The 2002 Transparency International Corruption Perception Index says Africa is by far the most corrupt place on earth. The 2002 Global Fraud Survey by consultancy firm Ernst and Young also raises big questions on corruption in Africa. Business in Africa asked forensic accountants Mario Fazekas and Wayne Fergusson of Ernst and Young to justify these worrying perceptions

The Transparency International (TI) Corruption Perception Index 2002 Index lists 102 countries with only two African countries scoring higher than 5 (Botswana with a score of 6.4 and Namibia with a score of 5.7). Twenty other African countries rate less than 5 with Nigeria scoring 1.6 and coming in as the second most corrupt country in the world,

behind only Bangladesh.
Corruption is one of the oldest white-collar crimes known to mankind. The tradition of paying off public officials or company employees for preferential treatment goes as far back as biblical times. One of the most infamous cases of bribery was that of Judas Iscariot, the disciple who betrayed Jesus Christ.
The elders of Jerusalem had asked Judas to disclose the location of Christ during the night so that He could be captured and executed. In return for 30 pieces of silver, Judas led an armed guard to the garden of Gethsemane, where he identified Jesus by kissing Him on the cheek and whispering "Master". The city elders then crucified Christ. Judas was so distraught about the betrayal Jesus and hanged himself shortly after.

African countries have had to endure many recent high-profile corruption scandals. In South Africa, a controversy over a US $5.5 billion arms deal with contractors in Germany, Italy, Sweden and the UK dominated the headlines this year. Close links between subcontractors and high-ranking government officials were exposed. Though the ANC government denied impropriety, the scandal cast a long shadow.

In Lesotho, court proceedings in the $8 billion Lesotho Highlands Water Project case began in 2001.The former head of the Lesotho Highlands Development Authority, responsible for awarding construction contracts since 1986, faces multiple charges of bribery and fraud. Charges are also being brought against the beneficiary contractors including some of the world's leading construction companies from Canada, France, Germany, Italy, South Africa, Switzerland and UK who allegedly offered the bribes.

The murder of Carlos Cardoso, one of Mozambique's most respected journalists, was a sharp reminder of the risk to reporters who attempt to secure evidence of corruption by senior officials. Cardoso 's investigation into a US $14 million bank fraud, linked to the privatisation of Banco Commercial de Mocambique under an IMF structural adjustment programme, is widely thought to have led to his assassination in November 2000.

There were revelations in October 2002 that the government of Malawi spent US $2.5 million on limousines for ministers' and consequently soured relations with donors.

In Nigeria, a series of corruption scandals that broke out in the legislature, the most prominent being the impeachment in August 2000 of Senate President Chuba Okadigbo, who was alleged to have misused public funds. President Obasanjo views one of his major tasks as retrieving the billions of dollars embezzled by former dictator General Abacha.

Ghana's high courts are currently burdened by ongoing cases of corruption involving high-level officials of the Rawlings government. A former finance minister has already been jailed for stealing nearly $2 million.

In Morocco, parliament set up a commission of inquiry in 2001 to investigate the apparent diversion of more than US $1 billion of state funds over the course of a decade through state bank Credit Immobilier et Hotelier.

Burundi's parliamentary commission of inquiry reported in 2001 that 'theft, fraudulent management, corruption and embezzlement are rampant in the public sector '.

A controversial UN report in April 2001 on the looting of natural resources in the Democratic Republic of Congo incriminated members of Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni 's immediate family.

In Zimbabwe, a series of press articles alleged massive kickbacks in the tendering for Harare 's new international airport involving President Mugabe's nephew and others.

the country, while some commentators take issue with the idea that a country can be treated as a brand.

The man behind Britain's controversial rebranding, Geoff Mulgan, has a simple riposte: National identities don't emerge from nature. People create them. "Take the Union Jack, for example. It didn't just grow from the soil. The same point can be made about the United States. The American flag, Uncle Sam, "The Star-Spangled Banner" - all were consciously designed to "brand" the new republic," says Mulgan.
Veteran South African marketer Chris Moerdyk agrees, saying that what many people, especially politicians, don't realise is that the ultimate success of our business brands depends on the performance of Brand SA.

