Jesse Ventura Talks About Homeland Security “Gestapo,” Hollywood Secrets & More
http://www.prisonplanet.com/ventura-warns-of-homeland-security-gestapo-takeover-of-america.html
In an exclusive new video for Prison Planet.tv subscribers, former Governor Jesse Ventura warns that Homeland Security is rapidly becoming the American Gestapo, as Ventura still fumes over the fact that the feds tried to stop him from filming the JFK memorial at Arlington Cemetery.
Former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura visited Austin, Texas last week to work on the next season of his hit TV show “Conspiracy Theory.” Alex Jones had a chance to catch up with the governor while driving around for the shoot.
While the show is top secret until it airs, Jesse did disclose some of the harassment he and his crew have received during production, including being barred by the Army from filming Kennedy’s eternal flame at Arlington National Cemetery.
When Ventura’s production team attempted to go through the proper channels to get permission to film the JFK memorial, they were refused on the basis that that the Army didn’t like the content of Ventura’s show. They were also lied to when the feds told Ventura that the Kennedy family held jurisdiction over who was allowed to film the memorial, a claim vehemently denied by a Kennedy family spokesman.
Ventura refuses to let the issue drop and is calling for the individual who made the decision to be fired on the basis that he is allowing his personal political viewpoints to interfere with his job.
Duration : 0:14:39
How much corruption do you think there really is in Michigan Politics?
Detroit had Two corrupted Mayors before they finally got the Mayor they have now. Michigan has had two Governors who are either extremely incompetent or, clever enough to cover up their form of corruption with an act of incontinence.
I heard Grand Rapids has a semi corrupted city council as well. How corruption is there in Michigan politics that the general public has no idea about?
That is two governors in the past 12 years.
Colman Young was corrupt but, he wasn’t as nearly corrupted as Kwame Kilpatrick was.
How much by measure, I don’t know, but we all know that Michigan was in recession before the rest of the country due to your incompetent governor whom drove the state into ruin, but then started ad campaigns to attract specifically "green" technology and companies.
I would’nt be surprised if it were all planned due to hack politicians falling for that green jobs BS and global warming hoax.
Government does many corrupt things to get thier way. In California we often have to deal with cycles of politicians over-spending the budget but then whining that they need more money. And they usually get it due to left wing moron’s falling for the same trick cycle after cycle. The government threatens libraries, schools, police protection and fire, but never cut government jobs or unions. Eventually they cave to the threats
What is the difference between a police state and martial law?
Is it when the military declares a dictatorship on Americans or is it something else. I’m a little concerned. I’ve read web pages that suggest that Prez. Obama want’s America to become a police state. What do you think?
We are in a police state. By this I mean we are being observed and monitored at all times. Sitting at home on the computer, the intermittent location of your cellphone, power usage monitoring, all these things are transmitting data that IF someone wanted to put you under surveillance, the passing of the Patriot Act allows them to throw the switch and do so without having probable cause or warrant to do so.
The PATRIOT Act is the single most offensive attack on your Constitutional Rights ever implemented. It was disguised as a form of protection from terrorists, but in reality it doesn’t nothing of the sort.
Martial law however, if you become familiar with the Executive Orders that Obama and previous presidents have signed you will understand clearly the difference between a police state and Martial law.
From Wikipedia:
An executive order in the United States is an order issued by the President, the head of the executive branch of the federal government. In other countries, similar edicts may be known as decrees, or orders-in-council. Executive orders may also be issued at the state level by a state’s Governor or at the local level by the city’s Mayor. U.S. Presidents have issued Executive Orders since 1789, usually to help officers and agencies of the Executive branch manage the operations within the Federal Government itself. Executive orders do have the full force of law since issuances are typically made in pursuance of certain Acts of Congress, some of which specifically delegate to the President some degree of discretionary power (delegated legislation), or are believed to have their authority for issuances based in a power inherently granted to the Executive by the Constitution. It is these cited or perceived justifications made by a President when authoring Executive Orders that have come under criticism for exceeding Executive authority and have been subject to legal proceedings even at various times throughout U.S. history concerning the legal validity or justification behind an order’s issuance.
When the President declairs Martial law, he is at that point becomes a Dictator, with the power to decree orders that otherwise would have to be agreed upon by the checks and balances our fore father s set in place to stop such an act. This is how President Bush was allowed to issue WAR without the approval of our Congress. I encourage you to read these E.O’s and a list of them is currently available on the White House.org web site or on wikipedia.
The most troubling order he signed is in my opinion is:
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Executive_Order_13524
Executive Order 13524 of December 16, 2009
Amending Executive Order 12425 Designating Interpol as a Public International Organization Entitled to Enjoy Certain Privileges, Exemptions, and Immunities
Alex Analyzes The Police State Cult Like Mental Illness System on The Alex Jones Show
Perversion Is Fine, So Long As Youre In A Position Of Authority
Paul Joseph Watson
http://www.prisonplanet.com/
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
http://www.infowars.com/
Yet another story about a school installing surveillance cameras in bathrooms reminds us that, while parents are treated as pedophiles for taking photographs of their own children, any perversion whatsoever is acceptable as long as it is conducted by those deemed to be in a position of authority.
Outraged parents have hit out at a school in Birmingham after pupils discovered CCTV cameras in the schools toilets, reports Sky News.
Youngsters at Grace Academy in Chelmsley Wood claim they returned from half-term to find staff had installed the cameras without notifying them or their parents.
The report points to another recent case in Britain, where a school in Salford filmed children in various stages of undress changing into their gym kit.
Parents slammed the move as a total invasion of privacy and many students refused to use the bathroom, but the school claimed that installing cameras to watch children in the most intimate setting possible was perfectly normal because children want to feel secure.
So as long as its done in the name of safety and security, watching children in bathrooms is acceptable. Perhaps child molesters who are caught with kiddie should use the defense that they are merely watching videos of children to make them feel secure. But were forgetting the golden rule youre only allowed to engage in such behavior if you happen to be ascribed some position of authority.
We have reported on numerous cases of school officials installing cameras in school bathrooms which allow perverts to spy on children in various stages of undress.
Compare this with the case of Kevin Geraghty-Shewan, a man who dared to take photographs of his own son in public riding a toy train.
Geraghty-Shewan was promptly interrupted by a security thug who accused him of being a pedophile. The man was then approached by a police officer and threatened with arrest for having the temerity to get upset about the situation. Of course, the fact that Geraghty-Shewan and his son were simultaneously being filmed by a plethora of shopping mall CCTV cameras is beside the point big brother is allowed to watch us but we cant even record our own offspring without being lectured about how were potential child molesters by those in petty positions of authority.
And its not just school corridors and bathrooms where kids are being spied on. Perhaps the most shocking aspect of the recent case in Philadelphia, where a school district issued laptop computers to 1,800 students across two high schools and then used concealed cameras within the machines to spy on students and their parents without their knowledge or consent, is the fact that school officials did not attempt to hide the scandal, they bragged about it.
