Citizens urged to participate in fight against corruption

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Citizens urged to participate in fight against corruption

8:06 CAT | 11 Dec 2017

Domingo / Minister of State Administration Carmelita Namashalua

The Mozambican government has urged all citizens to collaborate actively in the fight against corruption, by denouncing and, if necessary, offering to testify against any acts of corruption.

During ceremonies in Maputo on Saturday to mark International Anti-Corruption Day, the Minister of State Administration, Carmelita Namashalua, said “ordinary citizens have an important role to play in the fight against corruption. They are the first to suffer from corrupt practices when a traffic policeman obliges them “to buy a soft drink” (the police euphemism for paying a bribe), when they are forced to pay to ensure a job or a school place for their child, or when they find that they have to pay to ensure speedier attendance in the hospitals”.

“Denouncing these corrupt practices is the first step towards combating them effectively”, declared the Minister.

Some of the most common forms of corruption in Mozambique, she noted, include favouritism in hiring contactors for public works, or in supplying goods or services for state bodies, granting jobs to contractors who do not have the necessary qualifications, charging illicit commissions, over-invoicing, illicit charges when recruiting people to work in the public administration, bribery and nepotism in allocating scholarships, and paying wages to “ghost workers” – to people who do not exist.

Namashalua said that measures taken by the government to fight corruption include the establishment of the Central Office for the Fight against Corruption (GCCC) and its provincial branches, and the adoption of an electronic state financial administration system (e-SISTAFE) which is supposed to make it more difficult for finance officers in state departments to steal money.

This is backed up by an electronic system for paying state wages, which now covers 94 per cent of all state employees. They receive their wages directly in their bank accounts and no physical cash changes hands. The government also believes that obliging all its employees to undergo an annual “proof of life” also promotes greater transparency in e payment of wages.

The “proof of life” involves each and every state employee visiting a specified office, usually on foot, with the required document, to prove that he or she really exists.

Of the 357,430 state employees registered in the system, this year 8,765 were removed. These were people who had died or retired, or had been expelled or suspended from office. In other words, 2.5 per cent of the names in the system could be classified as “ghost workers”.

But the government does not seem to have undertaken any cost/benefit analysis. Is it really worth forcing hundreds of thousands of people to take time off work, to queue up for perhaps hours, to be told to come back tomorrow because this or that document is not in order, all in order to catch a relatively small number of ghost workers?

Namashalua said that government figures indicate that between 2013 and the first half of 2017 disciplinary proceedings were initiated against 4,120 state employees. 76 per cent of these have been concluded, and the staff involved sanctioned. 402 of these cases involved the theft of state funds.

The European Union spokesperson at the event, Geert Anckaert, also urged the collaboration of all citizens in anti-corruption efforts.

“We have the resources available for citizens to play an active role”, he said. “For example, green lines are available whereby people can make phone calls free of charge to the GCCC and to the Attorney-General’s Office. There are anti-corruption nuclei in the schools, and there are civil society bodies specialising in denouncing acts of corruption. We all have the obligation to make good use of these resources and to blow the whistle on corruption”.

Source: AIM