The recent anti-corruption crackdown surprised both citizens and analysts alike. And, indeed, the surprise was not unwarranted.
The list of suspects included Melaku Fenta, director general of the Ethiopian Revenues & Customs Authority (ERCA). For distant observers, his image was associated with the modernisation drive of the ERCA under his leadership. As the state media emphasises, on public revenue performance reports and tax awareness, Melaku received high publicity over the past five years.
Moreover, given the relentless pressure on many businessmen to pay backlog tax liabilities, the public was justified in offering high regard to him.
Of course, many doubted the ruling party’s resolve to hold its top men accountable. Though the Federal Ethics & Anti-Corruption Commission (FEACC) reports every year that it has secured hundreds of convictions, the list has hardly included any high-ranking politicians for more than a decade.
Although Meleku is not member of the EPRDF’s executive committee, he is one of the top 13 officials within the Amhara National Democratic Movement (ANDM) – a member of the EPRDF. And, the trend for senior officials had been that they would be demoted or dismissed following a rebuke in an intra-party evaluation, without seeing the doorsteps of a courtroom.
Many are still sceptical of whether Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn has the power to embark on such a high-profile house cleaning. The doubt partly comes from an erroneous assumption that he needs to be as powerful as Meles to lead the government.
However, the scepticism of others emanates from their doubt on the cohesiveness and institutional strength of the ruling party, which is often considered as the primary factor for the strength of a parliamentary government. Indeed, some would have interpreted the recent corruption charges as a symptom of faction, had Melaku ever been implicated with any intra-party political struggle.
For careful observers, however, the surprise would only be on the details, rather than on the crackdown itself.
As I noted last September, the fact that Hailemariam is part of the “new generation” of leadership works in his favour in some ways. “He can remove incompetent and corrupt officials, subject to agreement of the ruling party heavyweights, without being afraid of getting accused of betraying his old friends. Not to forget that the current chairmen of the four EPRDF member parties, including Hailemariam, are not perceived by the public as corrupt. That gives him the political capital and the moral authority to act strongly.”
Indeed, as is the case with any new leader, Hailemariam needs a flagship project or agenda of his own and, indeed, he has been hinting that all along. In his speech during his inauguration as Prime Minister, he expressed his intent by using the phrase – “officials infected by corruption”, the harshest in years.
Earlier this year, he called upon the public to forward tips on corrupted officials, pledging that he will personally follow up the matter. Both his wording and tone are evidently designed to emphasise the magnitude of the matter and was unusual, as the EPRDFites often decline to make personal pledges.
No matter what one may wish to think of his personal power, the Prime Ministerial job is not a place where one drops words at random. No less importantly, time is of the essence.
By Hailemariam’s own admission, administrative injustice and corruption are the weak edges of the ruling party. Although researches indicate that the prevalence of corruption practices in Ethiopia is moderate, in relative terms, the public perception is high and remains as the main cause of dissatisfaction. Moreover, the trend continues to affect the resource allocation and utilisation for economic plans, on which the ruling party’s political legitimacy highly depends.
All these have to be reversed as soon as possible. The longer Hailemariam waits, the less likely that he will be able to launch a major campaign at all. But, it will be hasty to conclude that Hailemariam intends to crusade against all corrupted officials and all such practices through legal actions.
To begin with, not only a few principal features of corruption in Ethiopia emanate from the cultural and institutional limitations. For example, favouritism and using public property for personal affairs are deemed to be “occupational privileges” that come along with being a civil servant or an official. Even private firms rarely see things differently, although, fortunately, commercial considerations force them to take restraint.
If Hailemariam embarks on an all-out anti-corruption crusade with purely legal perspectives, he may not see the end of it. That is as such not because every official and civil servant is intentionally engaged in corrupt practices. Certainly, many limit themselves to subsidising modest personal needs with public resources.
The main problem is the absence of sufficient manuals and lack of established precedents that put a clear delineation between favouritism and the proper scope and application of discretionary powers, which is a necessary component of any public agency. It has been observed, more often than not, that an anti-corruption crackdown in an institution literally freezes its services, as officers become too terrified to make decisions.
The anti-corruption crackdown, like any other governmental plan, is subject to considerations of opportunity costs. The political and economic returns of the anti-corruption campaign determine the amount of time and political capital that the ruling party will invest on it.
Evidently, creating wealth by sustaining the current socio-economic progress is of primary concern. Similarly, the need to preserve political stability is of paramount importance – a factor that forced the federal government to turn a blind eye to corruption in some regions over the past two decades.
Hailemariam’s anti-corruption crackdown will certainly remain in the spotlight for months to come, accompanied by news of political and legal measures against corrupt officials, businessmen and institutions. But, many potential suspects will probably remain untouched, provided that they scale-back their current levels of embezzlement and keep their hands away from the kind of misconducts that sabotage key projects and counter the effort to change public perception.
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