In a PBS news clip, the assistant principle in a seperate case shows a reporter how, much to his own amusement, he spies on kids via their laptops and even takes pictures of them.
I always like to mess with them and take a picture, chuckles the man as the reporter whitewashes the alarming spectacle.
http://www.infowars.com/perversion-is-fine-so-long-as-youre-in-a-position-of-authority/
Duration : 0:7:8
When Children Become Victims of Poverty and Ignorance
The ‘plights of the Akwa Ibom Children’, as the Punch Newspapers editorial of 15 January, 2009 described the madness in the name of child-witches hunting and exorcising going on in the state, need the attention of every rational being on the surface of the earth. For as Guardian Newspapers editorial of December 21, 2008 suggested, it is nothing but a ‘debacle on Child Rights’, a situation that have taken away self-esteem and psychologically demean many children in the state to the extent that they are far too conscious of every of their daily acts everywhere and anywhere for the fear of being tagged witches or wizards. This is totally unacceptable. Hence the question: who is a witch?
Witchcraft, according to Bertrand Russell, is ‘a composite phenomenon drawing from folklore, sorcery, demonology, heresy and Christian theology’. The World Book Encyclopedia describes it as ‘the use of supposed magic powers generally to harm or damage property”. From these two definitions, we can move on to deduce a definition of a ‘witch’ as a person who is supposed to have received such powers from ‘evil spirits’, that is, power to know all things, power to destroy lives, among others. While ‘witch’ is a general name, the word has a gender connotation. A ‘male witch’ is called wizard, while a ‘female witch’ is called ‘witch’.
The belief in witchcraft is not recent, nor is it a product of the popular Harry Porter series. Rather, according to Godffrey Parrinder, it is “one of the great (sic) fears from which mankind has suffered”. The belief has appeared in many parts of the world, in one form or the other. While it became particularly prominent and developed in Europe in the later middles ages and renaissance periods, the belief in witches and their evil powers have remained with Africans for centuries before then. For Africa, therefore, till today, witchcraft belief is a great tyranny spreading panic and death. This unhindered, thriving, belief, which is devoid of any commonsensical scientific ratiocination, is being buoyed by the excruciating and pitiable living condition of many Africans that they found unexplainable; hence the need for scapegoats, the ‘witches’. Thanks to the modern day fraudsters, the Pentecostal pastors.
The advent of Pentecostalism, and the healing Christian, churches have contributed in no small measure in reinforcing the belief. They accepted the existence of witches and witchcraft and claimed they have the power to protect against its evil powers. All manner of social, health and economic problems are readily carpeted as having ‘spiritual’ dimension blamable on ‘witches’, who are usually aged women and unwitting teenagers. To market their churches, most of these pastors have now resorted to demonizing innocent children, as witches that must be ‘delivered’ and ‘saved’ from the power of darkness. This uncritical scapegoating is gaining momentum more than ever before because of the seemingly irredeemable economic condition of living of sub-Saharan Africans. The many frustrated sub-Saharan African people are brainwashed to believe that their major enemies are not corrupt government officials, inhuman government policies nor their, personal, inability to cultivate and explore the best of their potentials in the ‘here and now’ world. Rather they have been sweet-tongued into believing that it is the ‘witches’ in their families and their homes that have been working against their fortune spiritually. Based on the ‘prophesies’, the unfortunate scapegoats, those accused of being witches, are given two options: either to confess to their ‘countless heinous sins’ and be saved/delivered after severe beatings or risk being killed, which in most cases mean being stoned to death.
In the Akwa-Ibom situation, confession is often preferred. Why? The ‘Prophets’ and ‘Bishops’ of God must eat! All you need to imagine is a steady ten thousand naira, N10,000, minimum income, almost every other day for tagging an unfortunate child a witch. Let’s not forget that some pastors like Bishop Sunday Ulup-Aya charge as much as between N30,000, thirty thousand, and N400,000, four hundred thousand, naira for their services. But how, for instance, can one be sure that these children are witches, as these prophets claim, and not mere victims of the poverty ravaging the material and psychological fabric of their families and that of the prophets?
To answer this question, we took a field trip to the affected towns and villages early last month. The product of the ‘expedition’ as friends have retorted to calling it, is revealing. Our very first respondent in Eket, Mr. Edet claimed to have participated in “dealing with not less than 7 ‘confirmed’ child witches”, one of which was burnt by the mob beyond recognition.
“Who confirmed them as witches?” we inquired.
“Our pastor is a man of God and when he prayed, the Holy Spirit arrested the children”.
“Is it the holy spirit that pushed them to the front of the congregation to confess?”
“Sometimes, they cried of fire burning all over their bodies and sometimes, to be sincere, the look on the faces of members of the congregation is enough to push them to the front”
We then asked the question that pissed him really, really off:
“Don’t you think these allegations are fictitious and merely being fabricated by pastors to make some money and lure people to come to church for protection?”
Silently, I wished we never asked the question.
“You are possessed! Are you saying my pastor is a liar? Who you be sef? (meaning who are you?).I see that the devil is really disturbing you like that stupid Sam Ikpe (referring to the Director of CRARN, Child Rights and Rehabilitation Network, where some of the alleged child witches live). Now get off my bike!!”
With that last sentence, I need not tell you his profession. Well, Mr. Edet is a professional motorbike transport operator; he takes people from one location to another on his bike for a fee. He is married with four children and lives in a two-room apartment, shared toilet, shared kitchen. His average income is a bit over $5 per day, but about $4 sometimes. After Edet, we had some other interviews at the bar, at the market (buying what we don’t really need sometimes only to give them to other respondents), at a popular burukutu (local beer) joint, in canteens and church environs.
What is glaring from all the responses to our questions is that there seems to be element of aggression and frustration, which is being vented on these innocent children. The belief in witchcraft has stunted the growth of unchained creativity and made many Akwa-Ibomites to recoil unnecessarily to fate, visiting only pastors, Alfas (the Muslim witchdoctors) and the the traditional witchdoctors to ward off and cleanse themselves of the ‘curses or family jinx’ trailing them. Lean income, rather than been spent wisely are given to these modern day ‘fraudsters’ who ride in big cars for the spiritual ‘protections services’ they provided. In some cases, micro-finance loans, and financial compensations provided by the oil companies like Mobil Oil Unlimited, have been used in funding ‘witchcraft cleansing rituals’ rather than the small scale business that it was disbursed for. Some even ‘swore by the their fathers, grandfathers and great, great grandfathers’ that they will kill any child witch found in their families. Pathetic, enh?
So, what is the fate of these children? We sought audience with handful of local officials in charge of child welfare in Eket, Esit Eket and Ibeno local government areas and the youth council officials in Eket Zone. Specifically, we met the General Secretary of the Eket Youth Council, who also doubles as the Chairman of the Ibeno Youth Council, Mr. Ebong Edem and some of his executive members.
