by Steven Andre
I’m reading a Journal of Public Policy, and the following is an extract
which I thought I should share. I should state also that this post is
just for public consumption and does not imply anything, past, present
or future. Happy reading:
“Often, the failure of an ACA occurs
after an initial period of success. Several agencies do quite well in
the beginning, only to be deprived of their zealous heads of agency
through all sorts of ploys. Several ACA heads have been dismissed or
imprisoned. Others have resigned or retired, thereby leaving the ACA in a
state of decay or paralysis.
A well-known case is that of the
fall of Nuhu Ribadu, the head of Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crimes
Commission (EFCC) (Human Rights Watch 2011: 9–13). Under his
leadership, the EFCC investigated and prosecuted several high-level
office-holders, including a former Inspector General (IG) of the Police
and former state governors. His downfall was allegedly precipitated by
the EFCC’s arrest of James Ibori, the former governor of Delta State, in
the oil-rich Niger Delta. James Ibori enjoyed a ‘close relationship to
both [President Umaru] Yar’Adua—whose campaign Ibori is widely believed
to have financially backed—and [the] attorney general, Michael
Aondoakaa’ (Ibid.: 12). In January 2008, less than two weeks after the
EFCC charged Ibori, Ribadu was ‘temporarily’ relieved of his post and
sent to attend a ten-month training course. Subsequently, the Police
Service Commission demoted him by two ranks and eventually dismissed him
from the police force. He fled the country ‘after several death threats
and an apparent assassination attempt in January 2009’ and only
returned after a new President had been sworn in who removed the former
attorney general in 2010 (Ibid.: 13).
Many cases initiated by
Ribadu and his successor were stalled in the courts. According to Human
Rights Watch, ‘Ribadu was [in fact] no more successful in convicting
nationally prominent political figures than [his successor]’ (Ibid.:
22). Farida Waziri took over the EFCC chairmanship in June 2008 and
quickly ‘forced out roughly a dozen of the EFCC’s most experienced and
highly trained personnel as part of a purge of as many as 60 staff in
total’. ‘She has also been widely accused of having close relationships
with corrupt political figures and of going slow on sensitive cases
against powerful political figures’ (Ibid.: 14). “The sum total of the
EFCC’s convictions of nationally prominent political figures is
underwhelming: a mere four convictions in eight years—between 2003 and
July 2011.’ (Ibid.: 22.) In Nepal, only two high-level politicians have
been convicted during the past 21 years, since the establishment of the
Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) in 1991.7
Between 1991 until 2002, the ‘CIAA stayed low-profile’ (Manandhar
Forthcoming). The CIAA filed only five cases in the court before 2002
(Khanal et al.: 26). It received only 854 complaints in more than ten
years, indicating a serious lack of trust on the part of the public in
the institution. Between 2002 and 2004, the CIAA lived its heydays. Its
powers expanded under a new law adopted in 2002. It received new dynamic
leadership with Chief Commissioner Surya Nath Upadhyaya and political
support to take action. The number of complaints rose to 2,522 in 2002
and to 4,759 by 2004 (Ibid.: 26). The CIAA filed approximately 270 cases
in the courts during those three years (Ibid.: 26).
The CIAA’s
popularity stemmed from dramatic action taken immediately following the
passage of the new law in 2002, including ‘midnight raids into the
houses and taking custody of about two dozen officials working in the
Ministry of Finance’ (Manandhar Forthcoming). The CIAA also ‘brought
corruption charges against a number of prominent political leaders,
primarily, based on the reports of the Judicial Inquiry Commission on
Property constituted in 2002’ (Ibid.) ‘Though the actions of CIAA were
praised by the public, they also dragged CIAA into a political
controversy. [According to some observers] the actions of CIAA were
politically motivated.’ (Ibid.) In 2005, the King established the Royal
Commission for the Control of Corruption (RCCC), which effectively
‘overshadowed the functioning of CIAA’ (Ibid.). The CIAA Chief
Commissioner retired in October 2006 and to date. the legislature has
not appointed a new head.
Ever since, ‘there has been a downfall and a wide scale public scepticism in the role and functioning of CIAA’ (Ibid.).
Similarly in Bangladesh, the Anti-Corruption Commission remained
largely ineffective since its establishment in November 2004 until the
Caretaker Government took office on 11 January 2007. It appointed Hasan
Mashhud Chowdhury in February 2007 and strengthened the ACC through
amendments to the ACC Act 2004. This provided the ACC with ‘some degree
of dynamism and vibrancy aiming at making corruption a punishable
offence, and challenging the culture of impunity. A large number of
high-profile individuals suspected of involvement in corruption were
arrested. Special tribunals were set up for speedy trial.’ (See Zaman
2009:
3.) ‘[T]he anti-corruption drive by the then ACC […] remains
the strongest signal yet in Bangladesh’s history against corruption.’
