NGOs to profile scale and scope of corruption

A consortium mandated by the Tanzanian government to evaluate the state of corruption in the country has launched an internet appeal and questionnaire in an effort to increase public participation in the anti-corruption campaign. The NGO Economic and Social Research Foundation (ESRF) and the Front Against Corrupt Elements in Tanzania (FACEIT) are combining to evaluate the government's anti-corruption drive, and hoping to involve internet users in an "Online Corruption Forum". See http://www.tzonline.org/. In this way, they aim to increase the number and broaden the spectrum of people sending in candid information on cases of corruption, and on what they regarded as indicators of corruption in society. Apart from the internet forum, the consortium is seeking to collect information from government departments and agencies, NGOs and other organisations with a view to examining experience in different sectors, and sharing knowledge, ideas and experiences of corruption - and ways of tackling it. Corruption continues to be a drain on resources and programmes in Tanzania, and was last year described by the outgoing European Commission delegate, Peter Beck Christiansen, as "by far the biggest challenge for the government". Donors were pleased with the level of progress on macroeconomic reform, but considered that the government had not done enough to tackle endemic malpractice, and that "feeble anti-corruption measures" would have a serious adverse affect on national development, Christiansen said. The start of the worst phase of corruption in Tanzania has been traced back by the World Bank to about 1980, some 20 years after independence. After his election as president in 1995, Benjamin Mkapa established the Presidential Commission on Corruption (known as the Warioba Commission after its chairman, J.S. Warioba) to study the causes of corruption and recommend possible solutions. The commission found that both "petty corruption" (e.g. bribing of traffic police) and "grand corruption" (e.g. that involving public tenders) were widespread and rampant, and impinging on economic performance. Mkapa pledged after winning a second term in October 2000 that his government would continue to fight corruption, saying every ministry and independent department had an anti-corruption strategy and action plan in place. However, the effectiveness of the government's anti-corruption measures has been questioned, as has the administration's stomach for the fight since Mkapa won his second term. The Mkapa government has issued frequent condemnations of malpractice, but there has been little evidence of commitment to change the deeply entrenched system of graft in the public system, according to observers. FACEIT reported in April that Tanzania had lost between Tsh 400 billion and Tsh 800 billion (about US $461 million to $920 million), or as much as nine percent of Gross Domestic Product and over 70 per cent of the government’s annual budget, to corruption - mainly in the taxation and procurement sectors. The loss equals the combined national recurrent expenditure budget for health and education, according to the NGO. Corruption is also reported to be widely manifested in the form in customs evasion (smuggling), in the issuance of tax exemptions, misappropriation of aid money and the handling of the privatisation process under way in tandem with economic reform. Many Tanzanians complain that nothing much has changed since Mkapa took power, and the perception, frequently articulated in the local media, is that the public still has to deal daily with officials well versed in "kutoa kitu kidogo" ("hand over a little something") for doing - or not doing - their jobs, according to sources in Dar es Salaam. It is intended that the results of the ESRF/FACEIT web forum on corruption, set to run to the end of October, be fed into an initial report on the state of corruption in Tanzania, and provide a starting point for an annual report to be prepared for 2002. In an optional and confidential questionnaire, the consortium is also attempting to tease out public attitudes to and perceptions of corruption in Tanzania; the idea of a distinction between, and acceptability of, "petty" and "serious" corruption; the scale of malpractice, and the sectors/authorities predominantly involved; and any political aspects of inappropriate payments made. See http://www.tzonline.org/anticorruption/questionnaire.htm For example, it is inviting respondents to detail whether or not they have given bribes within the past 12 months or earlier to officials engaged in issuing licences and customs clearance certificates, or involved in health services, judicial procedures, local government, education, revenue collection, police or other institutions. "At a national level, corrupt elements both exploit poverty and maintain it," said a strategy paper on controlling corruption prepared by the World Bank country team in Tanzania for the ninth Annual International Conference Against Corruption in South Africa in October 1999. "In every problem area, the beneficiaries are the corrupt, whereas the innocent, the poor and the weak lose out," it added.