The local social workers opined that although they are convinced that these children are witches, yet as their duties demands, they are willing to help them, most especially in providing psychological counseling and rehabilitation, mostly biblically colored, for them. It was as if they have all rehearsed the same statement for ‘journalists’ (what we claimed to be). What is baffling is: how can a child, someone less than ten years old, think of seking ‘psychological counseling’? That to us is complete bullshit!! Why not offer the counseling to their parents and friends, we thought. Those are the people that need counseling. The representatives of the youths that we spoke with exhume hope and skepticism yet they can’t voice them. One sure fact, however, is that they are willing to do something about it.
That is exactly the kind of spirit that we need in our attempt to clear the slur on our image and stall the attempt to regress us back into the European middle ages. The people, as we observe, need to be enlightened on the provisions of the Child Rights Act, although ignorance of the law is not an excuse. The Akwa-Ibom State Ministry of Information needs to run campaigns that will inform and educate Akwa-Ibomites on the provisions of the Child Rights Act, passed by the Akwa Ibom state House of Assembly and signed by Governor Akpabio, which criminalise childwitch hunting and stigmatizing. The provision that deals with this reads: anyone caught or suspected to be involved in any form of torture, trial by ordeal or inhuman treatment of a child, purportedly to cure, purge or exorcise such a child of witchcraft would be liable to 10 years imprisonment without an option of fine. This to us is a precious and timely addition to subsisting Section 207 of the nation’s Criminal Code Act Cap 38(2004) which criminalize any trial by ordeal and Section 208 which stipulates that any person who directs, controls or presides at any trial by ordeal which is unlawful, “is guilty of a felony” and is liable on conviction to severe punishment.
Obviously, these children are mere victims of poverty ravaging the country and the inactivity of the state ministry concerned in dutifully informing the populace even when a very proactive measure have been taken by the Governor. We are, therefore, duty-bound as responsible global citizens to, by all moral means, assist in freeing these children from the shackles and bondages of poverty and ignorance they have been conditioned to live. We can do it!
Onward!
‘Yemi Ademowo Johnson, socio-political philosopher and applied anthropologist, is Editor, YouthSpeak!, Belgium, and International Coordinator, HAWK-Africa Project.
Yemi Ademowo Johnson
http://www.articlesbase.com/causes-and-organizations-articles/when-children-become-victims-of-poverty-and-ignorance-756041.html
Anti Poverty
Anti Poverty in USA
Even the wealthiest nation in the world like the United States does not escape the problem of poverty. This paper takes a critical look at poverty and anti-poverty policies in the United States. In this paper, I have argued that poverty is caused by several factors. This paper also discusses the liberal and conservative perspectives for reducing poverty in America. The conservatives have focused on individual factors such as wide wage gaps, breakdown of family, racial factors and other reasons while the liberals have focused on the structural transformation of the American economy to explain the persistence of poverty. Since 1960, both the federal and state governments have been responding with policies that address the problem with mixed results. In this paper, I have analyzed the policies and have also recommended the possible ways to deal with this intractable nature of poverty.
According to Sen (1981), ‘the poor are those people whose consumption standards fall short of the norms, or whose income lie below that line’. The word "poverty" suggests destitution, an inability to provide a family with nutritious food, clothing, and reasonable shelter. Over thirty-six million Americans live below the official U.S. poverty line (Blank, 2007). This means a family of three earns less than less than $ 16,000 or a single individual earns $10,300 per annum (Blank, 2007, p. 17). Millions more struggle each month to pay for basic necessities, or run out of savings when they lose jobs or face health emergencies. Job cuts, high rates of unemployment, foreclosures and high food and gas prices continue to stimulate policy formulation designed to improve the condition of the poor.
Poverty is integrally associated with misery and suffering. The lost potential of children in poor households and the lower productivity and earnings of poor adults are all intertwined with poor health, increased crime and broken neighborhoods. Childhood poverty typically leads to poor health care and high crime neighborhoods. Persistent childhood poverty is estimated to cost the United States $500 billion each year, or about 4% of the nation’s gross domestic product (Blank, 2007, p.1).
One in eight Americans lives in poverty and poverty in the United States is far higher than in many developed nations (Rebecca Blank, 2007, p1). Inequality has reached record high. The richest 1 percent of Americans in 2005 held the largest share of the nation’s income (19%) since 1929 (Rebecca Blank, 2007, p. 2). At the same time the poorest 20% of Americans held only 3.4% of the nation’s income (Rebecca Blank, 2007, p.2).
Colorado in spite of being surrounded by the beautiful Rocky Mountains and experiencing a cool, mountain climate has many homeless people. Scholars have identified that, a growing number of single parent households, a shortage of jobs for lower wage workers and a low rate of high school graduation have contributed to the growth of poverty in Colorado. The Colorado poverty rate has increased from 9.2% in 2000-2001 to 10.6% in 2005-2006 while the poverty rate of United States has increased from 11.5% in 2000-2001 to 12.5 % in 2005-2006 (Center on Law and Policy, 2006, p.1). Most of these ill-fated poor people suffer from mental and health problems.
Causes of Poverty
Policy analysts are trying to explore numerous perceived direct and indirect causes of poverty in the United States to formulate effective policies to alleviate poverty. The work of scholars such as Corley (2003), Sowell ( 2004), Iceland (2006), Jencks (1992), James Tobin (1993) and others have shown that the intractable nature of poverty is a result of not any one factor but of the interaction of a variety of causes. The breakdown of family and other social causes as well as the structural changes in the economy, have all contributed to society’s failure to eradicate poverty inspite of ardent efforts by policy analysts.
Individual Explanation of poverty mainly stresses the attitudinal or motivational factors and human capital factors. Thus lack of motivation among indigents causes poverty. Generous welfare programs sometimes affect the mind-set of recipients and they prefer to stay at home and enjoy the benefits rather than work outside. Murray (1984) argues that individuals prefer to remain on welfare because of insufficient motivation to come out from public welfare programs.
Formulation and proliferation of policies to alleviate poverty has been a major concern of the United States Government since 1960. Educational attainment is necessary to get a high paying job. Elementary school education, as well as lack of adequate skills and motivation among indigents to come out of the situation is the major causes of poverty. People well equipped with technical skills get high salaried jobs while people who are school drop outs get low pay on an hourly basis. During the 1960s when the then- President of United States Lyndon Johnson began to implement the United States ‘war on poverty’, he placed great emphasis on education (Jencks, 1992). The Lyndon Johnson administration even invested in programs like Head Start and occupational training to upgrade the skills of the poor and also to prevent future generations from working in low-paying jobs. Scholars like Sowell (2004) and Corley (2003) have emphasized individual level factors as the central causes of poverty. They argue that a person’s compensation is based on his or her educational qualification and marketable skills. Sowell (2004) argues that the lack of appropriate skills has affected the ability of many indigents to climb out of poverty. He also argues that there has been an increase in the poverty rate of unskilled Americans, who have lost jobs to Asian immigrants. Corley (2003) also supports the above argument and regards ‘lack of educational attainment’ as one of the entrenched sources of poverty. Low quality education from poorly funded inner-city schools results in few marketable skills which leads to low-wage jobs and other miseries associated with it such as less ability to pay for housing, food, clothing, medical care, bad neighborhoods, funding problems for schools, and increased risk of serious illness (Corley, 2003).
