Help the hungry, not their corrupt rulers
Having been around the Third World for 27 years I can attest that corruption is part of every day life in Africa. Everyone is aware of it but few take it seriously.
There are all manner of crises - bureaucracy, the debt crisis, the Aids pandemic, famine, and governmental and international indifference - but none is as serious and far reaching in effect as corruption.
Wherever Goal has gone, we have been prevented from bringing aid to the poor on the scale required by the corrupt practices of governments and their civil servants.
Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo) is alleged to have stolen $6bn from his people during his 30-year rule. He had palaces throughout Europe and in Zaire, one of the poorest countries in Africa at the time.
Although this was common knowledge, nobody in the West did anything because he was seen as a bulwark against communism.
Frederick Chiluba, President of Zambia for 10 years until 2001, is now facing 169 charges of corruption involving sums totalling $488m. But this is the tip of the iceberg. He has money stashed away in the US and several European countries.
It is reckoned that Mohammed Suharto, during his 30 years of rule in Indonesia, managed to salt away $35bn which was meant for the development of his country and its people. That's over a billion a year.
But these are the more spectacular examples. The people who have the worst effect on the lives of the poor are the civil servants, many of whom - because they may not have been paid for months or in some cases years - resort to taking bribes.
There is no free education because parents must bribe the teacher. Police in most developing countries are corrupt, and simple transactions such as getting a driving licence or even buying stamps, can involve paying a bribe.
Unfortunately, this scandal touches Ireland because we have ties with several of these corrupt Third World countries and give them bilateral or government-to-government assistance.
For example, throughout his 10-year regime in Zambia, Chiluba was receiving money from Ireland.
The man who made himself a billionaire by stealing from his people, who were already amongst the poorest on earth, but were even poorer by the time he was finished, visited Dublin about five years ago.
He was wined and dined in Dublin Castle but sadly, not one Irish politician had the courage to mentionthese matters before he was handed the cheque for millions of Irish taxpayer's hard-earned cash. Similarly, Yoweri Museveni, a man accused of involvement in an illegal war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which has led to five million deaths and large-scale plunder of diamonds, gold and other precious commodities, is a regular visitor.
One wonders why the establishment here is not grilling him on the appalling human rights and corruption record of his government.
If governments lack the moral courage to ask these difficult questions, it is time for the Irish people to start asking the questions of their political representatives.
A separate section of the Department of Foreign Affairs should be established to deal exclusively with the issue of corruption.
As the Wall Street financier and philanthropist George Soros once said: "Dealing with corrupt governments is the worst possible way to assist the poorest of the poor."
Thursday is UN Anti-Corruption Day. John O'Shea is Director of the charity Goal
- John O'Shea
