Tag Archives: Fishrot

Justice for Fishrot Victims Once More Delayed

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Thanks to a last-minute legal maneuver, defendants in Namibia’s largest ever corruption case again escaped answering for their crimes. Set to start August 5, their trial was postponed pending a ruling on a long-shot motion to invalidate all pre-trial rulings. While unlikely to succeed, the motion opens the chance for even more delay as its denial will almost surely be appealed.

It is now approaching six years since former Justice Minister Sacky Shanghala, former Fisheries and Marine Resources Minister Bernard Esau and accomplices were arrested for their roles in a bribery scheme giving Icelandic fishing company Samherji the exclusive right to catch horse mackerel in Namibian territorial waters.

Dubbed the “Fishrot scandal,” the case initially promised much. To Namibians who lost their livelihood thanks to the scheme, the chance for compensation. To the international community, a demonstration that a young nation still consolidating democratic norms could hold the powerful to account. 

What the case has become instead is another demonstration of a principle all too common in corruption cases: justice delayed is justice denied.

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Will the Outgoing Namibian President Pardon the Fishrot Defendants?

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On August 4 two former Namibian ministers, other once high-ranking government officials, and their accomplices go on trial for stealing millions of dollars from Namibian citizens. Unless, that is, President Nangolo Mbumba pardons them before leaving office March 20.

The pardon would not only subvert the rule of law but indelibly tarnish ruling party SWAPO’s legacy. 

SWAPO, the South West Africa People’s Organization, began life fighting to free Namibians from the grip of apartheid South Africa. Since securing Namibia’s independence in 1990, the party has won the respect of democracy advocates everywhere. In contrast to Mozambique’s FRELIMO and Angola’s MPLA, it has begun the transition from a tightly disciplined, brook-no-opposition guerilla army to a broad-based political party.

SWAPO is not all the way there yet, but seeing that senior party members are held accountable for taking bribes in Fishrot, where Icelandic fishing giant Samerherji paid defendants and possibly other SWAPO members for the rights to fish off the Namibian coast, is surely a major stride forward. (Fishrot details here, here, here, here)

The trial could well put on display more of the party’s dirty laundry. Hence the reason why some in the party’s inner-circle are pressuring President Nangolo to pardon the crooks. Their argument: a pardon will clear the decks for incoming President Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah to carry through on needed reforms without the distraction of Fishrot prosecutions. And Nangolo is retiring and so can take the political fall out from letting defendants off the hook.

The truth is the inner-circle’s real motive is nakedly self-serving. During the campaign, Nandi-Ndaitwah made her commitment to the rule of law crystal clear, virtually ensuring she will neither derail the prosecution nor lighten defendants’ sentences if, as expected, they are convicted. Indeed, some in SWAPO’s inner-circle fear she may countenance civil suits to force all those responsible for Fishrot, including those insiders pushing pardons, to compensate Fishrot victims for the tremendous harms the bribery caused them. (Damages fisherman suffered documented here and here.)

Will those among SWAPO’s founders committed to a liberal democratic, corruption-free future for Namibia join with the party’s younger, more progressive members to persuade President Mbumba to leave office honorably? To ensure that the efforts revered party founder Sam Nujoma and others have made to set SWAPO and Namibia on the democratic path continue?  

Where Everyone Knows Everyone: The Distinct Anticorruption Challenges of Small Population Countries

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Compared to most of the rest of the world, Iceland has a strong reputation as a clean country. In the most recent version of Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index (CPI), Iceland ranks in 14th place—quite impressive overall, though behind Iceland’s Nordic neighbors Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden. Yet Iceland’s high CPI score obscures a number of incidents over the last several years, where public officials in Iceland were involved in conduct that seems to raise concerns about potential conflicts of interest. Consider a few of the most high-profile examples:

  • In 2017, Iceland’s Minister of Justice was criticized in connection with the appointment of judges to the newly-established Court of Appeals. Notably, at least three of the fifteen judges appointed had personal ties to the Minister: one was a partner at a law firm where the Justice Minister had worked prior to her appointment, another was the spouse of a partner at the same law firm, and a third was the spouse of her fellow party member and colleague in parliament (see here and here).
  • In 2019, after revelations of allegations that a major Icelandic fishing company had been involved in bribing Namibian government officials (the so-called Fishrot scandal), demonstrators called for the resignation of the Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries. The reason was his connections to the company, where he had once served as chairman of the board, and his longtime personal friendship with the company’s CEO. Indeed, the Minister said publicly that his first reaction to the scandal had been to phone his CEO friend to ask him how he was feeling (see here, here and here).
  • In 2022, the Minister of Finance found himself in hot water after it became known that his own father was among a select few allowed to bid for valuable holdings in a state-owned bank (see here and here).
  • In December 2022, the Finance Committee of the Parliament proposed adding to the government’s budget a 100 million ISK grant (approximately US$ 727,000) to a media company, whose CEO was the sister-in-law of one of the committee members. (The proposal was promptly withdrawn when this was disclosed.)

To be clear, none of these incidents necessarily involves corruption. But they all raise concerns about potential conflicts of interest, and the appearance of impropriety. And while each of these incidents arose out of its own distinct set of circumstances, there is a common underlying factor that may have contributed to all of them, and that generally poses challenges to effectively preventing corruption and regulating conflicts of interest: Iceland is very small, with a population of only 370,000 people. Although Iceland is in many ways most similar—culturally and politically—to its larger Nordic neighbors, with respect to population size and the distinct anticorruption challenges it presents, Iceland may turn out to share some common features with other small-population jurisdictions, such as Belize, the Bahamas and Vanuatu. Consider some of the ways in which fighting corruption and conflict of interest may be more challenging—or at least pose different sorts of challenges—in very small countries: Continue reading →

The Fishrot Files: Clean Countries and Fishy Business

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The Nordic countries are often seen as world leaders when it comes to anticorruption, ranking at the top of Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI). Yet critics have pointed out that while the Nordic countries have a sterling reputation for suppressing corruption at home, they have a much spottier record when it comes to dealing with exported corruption. This has been the case in Sweden and Denmark, and most recently, in Iceland, which has been widely criticized for its handling of the country’s first high-profile foreign bribery scandal.

The case in question was first exposed in November 2019 when three media outlets published joint investigative findings alleging that an Icelandic fishing company had paid millions of dollars in bribes to Namibian officials in order to gain access to the country’s valuable fishing zones (see here, here, and here). The reporting relied on thousands of leaked documents, which were dubbed the “Fishrot Files,” as well as first-hand testimony provided by a whistleblower, a former manager of the company’s operations in Namibia who admitted that he himself had played a role in bribing Namibian officials.

Though the scandal triggered public protests by Icelandic citizens, senior government officials in Iceland have sought to shift the blame to Namibia’s “weak” and “corrupt government.” Yet whatever governance weaknesses in Namibia may have contributed to the wrongdoing in the first place, it is notable that Namibian authorities moved swiftly to prosecute officials implicated in the scandal, including two high-level government ministers. These ministers were forced to resign and were subsequently arrested; they and eight other defendants now face charges of corruption, fraud, money laundering and tax evasion. In contrast, Icelandic authorities have yet to make any arrests or issue indictments in the case, more than three years after the initial revelations. To date, the executives implicated in the scandal have escaped official sanctions and have remained in their roles at the company.

In this instance, then, we see something rather unusual in foreign bribery cases: A strong response by a demand-side country in the global South (in this case Namibia), and a weak response by the supply-side country. Better understanding Namibia’s unusually strong response to the scandal is important in its own right, but for now, let’s focus on the question of why Iceland—which was one of the first signatories to the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention in 1998 and has readily available the legal framework necessary to handle the matter adequately—has been so ineffective in enforcing its laws against foreign bribery offences. Consider several possible explanations: Continue reading →