"Unfortunately, brands are not built on facts, but on perceptions," says Moerdyk. "So, though it is refreshing to see politicians actually acknowledging the importance of nurturing Brand SA, they need to lead by example in the same way the board of directors of a company have to do to ensure the success of a commercial brand. They need to commit themselves to putting the integrity of our national brand ahead of political one-upmanship - and to understanding that perceptions are not created by what you say, but how you say it."
But the signs are encouraging, he says. "If, a decade ago, the leaders of our country were asked what a brand was they would probably have said it was something painful cowboys did to cattle," says Moerdyk. "Now we have our head of state writing an article about the importance of nurturing Brand SA."

Fact is, increasing numbers of countries across the world are already in the process of rebranding and repositioning themselves - and, as British marketing expert Fiona Gilmore points out, if you don't do it yourself, you'll end up being positioned anyway by your competitors to their advantage, making it even more difficult for you to control your economic destiny.

A list of nations looking to refashion their identities includes Canada, the Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, South Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, New Zealand, Australia, Britain and even the US of A. Spain rebranded itself using Miro's "Espana" painting as a national logo, while Ireland shrugged off the notion of pastures and pubs in favour of a sleek, high-tech look which has made it one of the darlings of the global IT industry..

"It has been said that 46 of the largest 100 economies of the world today are companies, not countries. We can think of the running of countries as being no different from the running of a large company and therefore apply brand thinking to countries. The potential for these countries to gain a niche position in the global arena is there for the taking," wrote Gilmore in the Journal of Brand Management earlier this year.

"In a world being shrunk by technology, countries, regions and even cities have to compete with each other for tourism, investment, aid, buyers of their products and services and even talent. So there's hardly a place left that isn't thinking hard about its brand image, and most are in need of clear, realistic strategies for communicating and promoting themselves, their culture, their exports, their acts of policy and their contribution to the global community."

UK-based marketing expert Simon Anholt says marketing an entire country is nothing new. In fact, he argues in a recent article in the Journal for Brand Management, much of the wealth of rich countries in the past hundred years or so has been generated through marketing.

Anholt defines marketing loosely as the ability to add attraction to exported brands through country-of-origin effect, the increasingly sophisticated techniques of marketing the country itself as a tourist brand, the marketing skills which attract the brightest talent and biggest foreign investments, and the acts of marketing coordination which ensure that consistent and attractive messages about the country in general are communicated to the rest of the world through acts of foreign policy and sporting and cultural activities.

And there's no better time than now for the world's developing nations to take a leaf out the book of internationally-recognised brands like Coca-Cola, Budwesier and BMW, says Anholt. "Poorer countries can use marketing skills to graduate from being mere suppliers of low-margin unbranded commodities to brand owners and branded destinations in their own right."

Marketing and branding countries goes much further than simple increasing foreign investment, though. "Country as brand and its related disciplines have the potential to do something which marketing has never really done before: to make a major and direct impact on the fairer distribution of wealth. There is justice in this - after all, branding has been directly involved in much of the commercial activity which, during the last century, has helped to widen the gap between rich and poor; it would seem appropriate if it could now turn some of its attention towards reversing the trend," says Anholt.

What he suggests implies a radical shift in the future role of brands and marketing in general. "One could well make a case for describing place marketing as the industry's greatest challenge, and its biggest chance to create a lasting and significant future role for itself beyond its traditional boundaries of promoting products and services and helping rich companies get richer," says Anholt.

It is a point well taken by South African president Thabo Mbeki, who has no doubt that the country is a place of hope for a far broader audience than the African diaspora.

"We have the capacity to deal with this question which plagues everybody around the world in different degrees: What are we going to do with the enormous disparities in wealth, this and that and the other, without having a situation of conflict erupt? The problem of those disparities exists in the United States as much as it exists anywhere else, perhaps on a smaller scale. The rest of the world wants us to succeed because success in South Africa is an investment in success in their own countries," Mbeki told the IMC recently.

Buoyed by this level of support, Johnston and the IMC have assembled an impressive list of backers. The IMC held its inaugural meeting in August 2000, with a team of some 40 prominent leaders from both public and private sectors. All members are appointed by the president himself, and hold office for three years.

Nine cabinet ministers and their director generals are on the council. Among those from the private sector are political consultant Dr Frederik van Zyl Slabbert, Barbara Masekela from De Beers, real estate leader Pam Golding, Mavuso Msimang of SA Parks, musician Sibongile Khumalo, retired business leader Dr Sam Motsuenyane, and Johnnic's Irene Charnley.

Several top Tanzanian officials, among them the Minister for Tourism, were removed from office in 2000 as a result of investigations under Tanzania's National Anti-Corruption Strategy.

