Mozambique should step up the reform of the public sector, and improve the management of foreign aid, in order gradually to reduce the level of corruption, advised Juan Marcelino.

MAPUTO – Mozambique should step up the reform of the public sector, and improve the management of foreign aid, in order gradually to reduce the level of corruption, advised Juan Marcelino, assistant director of the US Securities and Exchange Commission, in Maputo on Tuesday.

Marcelino was giving a lecture, organised by the US embassy, at the Eduardo Mondlane University, the largest higher education institution in the country.

He noted that corruption is said to be reaching “extreme” levels in Mozambique, made worse by the complacency of society in general and of the authorities in particular.

“What increases corruption is the complacency in Mozambique. When corruption reaches these levels, it is worrying, and donor funds are going to dry up. At the same time investor confidence will decline”, Marcelino warned.

Mozambique should therefore step up the anti-corruption battle, by further reform of the public sector, making it more resistant to corruption. But Marcelino recognised that “reducing corruption could be a lengthy process”.

Recent events, however, mean that Marcelino could not simply lecture Mozambicans about corruption. He admitted that corruption is a worldwide phenomenon, and has occurred in once mighty, but now bankrupt, US corporations, such as the energy trader Enron, and the communications giant, WorldCom. A Mozambican audience should be particularly interested in Enron, since in the mid-1990s the US embassy, and high ranking US officials in Washington, were blackmailing the Mozambican government, threatening to cut off aid, unless a deal was signed granting Enron rights to Mozambican natural gas. Marcelino admitted that poor countries have no monopoly on corruption. It occurs even in the most powerful nations, albeit in a rather different form.

But the various forms of corruption, in rich and poor countries alike, have certain things in common, he argued – they damage citizens’ confidence in state institutions, and shake investor confidence. He admitted that corruption will continue in the United States despite the tougher laws promised by President George W. Bush, and the long overdue attempt to ensure that the same companies that audit the books, are not hired as consultants for the same firms.

Marcelino said the message had to be sent to investors that the government, the institutions of justice, the public and private sectors and society at large are working together to solve the problem of corruption. This held true for both Mozambique and the United States, he added.

Marcelino noted that corruption does not only subvert the social order – it can lead to insecurity and murder, he said, citing the assassinations of Mozambique’s best known journalist, Carlos Cardoso, in November 2000, and of the interim chairperson of the scandal-ridden Austral Bank, Antonio Siba-Siba Macuacua, in August 2001.

Agencia de Informacao de Mocambique, August 6, 2002