Many scholars have argued that structural changes are the primary reason for the persistence of poverty in the United States. Structuralists emphasize issues such as joblessness, discrimination in education, institutional racism and economic transformations in explaining the causes of poverty. Scholars argue that the inability to provide decent paying jobs for some American families and the ineffectiveness of American public policy to reduce poverty are basically the result of structural failures and processes. Poverty is rooted in the structure of American society. Rank, 2004 supports the above view and argues that lack of human capital tends to place individuals in a vulnerable state when events and crises occur. The incidence of these events like loss of a job, family break-up and ill-health often result in poverty. These ill-fated people unable to handle these situations often end up in paying more. Scholars also argue that the acquisition of human capital is strongly influenced by the impact of social class on this process (Rank, 2004). Apart from poor family, race and gender also play a role in the acquisition of human capital (Mark Robert Rank, 2004).
Globalization, the expansion of credit markets leading to greater indebtness and foreclosures leading to recession in 2008 all point to the growth of poverty. Iceland (2006) primarily focused on economic factors and has argued that poverty is also the product of deindustrialization. As the U.S. shifts from a manufacturing, industrial society to a service-oriented, high-tech society, many of the blue-collar jobs that required little education but paid well are disappearing or are being outsourced. Rural areas, such as Appalachia, suffer losses of mining jobs, and cities such as Detroit lose many manufacturing jobs to automation or overseas factories. Some people are unable to follow the jobs or commute to work are left in neighborhoods without employment or tax-basis to support needed social functions, such as schools, public transportation, police departments, and so forth. Others simply cannot find jobs because of the shift towards a service-based economy; in economic terms these people are structurally unemployed due to the changing skills needed. Tobin (1993) supports the above viewpoint and emphasizes on the disappearance of jobs in the 1900s as the main reason for the country’s failure to eradicate poverty. Recent employment data shows that the US housing slump and the crisis in America’s credit markets are threatening to increase poverty levels. Isidore (2008) mentions that the job losses are widespread, with the battered construction sector losing 51,000 jobs and manufacturing employment falling by 48,000 in the year 2008 . Retail employment dropped by 12,000 jobs, and business and professional service employers cut staff by 35,000. The unemployment rate jumped to 6.1% in September from 4.9 % in January (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2008).
Kelso (1994), argues that over the last forty years, there has been a major shift of American firms first to the west and then to the south. Part of this shift was due to the rise of the Cold War and the decision of the government to enlarge U.S. military power (kelso, 1994). He argues that as America elected to invest more in defense and in the aerospace industry, cities like Seattle and Los Angeles on the West Coast began to boom while the growth of a high technology and information based technology led to the growing affluence of California and the San Francisco Bay area. Later with the expansion of inter-state highway system and growth of jobs, markets were created in the south.
Iceland (2006) also argues that although the service sector of the economy has generated millions of jobs, but again polarized earning distribution based on educational attainment separates better paying jobs from poorer paying jobs. He supports a Marxian analysis of class conflict and exploitation and emphasizes on business owners favor hiring inexpensive labor to maximize profit. This also accounts for the inflow of cheap labor to the United States from Mexico and other countries. Greater access to credit has put cars, computers, credit cards, and even homes within reach for many more of the working poor. But this remaking of the marketplace for low-income consumers has a dark side. Roubini notes that, "Having access to credit should be helping low-income individuals, but instead of becoming an opportunity for upward social and economic mobility, it becomes a debt trap for many trying to move up (Grow and Epstein, 2007).
Inspite of public assistance and wide initiatives taken by both Federal and State governments, poverty still exists. Meticulous analysis of the situation and effective formulation of policies is needed to solve the problem of poverty in the United States. Scholars like Rank (2004), Blank (2007) and others have shown that the United States Government spends fewer funds addressed towards poverty than any other industrialized country. Thus a major structural failure is found at the political level (Rank, 2004). Most European countries provide a wide range of insurance programs, unemployment assistance, and wide universal health coverage along with considerable support for child care (Rank, 2004). Such social programs are far more generous than those in the United States (Rank, 2004). While, low-income families in the United States work more than those in other countries, they are still not able to make up for lower governmental income support relative to their European counterparts (Blank, 2007, 141-142).
The gross disparities among impoverished people in the United States along racial lines have led many scholars to speculate that institutional racism is responsible for much of the poverty in the United States. Racial discrimination in employment and education contribute to the growth of poverty. Some scholars like Massey and Denton (1993) interpret the statistics in terms of institutional racism while others like Kelso (1994) interpret the statistics as evidence of deficiencies and suffering of blacks. In spite of efforts to remove racism, slavery and Jim Crow segregation, Massey and Denton (1993) argue that racial segregation still exists and that the fundamental cause of poverty among African Americans is segregation. They argue that segregation has created and perpetuated a black underclass by limiting educational and employment opportunities. Massey and Denton (1993) have shown that Blacks were shown homes in racially mixed areas or areas adjacent to predominantly black areas.
Also, changing patterns of family formation are more pronounced among racial and ethnic groups. Family patterns are also one of the causes of poverty in the United States. There is a wide gender gap in wages. In 2004 the median income of FTYR male workers was $40,798, compared to $31,223 for FTYR female workers (DeNavas-Walt et al, 2005) Pearce (1978) argues that ‘poverty is rapidly becoming a female problem’. Iceland (2006) supports this statement and showed that in 2000, the female poverty rate (12.5%) was 26% higher than the male poverty rate (9.9%) (Iceland, 2006). According to Iceland, women have fewer economic resources than men, and they are more likely to be the head of single- parent families. It also leads to the greater likehood that single, divorced or widowed women will be poorer than their male counterparts because of less social security income or other retirement income in addition to higher female life expectancies. Women’s lower wages, lower retirement benefits and the increasing number of single mothers have led some scholars to talk about the “Feminization of Poverty.”
Federal policies
After the Second World War, by 1963, creation of jobs by President John F. Kennedy’s tax policies could not remove the problem of poverty. Poverty was still recognized as a major national problem. President Lyndon B. Johnson’s War on Poverty led to a host of programs that included Medicare, Medicaid, Food Stamps, Aid to Families with Dependent Children, and others. These entitlements eventually consumed half the federal budget and could not alleviate poverty. The U.S. economy had been devastated by the recession of 1979-83 when the United Statess manufacturing infrastructure was shattered by the Federal Reserve’s skyrocketing interest rates causing unemployment to shoot up by sixty-five percent in four years (Cook, 2007). By the end of the 1980s the economy was in another recession, leading to the election of Bill Clinton who in 1992 replaced the incumbent George H.W. Bush. The investment boom of the 1990s was fueled by foreign capital lured in by the Treasury’s strong dollar policies. Jobs were created as the dot.com bubble expanded, trade barriers fell, and utility trading giants like Enron took off. NAFTA was enacted to promote free trade, welfare-to-work brought low-income women into the job market, and the Earned Income Tax Credit was extended. The party ended when the stock market crashed in December 2000 and millions of people lost their retirement savings and other investments. Recession was returning even as George W. Bush was being declared president by the U.S. Supreme Court in December 2000. The economic crisis deepened after the September 11, 2001 attacks when $1.4 trillion in wealth vanished during the worst five days of the stock market since the Great Depression (Cook, 2007). Cook (2007) argues that today, poverty is becoming a national catastrophe. Cook (2007) argues that from 2002 through 2006 the economy was floated by the housing bubble, with many lower income people getting into homes of their own through the proliferation of sub prime mortgages. With the financial woes in late 2008, many American citizens are left with inflated home prices and no way to pay for them.