In Egypt, a court convicted four MPs of involvement in a multi-million dollar scandal and the Egyptian political scientist Saad el-Din Ibrahim was sentenced to seven years imprisonment on charges that included embezzlement and receiving unauthorized funds from foreign donors.

Kenya has consistently been perceived as extremely corrupt and now Transparency International Kenya has published 'The Kenya Urban Bribery Index'. This report presents preliminary analysis of a study by Transparency International-Kenya on the magnitude of bribery in Kenya. Based on a survey in which ordinary Kenyans report their daily encounters with corruption - who they bribe, how much, and for what, the study is part of TI-Kenya's effort to inform the anti-corruption effort in with objective, rigorous research.
This study seeks to go beyond perceptions of corruption to provide benchmarks of integrity based on the actual incidence of corruption.

What is Corruption?

Many people do not know what corruption is and if we are to fight something we need to know exactly what it is. Corruption is one of the three elements of Occupational Fraud (the other two being Misappropriation of Assets and Fraudulent Financial statements). The Association of Certified Fraud Examiners has broken corruption down into the following four scheme types:

Conflict of interest: where a public official or company employee has an undisclosed interest in another company and is either selling to or buying from his employer. If he is selling to his employer it's at inflated prices and if he is buying from his employer it's at a much-reduced rate.

Bribery: where an official or company employee accepts money or some other consideration to engage in a particular course of action, or inaction. (The Southern African Institute of Government Auditors published a Public Sector Fraud survey in 2002 and the results make interesting reading. Respondents were asked to rank frauds affecting their departments in order of their frequency of occurrence. The top fraud type for employees, management and outsiders was 'Bribes').

Illegal Gratuities: are not seen as bribes but rather as a 'thank you' for doing business. This is still a bribe as the public official or company employee knew that they would be getting the gratuity if they did business with the particular vendor. The 'thank you' or reward is normally an expensive item such as a fully paid holiday overseas for the crooked employee and his whole family.

Economic Extortion: where an official or company employee demands money or some other consideration to engage in a particular course of action, or inaction.

Keep in mind that corruption is not be limited to the public sector. Officers of large companies may use its resources for private purposes, and other employees may be party to the activities just described above.

The survey conducted in March and April 2001 has been used to estimate the magnitude, incidence and direct financial cost of bribery and produce the Kenya Urban Bribery Index (KUBI) - a league table of the incidence of bribery.
The Kenya Police tops the KUBI national bribery league with an index score of 68.7 out of a maximum score of 100. The Ministry of public works follows with a markedly lower score of 41.0, implying that bribery in the police force is much higher than any other institution. The Immigration department ranks third with a score of 36.1, the Ministry of Lands is fourth (34.8) followed closely by the Nairobi City Council with an index score of 33. The others in the worst 10 are the Judiciary (32.3), the Kenya Ports Authority (29.3), Provincial Administration (29.0), and Mombasa Municipal Council (28.7).
Ernst & Young 2002 International Fraud Survey

Ernst & Young publishes an international fraud survey every two years and the eighth survey was published in November 2002. One of the questions asked was 'What keeps you awake at night'?
Organisations were significantly more concerned about asset misappropriation than any other type of fraud. About half were concerned about computer crime and corruption and a third were concerned about organized crime, with only 21percent being concerned about financial statement fraud.

In our opinion people should be much more worried about Corruption and Financial Statement fraud than Asset Misappropriation schemes.

The Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE) conducted a survey of its members in 1996 and again in 2002. In these surveys it was found that approximately 85 percent of all fraud cases were asset misappropriation schemes, 10 percent were corruption schemes and about 5 percent were financial statement fraud schemes. The comparison of total losses suffered, however, were as follows: Asset Misappropriation schemes accounted for only 16 percent of losses, Corruption schemes 20 percent and Fraudulent Financial Statements 64 percent. The average Asset Misappropriation case loss was $80 000,00 and took an average of 12 months to detect, the average Corruption case loss was $500 000,00 and took an average of 18 months to detect, while the average Financial statement fraud loss was $4 000 000,00 and took an average of 36 months to detect.
One interesting observation in the 2002 Ernst & Young survey, was that African and Asian respondents were relatively more concerned about corruption and collusion with organised crime than Europe, the Americas and Australasia. This could be because African and Asian countries are perceived as being more corrupt or it could be due to ignorance. If we don't understand something we obviously cannot comment accurately on it.

