Are anti-corruption sanctions political weapon?
May 13, 2024
The UK anti-corruption law leaves a huge section of the world untouched even where there are glaring cases of corruption. Foreign Secretary Mitchell, it seemed, neglected to mention that his government very selectively decides who is placed on the list.
Opiyo Oloya
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OPINION
By Opiyo Oloya
On April 30, Deputy Foreign Secretary for United Kingdom, Andrew Mitchell, announced sanctions against three high-profile Ugandan politicians complete with unique group identifications against each name. Speaker of Parliament Annet Anita Among (Group ID: 16490), former Minister for Karamoja Dr. Goretti Kitutu (Group ID: 16491) and Agnes Nandutu (Group ID: 16492) became respectively the 40th, 41st and 42nd persons added to the growing sanction list under the global anti-corruption sanctions regime.
Perhaps most revealing is who is not listed under the Global Anti-Corruption law which came into force at noon on April 26, 2021.
Foreign Secretary Mitchell, it seemed, neglected to mention that his government very selectively decides who is placed on the list. Yet if the aim of the instrument is to fight global corruption, who is not included on the list is just as important.
As updated on April 30, 2024, the list includes 14 persons from Russia, three each from Uganda, Bulgaria, South Africa and Lebanon, two apiece from Colombia, Moldova and Serbia, and one person each from South Sudan, Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Zimbabwe, Iraq, Equatorial Guinea, Kosovo and Ukraine.
Topping the list, starting at No. 1 through No. 14, are Russian officials accused of orchestrating a massive scam that caused the loss of $230m to the Russian Treasury in 2007, and likely caused the death of a Russian accountant named Sergei Magnitsky, who discovered and reported the fraud. After he testified against them to the Russian prosecutor’s office, the two officials named in the scandal, Colonel Artem Kuznetsov and his colleague Major Pavel Karpov, both working for the Russian Ministry of Interior, had Magnitsky arrested on charges of tax evasion in 2008.
On November 16, 2009, just nine days before Magnitsky would have been released, he died in jail. He had not been charged with any crime. Both Kuznetsov and Karpov are still working for the Russian government today.
Meanwhile, Nos. 16, 17 and 18 slots on the list are taken by South African businessmen, brothers Ajay Gupta, Atul Gupta and Rajesh Gupta, who emigrated from Uttar Pradesh’s Saharanpur and created a business empire in their adoptive country. They are accused of using their companies Sahara Computers and Sahara Systems (Pvt) Ltd to siphon between 50 billion and 500 billion rand (close to $26b) from various South African parastatal bodies during the tenure of President Jacob Zuma.
Two of the brothers, Atul and Rajesh skipped town in 2018, and fled to the United Arab Emirates. They were arrested in June 2022 in Dubai. But the UAE government denied South Africa’s extradition requests on the grounds that they lacked proper documentation. In March 2023, Bloomberg News reported that the two brothers supposedly under arrest in UAE were spotted in Switzerland walking freely.
But despite the legislation stating boldly in paragraph 4(1) that “the purposes of the regulations contained in this instrument are to prevent and combat serious corruption”, the UK anti-corruption law leaves a huge section of the world untouched even where there are glaring cases of corruption.
China, most of Europe and the United States are excluded from the list despite some of the biggest corruptions cases registered in those regions. For example, in January this year, data collected by the Journal (www.thejournal.ie), Noteworthy and other independent European media revealed that a whopping 25% of sitting members of the European Parliament (MEP) have been involved in some type of misbehaviour, including very serious corruption.
The most shocking of the cases dubbed “Qatargate” by the media involves several sitting members of the European Parliament arrested on the morning of December 9, 2022, in Brussels on charges of taking cash bribes from Qatar and Morocco.
On the day of her arrest, Greek MEP and Vice-President of the European Parliament Eva Kaili and her live-in partner, Francesco Giorgi, were found with euro 150,000 in cash in their apartment.
The same day, Alexandros Kailis, Eva’s father was stopped by police as he tried to hide in Sofitel Hotel in Brussels with a suitcase stuffed with another euro 150,000 in cash.
When questioned by police as to why she had so much cash in the house, Eva Kaili tartly responded she kept cash ready in case of a “nuclear attack”.
That same morning, across town, Italian member of the European Parliament Pier Antonio Panzeri was also arrested. When police searched his house in Brussels, as much as euro 700,000 in cash was found stuffed in various nooks and crannies of the house. Panzeri later pled guilty and began co-operating with the police against the other accused in the matter. Altogether, Belgian authorities recovered more than euro 1.5m in cash on that day from the various suspects. Yet, not a single of these corrupt individuals are listed under the Global Anti-Corruption sanctions regime.
Then there is the egregious story of Greece member of European Parliament Loannis Lagos, who was convicted of being a member of a neo-Nazi criminal gang known as the Golden Dawn Party. Despite his 13-year conviction in a jail in Greece, Lagos continues to draw his fat parliamentary salary of euro 10,075.18 and participate in parliamentary deliberations from jail. He too is not on the UK’s list of Global Anti-Corruption sanctions.
But the most disturbing corruption case is that of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who was indicted in what the New York Times referred to as “a litany of bribery, fraud and breach of trust” charges.
The investigation which started in 2016 culminated in formal charges being recommended in February 2018, the indictment coming in November 2019 and trial beginning in May 2020. Netanyahu who denied all charges has continued to use his position to impede the case from advancing in Israeli courts.
But just as in the case of corrupt EU officials, Netanyahu has not faced the wrath of the UK’s list of Global Anti-Corruption sanctions. Unlike the three Ugandan politicians, he will likely never be considered for designation on the list.
The question that anyone with a fair mind must ask is whether the law is meant to punish certain people from certain backgrounds, but not the untouchables from certain places.
This gives the odour of preferential treatment which is ironic given that the law itself is supposed to fight corruption. Simply, people named or convicted of corruption in Europe are excluded from the list, even as names are gleefully added from mostly developing countries.
One should be forgiven for concluding that the Global Anti-Corruption sanctions is a political weapon wielded to bludgeon some but not all persons accused of corruption.
Opiyo.oloya@gmail.com Twitter: @Opiyooloya Dr Opiyo Oloya is the Inaugural Associate Vice-President, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) at Western University, London, Ontario, Canada
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