Mbeki lauds Lesotho
2006-08-19 12:50
Cape Town - Lesotho has been the anti-corruption trailblazer in uncovering a web of corruption at its Lesotho Highland Water Project and its story should be instructive to the rest of Africa, says President Thabo Mbeki.
In his regular online column, ANC Today, Mbeki noted that the annual Southern African Development Community (SADC) summit was ending at the Kingdom of Lesotho - which is surrounded by South Africa - on Friday.
He noted that three years ago at the African Union assembly of heads of State and government held in Maputo, Mozambique, the African convention on preventing and combating corruption had been adopted.
Lesotho had already ratified its instruments in October 2004 - fully a year before SA-and the required 15th state for it to come into force - Algeria - had deposited these instruments at AU headquarters in Addis Ababa in July.
Mbeki noted that the convention required African government officials to declare their assets, adhere to ethical codes of conduct, provide citizens' access to government information about budget spending and to protect those who blew the whistle on State fraud.
Companies took the decision
The South African president noted that the government of Lesotho had to deal with the challenges posed by convention requirements "long before the AU adopted this convention".
"This was occasioned by corrupt activities initiated by some of the construction companies involved in the Highland Water Project.
Put simply, some of these companies took the decision that they would offer bribes at least to the CEO of the project, a citizen of Lesotho, to ensure their participation in this multi-billion-dollar project."
The summary of the story was that the CEO was dismissed.
The Lesotho law office applied for the release of his bank records in Switzerland and a web of corruption was found.
Mbeki noted that the CEO was convicted of a number of counts of bribery and was sentenced to 18 years - reduced to 15 years - in prison.
Draw on Lesotho's example
The second case involved an international engineering consultancy from Canada, which was convicted of bribing the CEO.
The third case involved a German engineering consultancy, which was sentenced to seven counts of bribery and fined some
R10.6m.
Mbeki said: "All of us as member states of the AU would do well to draw on Lesotho's example and experience of challenging corporate immorality, as we honour our obligations as spelt out in the AU convention on preventing and combating corruption and the benchmarks set by the African peer review mechanism."