The 1960’s policy initiatives and declaration of ‘unconditional war on poverty’ by the then president Lyndon Johnson marked a discrete change in the federal government’s willingness to intervene for the purpose of improving the economic situation of poor Americans. Despite the billions of dollars spent on programs like CETA (Comprehensive Employment Training Act), The Manpower Development and Training Act, Head Start, and the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the government efforts to deal with the origins of poverty have met with minimal success. During this period, implementation of the Social Security old-age program insured virtually all retired workers against the risk of outliving their savings. The Social Security Act of 1935 sought to protect the incomes of those who did not work because of age or a poor economy by establishing a federal framework for unemployment insurance, old-age benefits, and assistance to women. In early 1964, the two most pressing priorities of President Johnson’s antipoverty agenda involved passing a massive tax cut designed to stimulate the economy and organizing a task force to shape the ‘War on Poverty’. The Economic opportunity Act (EOA) signed by Johnson created a long list of programs designed to help individuals develop marketable skills, political power, and civic aptitude. But this anti-poverty legislation oversaw other programs like Community Action Program, Job Corps, VISTA, Head Start (1965), Legal Services (1965) which were not included in its framework. While extensive programs like the Food Stamp Program, Medicare for elderly, Medicaid applied to qualified poor residents, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act for poor students overshadowed the EOA. The Higher Education Act eased the financial burdens of millions of college students. The Civil Rights Act opened up new spaces in the American marketplace, while the Voting Rights Act did the same for the political marketplace. The Fair Housing Act established an important base of law to combat housing discrimination. As a result the EOA slowly lost importance. Again, Murray (1984) argues that welfare benefits had soared so high so as to make living in poverty a meaningful option for the poor. Even Burton (1992) has supported the above viewpoint and argues that the programs have done more to cause poverty than to alleviate it.
When Nixon assumed power, he tried to deal with poverty in a more direct way than emphasizing social programs. . Although President Nixon expressed dislike for much of the War on Poverty, his administration responded to public pressure by maintaining most programs and by expanding the welfare state through the liberalization of the Food Stamp program, the indexing of Social Security to inflation, and the passage of the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program for disabled Americans (Rank, 2004). The Nixon administration also endorsed a “New Federalism” in which the federal government shifted more authority over social welfare enterprises to state and local governments. His plan to implement the ‘Family Assistance Plan’ (FAP) consisted of various income provisions, work provisions, and training provisions for those below the poverty line (Rank, 2004). It failed to pass the Senate much like the ‘Programs for Better Jobs and Income’ initiated by President Carter in later years. Welfare reform continued as a focus of federal policy debates even after the legislative defeat of FAP. Even though a cash ‘Negative income Tax’ (NIT) for all poor persons never passed, the Food Stamp program provided a national benefit in food coupons that varied by family size, regardless of state of residence or living arrangements or marital status. The number of AFDC recipients increased from about 6 million to 11 million and the number of food stamp recipients, from about 1 million to 19 million during the Nixon administration (Danziger, 1999, p. 8). Danziger (1999) also argues that as higher cash and in-kind benefits became available to a larger percentage of poor people, the work disincentives and high budgetary costs of welfare programs were increasingly challenged. The public and policy makers came to view increased welfare recipients as evidence that the programs were subsidizing dependency and encouraging idleness.
Despite the failure to enact a guaranteed income program, both the number of recipients and the amount of money spent on welfare programs increased substantially during the 1970’s (Rank, 2004). Rank (2004) has given an overview of Reagan’s policies and noted that Reagan emphasized individual action unhampered by government interference, rejected the social engineering of the 1960’s and also supported federalism, that is, returning power to the states rather than centralizing them within the federal government. Reagan tried to address the problem and set the tone for welfare reform that occurred in 1990 during his successor’s administration. The Reagan administration thought eligibility for welfare benefits had increased so much, that many persons who were not “truly needy” were receiving benefits. The Reagan Administration opposed simultaneous receipt of wages and welfare benefits. Rather, it proposed that welfare become a safety net, providing cash assistance only for those unable to secure jobs.
The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), enacted in 1975, provides families of the working poor with a refundable income tax credit (i.e., the family receives a payment from the Internal Revenue Service if the credit due exceeds the income tax owed). Thus the EITC raises the effective wage of low-income families, is available to both one- and two-parent families, and does not require them to apply for welfare. The maximum EITC for a poor family was $400 in 1975 and rose to $550 by 1986 (Danziger, 1999, p. 14). The 1986 Tax Reform Act increased the EITC so that by 1990 a low-income working parent received a maximum credit of $953 (Danziger, 1999, p. 14). The number of families receiving credits increased from between 5 and 7.5 million families a year between 1975 and 1986 to more than 11 million by 1988 (Danziger, 1999, p. 14). Danziger, 1999 argues that as the expanded EITC supplements low earnings, it became easier for policy makers to emphasize welfare reform policies that could place recipients into any job, rather than training them for “good jobs.” Thus he argues that if a nonworking recipient took a low-wage job, a substantial EITC could make work pay as much as a higher-wage job would have paid in the absence of an EITC.
The Family Support Act (FSA) of 1988 expanded the scope of the AFDC program for two-parent families, instituted transitional child care and Medicaid for recipients leaving welfare for work, and added funds and required states to establish programs to move greater numbers of welfare recipients into employment. When the welfare rolls jumped in the late-1980s and early-1990s, from about 11 to about 14 million recipients, dissatisfaction with welfare again increased ( Danziger, 1999).
President Nixon identified the two main economic problems, inflation and unemployment, that justify the need for economic recovery to the American worker. Reagan has emphasized despair caused by unemployment combined with high inflation. Reagan’s rhetorical construction of welfare recipients and the welfare system was aimed at reducing anxiety among Americans caused by increasing taxes, inflation and the continuous fear of losing jobs. To end this victimization, Reagan proposed a plan for economic recovery (Rank, 2004). Apart from cutting government spending, specifically spending on social programs, Reagan also proposed to have State governments assume control of Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) and the food stamps program in exchange for the Federal Government control of Medicaid. Although this proposal failed to reach the Congressional floor, his presentation of the proposal to exchange AFDC and food stamp program with Medicaid made poverty a local concern (Mark Robert Rank, 2004).
