Nothing transparent about TI

Staff Writer | Thursday December 5, 2013 17:55

We have also allowed Transparency International (TI) to do its assessment and perception surveys without commenting its findings. We feel obliged, however, to respond to the latest ranking by TI that put Botswana as the least corrupt country in Africa and amongst the least corrupt in the world. First of all, Transparency International is an invisible creature whose face we have never seen in any public meetings where corruption is discussed. The Directorate on Corruption and Economic Crimes (DCEC), the Commonwealth Centre Against Corruption, government departments, and foreign missions often hold seminars and workshops to discuss corruption and how to combat it. Never have we seen a face or writing from TI at any of these events.

We only get a chance to hear from TI when we are told that our country is the least corrupt in Africa, and among the best in the world.

Perhaps we should pause and look at the countries with which we are being compared to, and who are the people that TI interviews or engage in its process to make to report on corruption index. Our worry is that over the last three years, we have seen a rise in corruption cases involving high profile members of society, some of which were never concluded. We have also experienced multi-million projects just collapsing despite the huge amounts of money spent on them but nobody called to account. The same government that is labelled least corrupt has resisted calls to formulate a law that will promote transparency in the form of declaration of assets and liabilities by people in public offices.

The government has also resisted the Freedom of Information law, which in our view will compel those holding public office to account to the citizenry. A lot can be said in this country on the government’s lack of transparency and flow of information to all citizens. Even legislators have complained in the past that they are subjected to all sorts of barriers when seeking information from public offices. We call on Transparency International to be transparent enough for us to appreciate their reports, otherwise we have no choice but to regard them as economic assassins or wolves in sheepskin who harbour hidden agendas.

We trust that we will not be wrong to say that Transparency International is just a opportunistic bunch of ‘fly-in’ expects who only blow the whistle when things don’t go their way. In short, there is nothing transparent about Transparency International.

                                                        Today's thought

' There' s no going back, and there' s no hiding the information. So let everyone have it.

                                                   -Andrew Kantor