29th August, 2012
Like Nigeria, where a mind-blowing $400 billion has been stolen in five decades by corrupt officials, China is also grappling with mind boggling corruption to such an extent that the country’s Premier Wen Jiabao said it is the biggest threat facing the ruling communist party, which has been in power since 1949.
A Chinese study released last year estimated corrupt officials have siphoned off more than $120 billion from the country in less than two decades.
Corruption as a cancer is occupying the headlines in China in the wake of the theft of government money by the communist party chief of Fengcheng, a city in Liaoning province.
He was reported to have left vanished from the country in April with as much as 200 million yuan ($32 million), the official China Daily Newspaper said.
The report quoted a spokesman for Dandong city, which administers Fengcheng, confirming the disappearance of party head Wang Guoqiang, although he could not verify the amount of money taken.
Anonymous Internet postings, which could not be verified, said Wang had fled to the United States amid a party investigation into a company run by a former classmate which had dealings with the city.
Fengcheng has not made a public statement about the issue, but the city on Monday announced a new party secretary to replace Wang, according to a statement. The local government could not be reached on Wednesday.
Between 16,000 and 18,000 government officials and executives of state-owned firms have fled China or simply vanished with illegal gains, according to the study by the country’s central bank.
Higher-ranking officials carrying larger sums of money mostly go to developed nations like the United States, Canada and Australia, while others choose destinations closer to home, such as Russia and Thailand, it said.
In one notable case, three managers at a Bank of China branch fled to the United States and Canada in 2001 with $483 million.
At a forum in Abuja, capital of Nigeria yesterday, former vice president of the World bank, Oby Ezekwezili, estimated that Nigeria lost about $400 billion in five decades to official thieves, an increase of $100 billion over the figures being bandied around a few years ago.
She stated that while oil accounted for about 90 percent of Nigeria’s exports, no less than 80 per cent of that money ended up in the pockets of about one percent of the population.
Presenting a paper titled. “Corruption, National Development, The Bar and The Judiciary” at the ongoing 52nd Annual General Meeting of the Nigerian Bar Association, NBA, holding in Abuja, Ezekwesili noted that the fight against corruption and demand for good governance must go beyond the actions or efforts of government.
According to her, findings reveal that as much as 20 percent of the entire capital expenditure will end up in private pickets annually.
“The negative effects of corruption is starkly demonstrated by the fact that based on current track record, Nigeria will miss all the Millennium Development Goals target set in 2000 despite the richness of its natural and human resource endowments. There is no doubt that at the heart of any progress towards meeting these goals is the quality of governance at all levels of government and yet the general perception since validated by the revealed large scale corruption in the petroleum sector especially, but not limited to the management of the subsidy scheme by all the relevant agencies of government, is that poor governance of public resources and assets in Nigeria at every level of government.”
She pointed out that poor governance of public resources and assets in Nigeria is worsening at every level of government, across institutions of state, the private sector and fast engulfing the wider society.
Ezekwesili, also said that the Global Financial Integrity estimated that between 1970 and 2008 Africa lost more than $854 billion in illicit financial outflows, an amount which she said was far in excess of official development inflows.
She stated that civil society organizations, the NBA and the nation’s judiciary and non state actors could play a significant role in making public budgeting more transparent and accountable noting that an independent judiciary was important for preserving the rule of law.
AFP and additional reports by Felix Nnamdi/Abuja