Speaking in Ghana over the weekend, US President Barack Obama pressed all the right things. Aid to Africa, he said, must be matched with good governance. He denounced personal and corrupt rule, and called on Africa to build strong democratic institutions. Now a few days before Obama arrived in Ghana, his view of Africa had been tested in Uganda. After the elections of 2006, it emerged that millions of dollars donated to Uganda by the Global Fund to fight Aids, tuberculosis, and malaria had been stolen. Some of it had been "eaten" outright, some diverted to buy votes in the 2006 poll.
In the face of the scandal, the Global Fund suspended its Uganda programme. The government scrambled to limit the damage by instituting a commission of inquiry. A few bureaucrats were suspended, the ministers in Health then were charged in court (their case has not gone far), and people like Ssezi Cheeye were found guilty and sent to prison for dipping their fingers into the Global Fund safe.
The Global Fund restored the programme, and when it pressed Kampala for speedy action on some big names - some very close to State House - who were suspected of pocketing the funds, the government said it didn't have money to prosecute.
So the Fund gave the government money for the investigations and prosecution. Last week, came the inevitable news: The money that had been given to prosecute Global Fund thieves had been stolen too. The matter created a buzz on the Internet; with many arguing that it was proof that Uganda had hit the lowest bottom.
If you are done laughing and ridiculing the government, think about this: The stealing of Global Fund and others moneys is not accidental. It happens because there are incentives to do so.
Though we had the Justice Ogoola Commission Inquiry into the swindling of Global Fund money, and a few lowly scapegoats were arrested, there were no institutional changes of the type Obama speaks of. So when the Global Fund resumed a id, and gave money to prosecute the people who pocketed its first batch of aid, it must have known that the money would be stolen. It can't be so dumb that it didn't.
So why did it still give the money? Because the aid bureaucracy itself is corrupt. For example, go to Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and many other African countries; a good number of people working for western aid agencies (USAID, World Bank) usually settle in the recipient countries. Significantly, by contrast there are very few regular diplomats who were not in aid-approving/disbursing agencies who settle in the countries they are stationed in.
One of the explanations for this is that some people in aid-giving agencies stay because they got kickbacks from projects they were managing. Some will have invested it locally, or collected their bribe in form of things like houses or shares in companies.
The mistake that African bureaucrats and politicians make is not in the stealing of donor money, but in the HOW. Only a foolish president does a Mobutu Sese Seko-steal everything.
The "success formula" is that you swindle part of the aid. Secondly, the president himself cannot steal directly. He should keep his nose clean, or let minor officials steal and give him or his agent his cut. Thus a company that fiddles the books on a donor-funded road project pays back by contributing to the president's re-election campaign.
Having the president and some sections of the government looking clean ensures that the aid taps are never closed. It gives the president the credibility to say he is not corrupt, throw a few minor crooks in jail, and keep the aid flowing.
This is also good for corrupt donor aid officials, because they too are not discredited and there is less suspicion of their own role. But if you have a Mobutu-type thief, it raises questions about what the local aid officers are doing. And soon the money flow is shut off and the leeches on both the giving and receiving end lose.
Donors, however, o perate on a continental scale on matters of aid. It is important that you have some countries where aid money is well used: A Rwanda here, a Malawi there, and a Zambia somewhere in the mix.
Rwanda, for example, has a good record on Global Fund money. As long as the funds are seen to work and not to "leak" in Rwanda or Malawi, overall the Africa programme will still be funded. Therefore, for donor money to come to Uganda and be stolen, it needs to be used honestly in a Malawi. You could say, then, that Malawi is honest on our behalf, and Uganda steals on Malawi's part.
So, we come to something the aid industry is uncomfortable acknowledging. For as long you have aid, you will have corruption - or vice versa. Corruption in the aid industry is what gives donor bureaucrats a vested personal interest and incentive to keep the money rolling, and our politicians and officials the incentive to be in the begging business.
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