Tag Archives: John Githongo

Special 100th Episode of the KickBack Podcast

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After a bit of a hiatus, a new episode of KickBack: The Global Anticorruption Podcast is now available. This is the 100th episode of the series, and to mark that milestone, the podcast hosts asked a dozen leading anticorruption experts (and me) to address one or both of two questions (in under three minutes):
  1. What is one thing about corruption that you’ve changed your thinking on in the past 10 years?
  2. What is the most significant development — positive or negative — in relation to corruption and corruption studies over the past thirty years?’
In case you want to jump around, here is the list of people featured in the episode, and the time stamps indicating where you can hear their response to those questions, together with a direct hyperlink:
  • Michael Johnston: 2:34
  • Leena Koni Hoffmann: 7:52
  • Alina Mungiu-Pippidi: 10:24
  • Paul Heywood: 12:51
  • Florencia Guerzovich: 15:40
  • Joseph Pozsgai-Alvarez: 18:16
  • Jorge Alatorre: 21:36
  • Delia Ferreira Rubio: 23:33
  • Matthew Stephenson: 26:55
  • Susan Rose-Ackerman: 29:43
  • John Githongo: 32:15
  • Jon Quah: 33:34
  • Laode Muhammad Syarif: 36:12
You can also find both this episode and an archive of prior episodes at the following locations: KickBack was originally founded as a collaborative effort between GAB and the Interdisciplinary Corruption Research Network (ICRN). It is now hosted and managed by the University of Sussex’s Centre for the Study of Corruption. If you like it, please subscribe/follow, and tell all your friends!

Some Backlogged (and Very Interesting!) Podcast Episodes

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As our regular readers have probably noticed, I haven’t been posting as much recently–first because I was on sabbatical (a nice perk of academic jobs) and then, most recently, for a bit of summer vacation. But I hope to be back to semi-regular posting soon! In the meantime, I wanted to mention several new episodes of KickBack: The Global Anticorruption Podcast, which came out earlier in the summer. (Sorry for failing to announce these earlier — again, I’ve been on a bit of a break.) For those of you who haven’t already heard them, they’re worth checking out!
  • The June 22 episode features and interview with journalist Michela Wrong, who is perhaps best known for her award-winning book It’s Our Turn to Eat, which tells the story of Kenyan anticorruption activist and whistleblower John Githongo (also featured in a recent KickBack episode!). In the interview, Sam Power interviews Ms. Wong about the issues raised in the book, as well as her other writing, including her most recent book, Do Not Disturb, about the abuses of power by the Kagame regime in Rwanda.
  • The July 6 episode is a bit of a change of pace from the usual episodes. Rather than featuring an interview with an expert, three of the hosts or the KickBack podcast at the Sussex Centre for the Study of Corruption (Dan Hough, Liz David-Barrett, and Sam Power) have a conversation (after some opening banter about British weather) about the leading theories for corruption analysis, including rational choice, collective action, and social norms approaches.
  • The July 28 episode returns to the interview format, featuring a conversation with Huma Yusuf, the Director of Business Integrity at the impact investing firm British International Investment. Tom Shipley interviews Ms. Yusuf about how anticorruption and business integrity fit into the global business agenda and highlighting some of the key concepts and debates in this area.
You can find these episodes and an archive of prior episodes at the following locations: KickBack was originally founded as a collaborative effort between GAB and the Interdisciplinary Corruption Research Network (ICRN). It is now hosted and managed by the University of Sussex’s Centre for the Study of Corruption. If you like it, please subscribe/follow, and tell all your friends!

New Podcast Episode, Featuring John Githongo

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A new episode of KickBack: The Global Anticorruption Podcast is now available. In this episode, host Liz David-Barrett interviews John Githongo, the legendary Kenyan anticorruption activist John Githongo about his extraordinary career, including his background in journalism, his government service as Kenya’s Permanent Secretary for Governance and Ethics in the early 2000s, and his role as a civil society activist, including his work with Transparency International. The conversation also covers recent developments in Kenya, and what lessons can be learned from Kenya’s anticorruption efforts, particularly the the role of anticorruption institutions. You can also find both this episode and an archive of prior episodes at the following locations: KickBack was originally founded as a collaborative effort between GAB and the Interdisciplinary Corruption Research Network (ICRN). It is now hosted and managed by the University of Sussex’s Centre for the Study of Corruption. If you like it, please subscribe/follow, and tell all your friends!