Liberals and conservatives still disagreed on other goals of welfare-to-work programs. Liberals thought welfare reform should expand opportunities for welfare mothers to receive training and work experiences that would help them raise their families’ living standards by working more and at higher wages. Conservatives emphasized work requirements, obligations welfare mothers owed in return for government support whether or not their families’ incomes increased (Mead, 1992).
In later years President Clinton’s approach also emphasized empowerment as a way of helping welfare recipients and to accumulate more savings without being penalized and expanding the earned income tax credit (Blank, 2007). By the mid-1990s, the focus of policy concern shifted from fighting poverty to reducing welfare dependence. President Clinton’s signing of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (the PRWORA) ended the entitlement to cash assistance and dramatically changed the nature of the social safety net. The Act created the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families Program (TANF). TANF began on July 1, 1997, provides cash assistance to indigent American families with dependent children through the United States Department of Health and Human Services (The Center for American Progress Task Force on Poverty, 2007). Danziger, 1999 argues that each state can now decide which families to assist, subject only to a requirement that they receive “fair and equitable treatment.” In instituting a block grant program, the PRWORA granted states the ability to design their own systems, as long as states met a set of basic federal requirements. The bill’s emphasis on ending welfare as an entitlement program, places a lifetime limit of five years on benefits paid by federal funds, and also aims to encourage two-parent families and discourages out-of-wedlock births. In granting states wider latitude for designing their own programs, some states have decided to place additional requirements on recipients. Although the law placed a time limit for benefits supported by federal funds of no more than 2 consecutive years and no more than 5 years over a lifetime, some states have enacted more stringent limits. All states, however, have allowed exceptions with the intent of not punishing children because their parents have gone over the time limit. Federal requirements have ensured some measure of uniformity across states, but the block grant approach has led individual states to distribute federal money in different ways. Certain states more actively encourage education, others use the money to help fund private enterprises helping job seekers. The PRWORA offers no opportunity to work in exchange for welfare benefits when a recipient reaches her lifetime limit of 60 months of federally-supported cash assistance. But the reform has certain limits. States may not use federal block grant funds to provide more than a cumulative lifetime total of 60 months of cash assistance to any welfare recipient, no matter how willing she might be to work for her benefits, and they have the option to set shorter time limits. States can grant exceptions to the lifetime limit and continue to use federal funds for up to 20 percent of the caseload. The extent of work expectations has also been increased. Single-parent recipients with no children under age one will be expected to work at least 30 hours per week by FY 2002 in order to maintain eligibility for cash assistance (Danziger, 1999, p 20). States can require participation in work or work-related activities regardless of the age of the youngest child. Thus PRWORA emerged from research that sought both to reduce poverty and welfare dependency (Danziger, 1999). In the 1990s, following Clinton’s call to “end welfare as we know it,” policy makers escalated their demands for recipients to work and reduced government obligations toward and funds to serve them (Danziger, 1999).
When Bush took office in 2001, the U.S. was experiencing a national surplus, unemployment and poverty had been on the decline for years, and the economy was booming. Now, almost six years later, poverty is on the rise, healthcare coverage is on the decline, and the country is faced with the largest national deficit in history. Lower middle class families are slowly slipping below the poverty line and the poorest are becoming even more destitute. Most of these families are headed by women.
President Bush has extended the TANF. There has been a general economic stimulus policy initiative during the Bush administration but nothing targeting low income Americans has been enacted. President Bush signed the economic stimulus package (H.R. 5140) into law with the hope that it will provide a much-needed boost to the lagging economy. The package includes tax rebates for individuals, tax breaks for businesses, and a temporary increase of the Federal Housing Administration loans from $417,000 to $729,750 (White House report, 2008). More than 130 million people are expected to get tax rebates ranging from $300 to $1,200 per household for individuals earning $75,000 or less and couples earning up to $150,000 (White House report, 2008). While the stimulus package will provide much needed financial help to millions of people, it fails to target those most in need as it will not include an extension of unemployment benefits, energy assistance, food stamp benefits, or fiscal relief to states for Medicaid.
From the above analysis, the question arises whether poor are responsible for their own condition. The above analysis implies that recipients become dependent and lethargic due to vast welfare measures. Scholars such as Murray (1984) and Kilty and Segal (2006) have emphasized on individual factors. They argue that welfare measures and lack of spirit and motivation among indigents contribute poverty. Danziger, 1999 argues that during the Nixon era increased welfare measures encouraged idleness. Kilty and Segal, 2006 also argues that poor people can come out into a state of self-sufficiency from dependency by learning proper work attitude and skills. Kilty and Segal, 2006 argue the importance of welfare reform and a ‘tough love’ approach would ultimately help the poor by making them conscious of their condition and forcing them to take their own responsibility. Bill Clinton’s emphasis on ‘personal responsibility’ and measures to ‘end welfare as we know it’ in 1992 all supports the above argument.
Due to the implementation of TANF, the numbers of people on welfare have decreased. As a result more funds are accumulated. In 1996 the number of ADFC recipients was 12,644,076 while in 2001, the number of TANF recipients was 5,91, 811 and the poverty rate also reduced from 13.7 to 11.3 ( Kilty and Segal, 2006) and while in 2008 it is 1,628,422 ( US Dept of Health and Human Services). The share of single mothers on welfare (based on administrative caseload counts divided by population numbers) rose from 38 percent in 1969 to 48 percent in 1980, but had fallen to 30 percent by 1998 ( Kilty and Segal, 2006). These caseload changes are widespread, with every state in the country experiencing substantial caseload decline. This decline has been widely hailed by politicians as an indication that policies designed to reduce dependence on public assistance and move less-skilled adults into the labor market have been extremely effective ( Blank, 2007). But however Blank argues that declines in welfare do not affect the poverty rate. The poverty rate in 2007 was 12.5 percent, increasing slightly from its level of 12.3 percent in 2006. The poverty rate increased for four straight years from 2000 to 2004. In 2007, the poverty rate was 1.2 percentage points higher than it was in 2000 (Blank, 2007).
States welfare initiatives
Most states took a significant decision about reform, and this decision was sensible in light of state goals and experience. A few states did not seriously make reform policy. New York was so deeply divided that it took no serious decisions about AFDC (Mead, 2002). Alabama and Missouri were pushed into reform by federal action and appeared to have little welfare policy of their own (Mead, 2002). In several other Southern states (Florida, North Carolina), policymaking appeared to be casual and personalized, with the governor or legislators offering reform plans with, apparently, little inquiry or evidence behind them( Mead, 2002) . Texas policymaking was incoherent as the state claimed to pursue work first but based its policy on an experimental program and focused far more on education and training (Mead, 2002). States have always emphasized on reform. But sometimes lower contribution towards these plans result in total failure of the program. Mead (2002) argues that in Florida and Georgia, however, officialdom was dragged into reform but showed little commitment to it. In Arizona and California, the agency or major localities had been heavily committed to a skills-oriented approach to welfare and resisted the shift toward work first. In Texas, welfare reform was a lower priority to administrators than rebuilding non-welfare employment programs and other initiatives. In Colorado and New Jersey, local agencies had a history of defiance toward the state government, and this prevented them from fully endorsing reforms decided in the capital. Mead (2002) argues that inspite of establishment of Employment Service (ES), a federally-funded job placement agency, and training programs under the federal Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA), poverty rate did not improve. After national welfare work programs were first enacted in 1967, the ES engaged in welfare practices. But because the ES’s routine stressed serving job seekers who came to it voluntarily, it generally performed poorly with welfare clients (Mead, 2002). These jobseekers came to it on a mandatory basis, as a condition of receiving aid. To succeed with them, the agency had to enforce work but also support employment with special services. The ES often found both these roles uncongenial (Mead, 2002). The ES was denoted to the role of contractor to welfare and later in 1988 the Workforce Investment Act (WIA) merged the ES, JTPA, and other non-welfare work programs. But this merging also created confusion. The problems included lack of clear procedures to refer clients to WIA, to serve them there, or to report results back to welfare. The states that lacked coordination and inadequate management information systems (MIS) were Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Washington, West Virginia, Florida, Georgia, and Tennessee.
