World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz said developed countries have an obligation to prevent bribery in Africa by Western firms.

Wolfowitz also praised South African President Thabo Mbeki for sacking his deputy, Jacob Zuma, after he was implicated, but not charged, in a corruption scandal.

A corruption trial jailed Zuma’s former financial adviser Schabir Shaik for 15 years and found there had been a “generally corrupt relationship” between the two.

The case against Shaik hinged on payments made to Zuma solicited from a French arms company in return for protection from investigation into a multi-million-dollar arms deal.

“As an outsider it would suggest that the President of this country takes the issue of corruption seriously and is prepared to take it on and that is only to be applauded,” Wolfowitz told Reuters late on Saturday at the end of his first tour of Africa.

“I think for every corruptee there is a corrupter and some of those corrupters are in developed countries and I think developed countries have an obligation to tackle corruption on their end.”

Wolfowitz praised “new leadership” on the continent for fighting corruption that had held back African development in the past.

In a television interview on Saturday, Zuma said his conscience was clear and he had not resigned because it might set a precedent that anyone accused of wrongdoing would be forced to quit.

Mbeki has yet to announce a replacement for Zuma, who is the deputy leader of the ruling African National Congress (ANC), but some young ANC members have expressed anger over the dismissal. Finance Minister Trevor Manuel stood in for Mbeki on Sunday, with the South African leader at a meeting in Nigeria, but officials told reporters not to read anything into that.

South African newspapers were mixed in their approach to Zuma’s dismissal on Sunday, with some praising Mbeki but others worrying he had been fired to pander to international investors.

“We cannot, as a country, sacrifice great values at the altar of populism,” said the Sunday Independent, backing Mbeki.

Lesley Wroughton, Reuters, June 19, 2005