TI Bribe Payers Index (BPI)

"It takes two to tango"

"Who is more guilty - a hand that takes or a hand that gives?"

The fact that much Third World corruption has important First World participation is also now commonplace. The international non-government organization Transparency International focuses on corruption in "international business transactions" and points out that there are First World givers of many Third World bribes. The BPI ranks leading exporting countries in terms of the degree to which international companies with their headquarters in those countries are likely to pay bribes to senior public officials in key emerging market economies. In that sense, it measures the supply side of bribery in the countries where the bribes are paid. Countries are ranked on a mean score from the answers given by respondents to the question "in the business sectors with which you are most familiar, please indicate how likely companies from the following countries are to pay or offer bribes to win or retain business in this country?"

An example of some of the questions that were asked:

How likely is it that senior public officials in this country [respondent's country of residence] would demand or accept bribes, e.g. for public tenders, regulations, licensing in the following business sectors?

(0 represents high and 10 represents zero perceived corruption)

.     Public Works and Construction - 1.3
.     Arms and Defence - 1.9
.     Oil and Gas - 2.7
.     Real estate/property - 3.5
.      Telecoms and Power Generation - 3.7
.     Mining - 4.0

Other means governments use to gain unfair advantage - What means do these governments use?

.      Diplomatic or political pressure - 66 percent
.      Financial pressure - 66 percent
.      Commercial, pricing issues etc. - 66 percent

Which three governments do you principally associate with practices such as those mentioned above [other means - besides bribery - used to gain unfair advantage in international trade and investment]?

.     USA - 58 percent
.     France - 26 percent
.     United Kingdom - 19 percent

Here, there and everywhere

The reminder that corruption exists everywhere, in private as well as public sectors, in rich countries and poor, is good, because it helps us avoid unhelpful stereotypes. But to put the discussion in this context is not to end it. In fact, noting that corruption is widespread may convey its own unhelpful subliminal messages. It may suggest, for example, that all forms and instances of corruption are equally harmful. Even more fatal, it may lead lazy listeners to the conclusion that because corruption exists in every country, nothing can be done about in our own countries.

Consider the analogy of pollution or disease. Both exist everywhere on the planet. But the extent and patterns differ radically across settings. With disease, questions of degree and kind are crucial, and so is the case with corruption. No one would conclude, for example, that because pollution and AIDS exist in every country that nothing can or should be done to reduce them.

Ernst and Young Africa
Case Studies

Nigeria

We spent a week in Nigeria, with a mandate to review the controls and at the same time, to observe whether

funds and/or stock were being misappropriated from our client. The operation in Lagos was not reporting profit, creating concern for the South African Finance Director who controlled the Nigerian operation. Although we found the normal internal control weaknesses, typical of any company, we were informed by the local MD that an oil company had a claim against our client for product that had not been delivered. Although our client had POD's (proof of delivery), the oil company had stated that the signatures were not that of their staff and therefore, claimed they had not received the stock. The POD's included a company stamp purportedly that of the oil company as proof of delivery. We established that the proof of delivery was falsified. The company stamp was a counterfeit and the signatures on the delivery notes were not that of an employee of the oil company. We also established that the contract transporters were stealing stock and falsifying the proof of delivery.

Swaziland

We were hired by a utility corporation to investigate irregularities identified in the procurement process. We found that purchase orders were dated after the goods were delivered, many suppliers were not included on

the organization's list of approved suppliers, comparative quotes were not obtained, and on some invoices the description read 'various works as per quotation' with no quotation attached. When we tried to contact some of the vendors we found they did not exist - they were not in the Swaziland telephone directory and when we visited the physical address that was printed on the invoices we found either a residence or another business. The purchasing and stores managers as well as a number of engineers were involved in the fraud.

Mauritius

We were involved in investigating allegations of a corrupt purchasing department as well as huge kickbacks being given to very senior staff

by a third party. We cannot be more specific as the case is currently sub-judicae.

Namibia

We were engaged to perform our fraud prevention 'health check' methodology at a parastatal organisation. We identified and reported on the numerous exposures prevalent within the

corporation - we were thanked for our work and told that management would take care of the identified fraud risks. The Managing Director, who engaged us to perform the health check, was suspended a year after our engagement. The union has allegedly linked the Managing Director to fraud and corrupt practices, certain of which we noted and reported as potential exposures. Not only did he and the board disregard our findings, but he also used our findings for personal gain.