Colorado’s public reform has been associated with decline in poverty rate. By the close of 2000, Colorado’s unemployment rate dropped to 2.6 percent, personal income showed steady gains, state welfare cases declined dramatically, and State legislators wrestled with an estimated $833 million revenue surplus (Colorado Fiscal Policy Institute, 2001). But inspite of all the above facts poverty still persists as expenses like child care, out-of-pocket medical expenses and geo-graphic differences in housing costs increased. The increases occurred even after adjusting for income support such as tax relief, food stamps and school lunch programs, housing subsidies and energy assistance. A report published in 2001 by the Colorado Fiscal Policy Institute determined that a single parent with two small children living in Denver County would need to earn an annual salary of approximately $39,924 in order to meet their basic needs such as housing, food, health care, childcare and transportation without public or private assistance. Even child poverty rate is high in Colorado. About 180,000 children, 15.7 percent of the state total was living in poverty in Colorado in 2006, a 73 percent increase since 2000 (Frosch, 2008). The state of Colorado purchases childcare for income eligible families through the Colorado Child Care Assistance Program (CCCAP). The state allows individual counties to set the purchase price of childcare and make payments to providers from a combination of parental fees and federal, state and county funds. However, the Colorado Office of Resource and Referral Agencies (CORRA) found in a 2001 study that the average county payment fell below 75 percent of market value (Colorado Fiscal Policy Institute, 2001, pp 9). As a result counties forced providers to subsidize the cost of service to low-income families, which many were simply unwilling to do when limited slots could be filled with families that could afford to pay full rates. Other providers that chose not to simply refuse service to CCCAP families saved money by limiting the number of children on CCCAP that they would accept, cutting programs, or reducing workers’ wages. All of these actions limited availability and sacrificed quality of care to low-income children. Poverty still exists in Colorado despite initiatives to alleviate poverty as too many working families lives with incomes below the poverty line and more families earn wages simply too low to afford their basic needs. The Colorado government started the Common Good Caucus in 2007 to develop a 2009 agenda, emphasizing on K-12 education and determined to bring technologies out of the laboratory and into the marketplace by investing $4.5 million dollars in bioscience industry, supporting the Clean Energy fund to reduce high family utility costs , creating the Colorado Solar Incentive Program with $2 million to provide rebates for photovoltaic and solar thermal systems to help Coloradans join the new energy economy and cut their utility bills ( State Rep. Kerr Andy, 2008). Poor people cannot pay the full cost of heating and lighting their homes. Governments and social service agencies have long assisted low-income ratepayers in paying their bills through such programs as the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), charitable fuel funds, levelized billing, discounts, home weatherization, energy efficiency, energy usage education and debt management. If all Americans live in weatherized and energy efficient homes and have the income to pay their full share of utility bills, all other ratepayers would save nearly $6 billion in poverty costs, including fuel assistance, lifeline and other rate assistance, weatherization and efficiency costs, the costs of late payments and service disconnections (Oppenheim and MacGregor, 2007).
Recommendations
From the above analysis it is clear that poverty remains pervasive due to the economic system, social stratification and welfare measures. According to Iceland (2003) on one hand, economic growth and technological changes contribute to increase in wages and overall standard of living. Economic growth accompanied by rising education levels improves the condition of people. On the other hand, the market economy often exerts a contrary effect on poverty levels (Iceland, 2003). To maximize profits, businesses usually seek to pay low wage to workers which increase inequality and poverty. Again policy may increase or decrease the harmful effects of inequality. Combining the factors emphasized by both liberals and conservatives, poverty is multifaceted. I believe that a strong national effort would alleviate poverty. Employment opportunities for all so that that worker and their families can avoid poverty, meet basic needs and save for the future. Increasing hourly wages would definitely improve the condition of these people. A smaller share of unemployed low-wage workers, receive unemployment insurance benefits. I believe that states (with federal help) should reform “monetary eligibility” rules that screen out low-wage workers, broaden eligibility for part-time workers and workers who have lost employment as a result of compelling family circumstances. Workers should use this period of unemployment and the money received from the Unemployment Insurance System and upgrade their skills and qualifications. Thus adults should have opportunities throughout their lives to connect to work, get more education, and live in a good neighborhood and move up in the workforce.
Child care assistance to low-income families and emphasis on K 12 education would definitely reduce the rate of poverty in the United States. Low-income youth hardly attend college than their higher income peers. Pell Grants play a crucial role for lower-income students. Simplification of the Pell grant application process, and encouragement of institutions to do more to raise student completion rates would definitely improve the condition. Expansion of Pell Grants would make higher education accessible to residents of each state. The states at the same time should also develop strategies to make postsecondary education affordable for all residents. Expansion of the Saver’s Credit would encourage saving for education, homeownership, and retirement. As a result all Americans would have assets that would allow them to weather periods of volatility and to have the resources that may be essential for upward economic mobility. Apart from Saver’s credit, expansion of Earned Income Tax Credit would raise incomes and helps families build assets. Thus there should be opportunity for all so that children grow up in conditions that maximize their opportunities for success.
References:
Blank Rebecca (2007); Poverty to Prosperity; Center for American task force on Poverty;
www.americanprogress.org/issues/2007/04/pdf/poverty_report.pdf – Similar pages
Colorado Statewide Homeless Count (2007), School of Public Affairs, University of Colorado, denver.www.dola.state.co.us/cdh/Publications/Winter_2007_Statewide_PIT.pdf – Similar pages
Cook Richard (2007), Poverty in America
www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=5905 – 61k – Cached – Similar pages
Corley Mary Ann (2003); Poverty, Racism and Literacy; ERIC Clearinghouse on Adult Career and Vocational Education
Danziger Sheldon (1999), Welfare Reform Policy from Nixon to Clinton, Institute for for Social Research, University of Michigan.
De Navas-Walt, et al., “Income, Poverty and Health Insurance in the United States: 2005.
Diana Pearce Diana Pearce (1978) "The Feminization of Poverty: Women, Work, and Welfare," Urban and Social Change Review.
