Strong detectors of unethical practices needed
Mmegi Editor | Thursday September 21, 2017 11:46
A court case filed by SA’s Democratic Alliance resulted in the collapse of one of the world’s biggest public relations firms, Bell Pottinger. The firm’s downfall is a clear example of how some multinationals are driven by profit to distabilise developing countries, especially in Africa. The firm was recently found guilty of unethical practice in defending companies owned by a powerful family that is accused of capturing the leadership of South Africa.
In the UK, Bell Pottinger has been slapped with a five-year ban and many big corporates are now withdrawing contracts or any dealings with the firm. Amidst shocking revelations, it has emerged that KPMG auditing firm has also come out not so clean in relation to how it handled audits of the accounting books owned by the same family. This is shocking for the fact that some of these multinationals have offices even right here in Botswana.
In SA, they were able to detect all these anomalies because of a strong civic movement, along with strong political parties armed with skilled manpower to detect any wrongful practices. In addition, SA has a liberal Constitution, tough laws, and a vibrant media that collectively probe events and scrutinise transactions by their government and private sector to the nought. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about our country where State institutions and civic societies are barren, whilst political party activists are more interested in securing positions of power in their movements than the abuses by government on its people.
Some multinational organisations and companies come solely to do destructive business in our country and leave with their pockets lined with bank accounts brimming with our currency. Many of them have a penchant of showering government officials and politicians with false awards and accolades in order to win favours for consultancies or lucrative tenders. They are never easy to trace once they fail to complete their work and are even harder to arrest to face penalties, as they are hardly prosecuted.
We need to empower our people with skills to detect an unethical practice to save the future of this country. We can start by empowering our police, investigators such as the Directorate on Corruption and Economic Crimes (DCEC), Financial Intelligence agencies, prosecutors, as well as our parliamentarians. The bold decision by the DA to take Bell Pottinger to court is a clear sign that the opposition party also considers itself as a government-in-waiting. This move should inspire our politicians here at home and be triumphantly celebrated.
Today’s thought
“It is only when there is the supervision and critical oversight from the people that the government will be in a position to do an even better job, and employees of government departments will be the true public servants of the people.”
– Wen Jiabao