Tanzania

I was invited by the security director of a large utility in Tanzania to do fraud awareness training courses for their staff as well as for some of their customers. I was to pay

all my travel costs, which would be reimbursed by the utility. The security director, just before I flew back to South Africa, suggested I pay him a 'facilitation fee' on any business he gives us - I refused and the result was that he refused to pay my travel costs that amounted to over US$1000,00. And of course we did not get any business from the utility!

Kenya

We were hired to investigate allegations at a corporate in Nairobi and Mombassa. Some of our findings were: Clearing & Forwarding and Transportation costs were

overstated. Further investigations revealed that the clearing agent was bribing customs officials with the consent of staff from our client to release containers without inspecting the contents thereof.

Appointment of a contractor to construct the car park and to paint the company office block - The owner of the contractor business is the company nurse's husband. The company nurse is apparently friendly with the former Managing Director's wife. The former Managing Director did not disclose the potential conflict of interest. A competitor's quote was found to be Ksh202 000 cheaper

We observed that of 317 suppliers existing on the supplier list, only 110 (34.7 percent) were approved.

Splitting of orders to remain within predefined authority limits.

Original quotes altered with Tippex.

The page containing the amount was a different shade of white, the text alignment was wrong, some of the fonts were incorrect and the price page had one staple hole while the other pages had two staple holes, proving that the price page had been removed and reinserted after being amended. We requested copies of the quotes from the vendors, which confirmed the corrupt behaviour.

In many countries there is a widespread feeling that the public service has lost its way - that many elements within the public sector are corrupt, and so are many of the private sector firms that transact business with them. The public sees officials, and officials seem to see themselves, as existing not to provide a service to the public, but as a body that is not accountable to the public they profess to serve. The portrait may be unfair, but the perception is widely held.

Minimising the risk

Implementing controls to deter fraudsters: In common with any crime prevention strategy, the key to minimising the risk of fraud lies in understanding why it occurs, identifying business areas that are at risk and implementing procedures to address vulnerable areas.

Fraud generally involves the fraudster identifying an opportunity (a weakness in systems) combined with a perception that the potential rewards will outweigh the risk should be caught.

Combating fraud risk should have a three-pronged approach: first, ensuring that the opportunities do not arise, second, ensuring that the fraudster believes that he will be caught and thirdly, that the consequences of being caught are severe.

.      Identifying weaknesses in the system

Weaknesses occur in the company's systems where the controls designed to prevent people using the system, for an improper or unauthorised purpose, do not operate effectively. The simplest example would be failure in access controls that allows unauthorised individuals (i.e. non-members of staff or known visitors) into the premises or computer network.

Identifying the key controls over the company's assets is best achieved by understanding the business processes and how different types of fraud could be perpetrated and by whom. Thereafter, management must identify the key controls that prevent fraud occuring in each of the business areas and understand how effective those controls appear to be.

.      Understanding the business and its processes

It is fundamental for senior management to thoroughly understand their business and related processes, including the IT environment, remote and overseas locations, newly acquired parts of the business and non-core activities.

The poorer the understanding of the business, the greater the risk of fraud, because management responsible for implementing the controls have not properly understood the risks and what is required (Ernst & Young International Fraud Survey).

Particular problems tend to arise in high-tech and IT environments, which are new and not readily understood by senior management, an in remote or overseas locations where day-to-day involvement is minimal.

.     Who perpetrates fraud?

Few people think of the risk of fraud posed by employees, but tend naturally to think of that posed by third parties. In fact, the bulk of frauds are carried out by insiders - employees, the worst frauds by management - many of whom have been with the company for many years and are in positions of trust and authority (Ernst & Young International Fraud Survey).

The risk of false accounting or the theft of cash or assets needs to be considered for each part of the company's business.

.      Assessing the risks and identifying the key controls

The controls required for each business will be specific to that business, depending on the way in which the department or process functions, the systems in place, the number of personnel and so on. Producing a list of the areas in which fraud could occur and thus the controls that should operate should be a task for management, with appropriate specialist assistance as deemed necessary. Just asking: "How would I carry out a fraud and not be detected?" can be a fruitful exercise. Consider also how much easier it is to prevent a R1m loss than create an extra R1m of profit.

Many countries try to justify bribery with the "culturally relativistic" argument. It is often suggested that corruption is part of the "culture" of many developing countries. In many countries corruption is blamed on colonial influences. Indonesia is beset by massive corruption,yet this phenomenon

originated, not with the Indonesians, but with the Dutch East India Company. This sounds plausible until we see that Thailand is the only Asian country that has not been colonised and corruption is an endemic disease that can be traced back to corrupt government officials of Thailand's sixteenth century bureaucracy.

