This blog was originally posted on the Citizen Journalism in Africa portal on the 9th of April 2008 (www.citizenjournalismafrica.org/).
I’m in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania. Yesterday one of the Tanzanians attending the Citizen Journalism in Africa workshop mentioned that the prime minister and some ministers had recently resigned as result of a corruption scandal. I decided I had to check this out, so did a Google search.
Yes, there it is. On the 8th of February this year, Associated Press carried this report: “Tanzania’s prime minister and two Cabinet ministers have resigned over a corruption scandal involving a contract with a nonexistent firm supposedly based in the United States, and the president dissolved the entire Cabinet as a result.” The resignations followed a critical report by a parliamentary committee on the dodgy contract.
And last week, in Cape Town, a Mozambican colleague mentioned to me that some ministers had recently been fired for messing up. Good old Google. There, on allAfrica.com in a report dated the 11th of March, you can read in black and white that Mozambican President Armando Guebuza sacked three ministers: the ministers of transport, agriculture and justice. No official reasons are ever given for ministerial sackings in Mozambique, but there have been problems with deforestation and logging in the agriculture sector, there were riots in Maputo in early February sparked by steep hikes in taxi prices, and the justice system has been criticised for being slow and inefficient.
Then, on the 26th of March came the news that Guebuza had also sacked the defence minister, his son in law to boot. This came a year after more than 100 people died when a Maputo arsenal exploded.
Ok, the Defence minister was sacked a long time after the incident, and only after the opposition had repeatedly called for his head. But still, as a South African I find all of this astonishing. That government ministers would be fired, or — and this I find REALLY incredible — resign! Just because of poor performance or a scandal. Could it really be true? Well, I checked, and all of these reports appeared way before April Fools’ Day so it must be. But I didn’t really believe it until I’d seen the reports with my own eyes.
Please try to understand my astonishment. It’s not that I don’t believe my colleagues. It just that in South Africa, where we are so proud of our democracy, a minister pretty much has to die to be removed from the Cabinet. In the face of critical newspaper reports, public scandals, or even damning findings by commissions of enquiry, public officials routinely insist that they’re innocent and deserve to keep their posts, because they haven’t yet been found guilty in a court of law. The idea that a public official has to live up to a higher standard than simply not (yet) having a criminal conviction, just doesn’t seem to have taken root. Oh, and being competent — well, who said that was a job requirement?
So, The health minister has completely messed up on HIV/Aids, presided over a decaying health system, and, according to newspaper reports, is a practicing alcoholic with a criminal record in a neighbouring country. Yet she is unassailable in her position, and staunchly backed by President Mbeki. Her former deputy who proved herself as a champion in the fight against HIV/Aids WAS sacked. So sorry, dying is not the only way to get dropped — the other way to lose your cabinet post is to be too good at your job. It just doesn’t do, as it makes everyone else look bad. Home Affairs is a shambles, we have an electricity crisis and a crime problem — yet the ministers in charge of all of these are sitting in their offices, safe and secure.
Now some South Africans point to this, sigh and shake their heads and say, “yes, this is Africa,” and preach that we should emulate the UK, where ministers also regularly are forced to resign. But why should we look to Britain (or the US for that matter, both of which have more than their fair share of corrupt and incompetent politicians, by the way)? There are clearly many examples in Africa where public officials are being held to account, and have to deliver the goods or get out. So, I wonder, why aren’t these people pointing to the good example being set by the likes of Presidents Kikwete and Guebuza, and saying proudly, “THIS is Africa!”?
