Development agencies support government anti-corruption drive

Recent surveys suggest that institutional corruption is widespread in Yemen, one of the Middle East's poorest countries. But recent developments suggest that Sanaa is taking the problem more seriously following a number of judicial and political reforms. At the same time, development agencies are working with the Yemeni government to tackle the issue. The Transparency International (TI) annual Corruption Perception Index (CPI), published in October 2004, placed Yemen at 112 out of 146 countries surveyed in 2004, down from 88 in 2003. It scored 2.4 out of a squeaky-clean 10 compared to 2.6 in 2003, ranking it below only Sudan and Iraq in the Arab world. In IRIN's own informal straw poll of both international and local NGOs and donors, including embassies, corruption was cited again and again as the chief impediment to development in Yemen. It is seen to be discouraging foreign donors and investors from working in the country. Flavia Pansieri, the United Nations Representative in Yemen, said in an interview with IRIN that "corruption is a cancer in society, and like cancer, needs strong and focused measures to treat it". Khaled Ishaq, a communications analyst at the UN Development Programme (UNDP), explained there had been a change in mentality since 1988 as poverty had increased. "People can't make ends meet on a legitimate salary, so they find ways to supplement their income, so taking bribes has become more expected." As a result, the country is infused with corruption, from petty back-handers, such as a policeman demanding 100 Yemeni rials (just over US $0.50) to overlook a traffic offence, to major abuses of power, such as the acceptance of bribes for contracts in the oil sector. Corruption permeates the education system, where students frequently have to pay their teachers for graduation certificates. Low public-sector salaries encourage the practice. Corruption even has a detrimental effect on the environment. In this water-scarce country, a Yemen-based environmentalist pointed out that contracts went to companies close to the government who would then build multi-lane - and more costly - highways, which create massive land erosion, where in fact only two lanes would be sufficient. Dr Helmut Grosskreutz, Director of German Technical Cooperation (GTZ) Yemen told IRIN: "With infrastructure projects, if the wrong company gets the contract, it's a double loss for the country." UNDP, the Word Bank, and GTZ are working with the Yemeni government, providing support in the development of institutional structures to try to close the gaps where corruption can take place. The UNDP's Pansieri told IRIN that it has identified two chief areas of concern - the oil sector and employment. "The really big corruption is the sell-off of the country's natural wealth for private benefit, where it's oil or jobs. The oil industry has to be fully transparent in exploring, exploiting and marketing this country's largest source of revenue." However, she is very encouraged by the steps the government has taken ineradicating corruption. "It signals that Yemen is aware of the problem and committed to make it a more desirable country for outside investment, which is essential for development". Yemen signed the UN's Convention Against Corruption in 2003 but, as Pansieri put it, "it's not just a matter of signing a convention". She said that she was "seeing a common commitment across the administration". In recent weeks the Yemeni president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, has announced further changes and new appointments within the Higher Judicial Council, which monitors the performance of judges, after 22 of them were dismissed for abusing their positions and a further 108 were forced into early retirement. And last month Saleh ordered a further crackdown on corruption when he established two committees, one to investigate abuses in the oil sector, and the second to check the misuse of public office for recruitment in the education sector. The Yemeni government approached the German government in 2003 and in September 2004 GTZ implemented a one-year pilot project supporting the Committee for Combating Corruption and Safeguarding Public Funds. As Grosskreutz told IRIN, echoing the sentiments of UNDP, "our job is not to uncover cases of corruption, but to support the government of Yemen to develop more efficient procedures in the field, which will make corruption more difficult". Both UNDP and GTZ said that Western and Arab/Yemeni conceptions of corruption can be very different. Pansieri said that they had to be "very mindful that cultural specificity is important and deserves respect". Habib Sheriff, GTZ’s Programme Officer for the project explained, as an example, that "there is a cultural obligation to help a relative get a job," something that would be deemed corrupt in many other countries. They stressed the importance of involving civil society in the fight against corruption. "Addressing the issue is still new," Sheriff said. "When we meet at a qat chew [a reference to the mildly narcotic qat plant], we always talk about it [corruption] but everyone has a different definition. Some research has to be done to classify the concept". Both agencies, and others IRIN spoke to, acknowledged that the picture in Yemen was not completely bleak. They pointed to the relatively free press, which is not afraid to highlight cases of corruption, to the progress in advancing human rights, and to the reform of the justice system.