Other people try to blame corruption on 'poverty'. If poverty were the cause of corruption, then it would be hard to explain why wealthy countries are beset by scandals-very few of which involve anyone who might be categorised as being "poor".
We have shown in the above examples how corrupt some private and public sector organizations are; yet there are still very honest people in these countries.

In our opinion corruption is a 'human thing' as opposed to being caused by cultural, geographic or socio-economic forces. Eighty percent of most fraud is perpetrated by employees and we have found that within an organisation 25 percent of employees have a tendency to steal or cheat, 25 percent are loyal and honest and the remaining 50 percent could go either way - given the opportunity and motivation. Power and greed and great motivators and when employees see their superiors engaging in corrupt business practices they tend to follow suit.

The 2002 BPI stated that the changes and developments that contributed to a decrease in levels of corruption were: greater freedom of the Press, Government anti-corruption investigations, greater transparency in Government, Improvements in corporate governance and controls of money laundering.

What to do if fraud it suspected
Creating and effective fraud contingency plan

However comprehensive and impressive it may appear to be, no fraud preventing or detection system can ever be 100 per cent effective. The determined fraudster will always find a way around it, particularly if he or she regards the potential consequences of being caught as slight compared to the potential gain.

When the unthinkable happens and a fraud perpetrated by a third party, an employee or, worse still, a senior member of management is suspected, what do you do next? Whom should you tell and whom should you not tell? Who should investigate and what powers would the investigators be able to exercise? What should you do with regard to the suspect? What are you going to do with any information that is obtained? How can you go about getting your money back?

Many organisations have disaster recovery procedures in place in the event of fire, bomb explosion or major computer failure. Few have established and agreed procedures for handling suspected fraud. Yet if the suspicion and supporting evidence are handled in the wrong way, considerable damage can be done to the organisation's finances and reputation.

.      Matters to be considered and incorporated in a fraud contingency plan include:
.      Thoroughly understand all business processes.
.      Identify fraud risks in each area from management, employees, third parties or through collusion.
.      Identify the most critical risks according to severity and likely frequency.
.      Implement appropriate controls.
.      Implement indirect controls throughout the organisation to change the corporate culture and encourage openness and reporting.
.     Agree on the contingency plan.
.      Determine who will lead the investigation.
.      Determine objectives and powers of the investigation team.
.     Work out investigation process and techniques.
.      Working with the police.
.      Reporting and publicity.

Not every suspicion may appear to merit the mobilisation of the full plan. But the initial suspicion may prove to be only the tip of the iceberg, with much greater problems as yet unknown. In any event, activating the fraud contingency plan will ensure that best practice is followed, irrespective of how material the suspected fraud turns out to be.

Electronic copies of the 2002 Ernst & Young International Fraud Survey and the 'Fraud Risk & Prevention' booklet are available at no charge. Simply contact either Mario Fazekas via e-mail on [email protected] or Wayne on [email protected] and let them know which items you require.

Transparency International has also introduced The Corruption Fighters' Tool Kit, which presents a large number of innovative anti-corruption tools developed and implemented by civil society to decrease corruption, and makes the tools available to interested parties all over the globe. The Niger TI office, as an example, launched 3 Anti-Corruption

Business in Africa - Corruption Watch
Tell us your experience...

The extent to which the tentacles of corruption have touched all levels of African society is causing widespread alarm. The continent's political and business leaders have reacted with a degree of ambivalence. In June 1999, this magazine published a 20-page feature outlining the disturbing incidence of corruption in the continent. Three years later, the situation is worse. Business in Africa Magazine is determined to play an important role in 'naming and shaming' corrupt individuals and organisations in Africa. If you have experienced corruption or have any information relating to its practice and wish to share it with our readers, please email: [email protected]. Alternatively you can write to: The Managing Editor. Business in Africa Magazine. P.O. Box 1357, Rivonia, 2128. South Africa. Our new Corruption Watch column to be introduced in 2003 will regularly track and highlight incidents of corruption in Africa.

Everest Ekong,
Publisher, Business in Africa Magazine.

Television Sketches in order to raise awareness about the problem of corruption in Niger. The films covered three sensitive fields in which corruption is viewed as a serious problem: health, education and customs. The one film ends with the following motto: "Let's denounce and ban corruption."