition of Mozambican civil society groups, raising serious doubts that were Chang, a senior member of Mozambique’s ruling party, returned he would face justice for his part in a scheme that drove millions of fellow citizens into poverty and cost the impoverished nation billions of dollars in lost GDP (here).

The United States is also seeking Chang’s extradition for participating in the hidden debt scheme, and there is a widespread belief he is far more likely to face justice if extradited there.  South African law bars the government from picking Mozambique over the United States if it does not think Change will be tried, or if tried, the trial will be anything more than theatre. The court has ordered South African Minister of Justice and Correctional Services Ronald Lamola to produce the documents justifying his choice of Mozambique by August 30. A hearing on the decision is set for September 17. If the court finds the evidence supporting the decision insufficient, “irrational” in South African legal terms, it will vacate the extradition order.

Separately, Centro para Democracia e Desenvolvimento, a Mozambican civil society organization and FMO member, has released English language summaries of the first four days of the hidden debt trial.  Click on the day to see: Day 1, day 2, day 3, day 4.