The Swahili Word for Transparency, and the Fallacies of Linguistic Determinism

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I recently attended a workshop where participants were debating, among other things, why reform initiatives to promote government transparency and other anticorruption measures in places like sub-Saharan Africa had such a (seemingly) poor track record. In the course of the conversation, a well-known tenured professor declared – as evidence for the proposition that cultural incompatibility explains much of this apparent failure – that “there isn’t even a Swahili word for ‘transparency.’”

I was flummoxed and expressed some confused skepticism, but this professor (who, by the way, is a white Englishman whose CV does not indicate that he speaks Swahili or has ever done any research in a Swahili-speaking country) insisted that this was not only true, but was strong evidence that government transparency was an alien concept in Swahili-speaking societies.

It wasn’t a terribly important part of the discussion — more of an aside — and the conversation swiftly moved on. But the assertion that this linguistic lacuna demonstrates a significant cultural gap–one with important policy implications–has been bugging me ever since, not least because it reminded me of Ronald Reagan’s absurd claim that “in the Russian language there isn’t even a word for freedom.” (There is, by the way: svoboda.) So just in case this specific claim about Swahili, or linguistic arguments like this more generally, are an emerging meme in the anticorruption commentariat, I thought it would be worth a quick post to try to nip this nonsense in the bud.

So, what’s wrong with the claim that there’s no Swahili word for transparency? Three things: Continue reading →

Is Dodd-Frank Coming to Kenya?

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Being a whistleblower in Kenya is a risky business. John Githongo and David Munyakei might be exhibits 1 and 1a in supporting that assertion. More recently, blogger David Mutai was arrested and had his blogs and Twitter account shutdown after exposing corruption at a public agency and in some county governments. More generally, according to Transparency International’s 2014 East Africa Bribery Index, Kenyans reported just 6% of the bribes they were aware of, and a common reason (noted by 10% of respondents) was fear of adverse consequences.

Against this backdrop, earlier this year Kenyan Attorney General Githu Muigai formed the Task Force on Review of Legal, Policy and Institutional Framework for Fighting Corruption. It is not clear how much work the Task Force has done or is doing (you can read the opening address from the June 2015 “Technical Retreat for Development of a Draft Report” here), but it was reported over the summer that the Task Force plans to propose a whistleblower reward system similar to Dodd-Frank’s whistleblower incentive provisions (which have been discussed previously on this blog here, here, and here). Specifically, the reported Kenyan proposal would reward “a person who reports corruption [with] at least 10 per cent of the value of any property recovered after investigations and conclusion of the matter through judicial or other dispute-resolution mechanisms.”

If the Task Force is still looking for ideas (as far as I can tell it has not released any draft legislation or white papers, and the latest news story I could find that mentioned the Task Force is this one from August), I have a few for how to make sure its whistleblower reward program is effective. Continue reading →

Transparency International’s Laudable Campaign for Beneficial Ownership Transparency

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As many readers of this blog are likely aware, Transparency International–the leading worldwide anticorruption NGO–has made the corporate secrecy problem a centerpiece of its “Unmask the Corrupt” campaign. TI is focusing in particular on the problem of shell companies whose true (or “beneficial”) owners are unknown, and which can be used by corrupt officials and businesspeople to shelter and launder stolen public funds. The TI Secretariat, along with several of TI’s national chapters, have been pushing for action at both the national and international level, especially for reforms that would make transparent the beneficial owners of these companies. I wanted to use this post as an opportunity to call attention to two of TI’s recent efforts in this area, which might be of interest to GAB readers:

  • First, the TI Secretariat wants to use the G20 leaders’ summit this weekend in Brisbane, Australia as an opportunity to raise awareness of the issue and to put pressure on the G20 leaders to commit to take action on this issue. To this end, TI organized an open letter, signed by a number of prominent civil society activists and other public figures (including John Githongo, Desmond Tutu, and Richard Goldstone), calling on the G20 leaders to outlaw secret company ownership and mandate public registries of the true beneficial owners of all legal entities.
  • Second, as I noted last month, the US government is currently in the midst of a rulemaking process to strengthen due diligence and disclosure requirements on beneficial ownership. TI-USA submitted a set of supportive but critical comments on the rule, urging the US Treasury Department to expand the definition of “beneficial owner” to include individuals who control the entities through means other than a formal management position, to apply the new rules apply to existing accounts as well as new accounts, and to require financial institutions not only to verify the identity of the (alleged) beneficial owner, but to independently verify that the person listed as the beneficial owner is in fact the true beneficial owner.

TI’s efforts in this direction are most welcome, and I hope they have some impact on the G20 summit and the development of new rules in the US (and elsewhere). I’m happy to take this this opportunity to publicize TI’s efforts, and I hope some of our readers out there might be able to contribute to the push that TI and other organizations are making on this issue.