Yet, shortly after the newly elected Government assumed office in
December 2008, under Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, the anti-corruption
drive came to a halt. High-profile suspects who had been taken into
custody and previously denied bail were released on bail at record
speed. The Chairman, Hasan Mashhud Chowdhury, resigned a few months
later on 2 April 2009. His successor, Ghulam Rahman, battled several
government proposals to curtail the ACC’s powers. He is ‘quoted to have
told the media that the ACC was in any case a toothless tiger, whereas
the nails that it could use were now being chopped off ’ (Ibid.: 4).
Ever since the end of the Caretaker Government and the resignation of
ACC’s Chairman in 2009, ACC Bangladesh’s ‘independent and effective
functioning has come under threat’ (Ibid.: 4). Moreover, all cases
against Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, initiated by the ACC, have been
‘withdrawn by the accuser, thrown out of court or discontinued’ (BBC
News 2010).
In the same vain, the Independent Authority
Against Corruption (IAAC) in Mongolia started off in quite a promising
fashion until the apparent interference by the executive and
politicisation of the agency. Set up in 2006, the IAAC investigated
highlevel cases, including one against L. Gundalai, former Minister of
Health, Member of Parliament, and the political ally of the President of
Mongolia, Tsakhia Elbegdorj (Amarsanaa 2008). In May 2011, the new
Prosecutor General appointed by the President requested Parliament to
dismiss the IAAC leadership (Erkh 2010). When Parliament refused to
dismiss the IAAC head, Chimgee Sangaragchaa, and his deputy, Dorj
Sunduisuren, they were taken to court by the prosecutor and sentenced
behind closed doors to two-year jail terms in March 2011 (Batkhuyag
2011). Eventually, the Supreme Court released the two men from prison in
October 2011, but did not re-instate them. Instead they were both
dismissed from the civil service. The President appointed two former
intelligence officers at the helm of the IAAC in November 2011 and a few
months later, in April 2012, the IAAC arrested Enkhbayar Nambar, former
President of Mongolia and a political opponent of the President, ahead
of the parliamentary elections in June 2012 (InfoMongolia.com 2011;
Bönisch 2011).
As appears from these experiences, the downfall
of heads of agencies usually follows courageous attempts at
investigating allies or close relatives of heads of state or those in
powerful positions in the government, Parliament or law enforcement
agencies. Such allegations have also been made in a recent case
involving the Indonesian ACA leadership. The KPK head, Antasari Azhar,
was arrested in May 2009, and later convicted of plotting the murder of a
businessman and sentenced to 18 years in prison. ‘Critics claim
Antasari was framed to weaken the KPK, which had launched several
investigations of top officials including […] former Bank Indonesia
deputy governor Aulia Pohan, the father-in-law of President Susilo
Bambang Yudhoyono’s son.’ (See Grazella 2011). Aulia Pohan was convicted
for corruption and sentenced to four-and-a-half years in prison in June
2009.8 As the KPK also investigated high-ranking police officials, in
April 2009, the police chief detective Susno Duadji famously compared
KPK with a ‘gecko’ challenging a ‘crocodile’, meaning the police
(Pandaya 2009). In October 2009, two KPK deputy chairmen, Chandra Hamzah
and Bibit Samad Rianto, were arrested by the police on charges of abuse
of power and extortion (Arnaz and Pasandaran 2009). They were
subsequently released, though their arrest led to an unseen public
outcry, massive popular protests and a call upon the President to
preserve KPK’s powers (Guntensperger 2009).
In some cases, the
ACA has actually been closed down after bold investigations into the
country’s leadership. For example, in South Africa, in 2008, the ruling
majority in Parliament dissolved the revered Directorate of Special
Operations, a specialised and highly successful crime fighting unit set
up in 2001 within the National Prosecuting Authority, also known as the
Scorpions.9 The Scorpions had come head-to-head with the Police
Commissioner, Jackie Selebi, as well as with the current President of
South Africa, Jacob Zuma, former President of the ANC, and former deputy
President of South Africa from 1999 until 2005. As the Scorpions
investigated Jackie Selebi and Jacob Zuma for corruption in unrelated
cases, the ANC adopted a resolution to dissolve the agency at its
National Congress in December 2007, and effectively did so in Parliament
one year later. The agency was replaced with the Directorate of
Priority Crime Investigation (also known as the Hawks) located within
the South African Police Service. While Jackie Selebi was eventually
found guilty of corruption and sentenced to 15 years in jail in 2010,
the charges against Jacob Zuma were dropped by the National Prosecuting
Authority in April 2009.
In anti-corruption literature, this
phenomenon has been called the ‘Icarus Paradox’ for ACAs (Doig et al.
2005: 47). When the ACAs are successful and get too close to the sun,
they cause their own downfall. As Nuhu Ribadu famously said, ‘If you
fight corruption, it fights back’ (Human Rights Watch. 2011: 13).”
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