Iceland John (2006); Poverty in America; University of California Press
Isidore Chris (2008); the Trillion-Dollar Mortgage Bomb,
money.cnn.com/2008/04/21/news/economy/fannie_freddie/?postversion=2008042103 – 66k –
James Tobin (1993); Poverty in Relation to macroeconomic Trends, Cycles and Policies; Cowles foundation discussion paper.
Garima Dasgupta
http://www.articlesbase.com/politics-articles/anti-poverty-688499.html
Corruption in Africa: a Cancer That Won’t Go Away
‘Corruption is one of the most formidable challenges to good governance, development and poverty reduction’ in Africa says 2008 Transparency International Report.
It has been said that corruption in Africa is like an advanced cancer or tumour that cannot be treated. Like cancer, corruption has tragically devastated African societies and made millions of people very poor. From South Africa to Egypt the tentacles of corruption reaches every where. Corruption has no boundaries. From the offices of presidents and prime ministers to the smallest administration unit of government corruption is everywhere. According to the Africa Union (AU) around $148 billion are stolen from the continent by its leaders and civil servants every year. The recent Forbes’ list of most corrupt nations had 9 out of the first 16 countries coming from Africa.
In Africa, very few government officials and civil servants perform services for free. You cannot get your birth certificate or passport unless you grease the palm of officials. You cannot get good education for your kid unless you pay a bribe. You cannot obtain electricity meter for your house unless you pay a bribe. You cannot get your goods out from the harbour unless you pay kickback. Anything involving signing of documents involves paying inducements. In Africa you can hardly find someone who has not paid bribe before either willingly or unwillingly. To receive attention when you are sick you need to grease the palm of hospital officials.
In Ghana, officials illegally charge 15 and 150 Ghana cedis for a birth certificate and a passport respectively. Again in Ghana Police officers openly ask bus and taxi drivers to pay bribe before they are allowed to cross mounted road blocks. Customs officials adopt all manner of tactics in order to collect money from importers and exporters before their goods are allowed to leave the ports.
Most projects in Africa are carried out by corrupt contractors who collude and connive with public officials to inflate project cost in order to enrich themselves. As a result every project carried out cost three times the usual cost and it is always the tax payers who bear the brunt of it. Due to corruption, project inspectors fail to do their job and allow substandard work to be done at the expense of the people and the nation.
In Africa, it is totally useless to bid for contracts because contracts are awarded to the contractors who are able to pay the biggest bribe. In most countries there are no announcements for tenders rather contracts are awarded to companies who secretly pay large sums of commission to government officials.
For example on 17th September 2002 a Canadian Engineering company called Acres International was convicted by a High Court in Lesotho for paying $260,000 bribe to secure an $8 billion dam contract in the tiny Southern African nation of Lesotho.
Achair Partners a Swiss company and Progresso an Italian company have been accused of bribing Somali Transition Government officials in order to secure contracts to deposit highly toxic industrial waste in the waters of Somalia.
In 2002 Halliburton a US company was accused of establishing $180m flush fund with the intent of using it to bribe Nigeria officials in order to secure a $10 billion Liquefied Gas Plant contract in the Nigeria. In response to the accusation the company fired Mr. Albert Jack Stanley. Mr. Stanley a former executive of Halliburton (KBR) has pleaded guilty for orchestrating the $180m flush fund. Even though Halliburton denied any knowledge of such a fund a report by the company later named a British called Jeffrey Tesler as the middleman behind the bribery. Such corrupt practices by western companies seeking contracts in Africa are not uncommon.
In Africa contracts are awarded to party faithfuls who in turn make handsome financial contributions to the party in power. Because of corruption and nepotism anyone can become a contractor in Africa. In Africa, state coffers or the treasury are the personal property of the president/prime minister, his family, his cronies and his political party. In most African countries there is no separation or difference between state and ruling party resources.
Corruption is so endemic in African societies that, political parties have been pledging to combat it with deadly force but when they are elected nothing seem to change. When former president of Ghana John Kuffour took office he said ‘there will be zero tolerance for corruption’ in his government but his party recently lost power amid accusation that he was unable to tame his corrupt officials.
Despite years of exports of oil, gold, diamond, bauxite, tin, coltan, uranium, manganese timber and several other valuable minerals the continent continue to be ranked as the poorest on earth because most of the revenue from these exports do not get to the people but find its way into the bank accounts of corrupt government officials, civil servants and their allies.
Since oil was first discovered in Nigeria about 50 years ago, over $400 billion have been realised from its sale but today the whole population continue to live in abject poverty and the country has nothing to show or account for the billions of dollars she has received for years. Those who have benefited from the oil are corrupt politicians, civil servants, a shadow economy, armed bandits, army generals and the big oil corporations such as Shell, Mobil, BP and their American counterparts. As a result able men and women are battling dangerous seas just to enter Europe and try their luck. Others have resulted to 419 a popular scam used to trick people into given out their money and valuables. In fact Nigeria has consistently featured in the top 1% of the most corrupt nation on the planet.
Between 2005 and 2007 several state governors and their immediate families were arrested by Scotlandyard in London on corruption and money laundering charges.
Among them are James Ibori of oil rich Delta State and his wife Theresa who had their $35m asset frozen by the English court. Mr. Ibori earns about a thousand dollars a month but during his eight years as a state governor he managed to acquire wealth to the tune of $35m and was a key financial contributor to the campaign of the current president of Nigeria. He owns a private jet and a lavish London home.
Another corrupt governor is Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, governor of oil-rich state of Bayelsa who was also arrested in London for money laundering charges. Mr. Alamieyeseigha broke his bail conditions and evaded capture in Britain by dressing up as a woman. When Police conducted a search in his London home they discovered one million pounds worth of cash in his home.
Another governor who was arrested in England was Joshua Dariye of Plateau State. He was arrested in a London hotel for stealing money meant for development of his state.
But these thieves have no rank compared to the heavyweights like Abacha, Mobutu, Eyadema, Lansana Conte, Obiang Nguema, Omar Bongo, Mubarak and Arap Moi.
In the 1990s economic hardship, abject poverty and destruction of the environment forced the people of Ogoniland in Nigeria to demand a say in which Shell operates but the military regime led by Gen. Sani Abacha arrested the environmentalists led by Ken Sorowiwa and executed them. You may wonder why Abacha killed his country men instead of protecting and providing for their needs. According to available data Nigeria government Lawyers within the period that Abacha became Head of State i.e. between 1993 and 1998 he stole $4 billion of Nigeria’s oil money and stashed it in several secret bank accounts in Switzerland, Britain, Luxemburg, Jersey Island and Liechtenstein. In April, 2002 these countries agreed to return $1 billion of the stolen money to the people of Nigeria. So far about $2 billion have been returned to the government of Nigeria and the rest of the money is still sitting in bank accounts in Western countries notably Switzerland and Britain.
A visit to the Niger Delta region of Nigeria shows that majority of the people especially the youth are unemployed. Years of oil spills have made the soil unfit for any agricultural activity. Their streams and wells are polluted and the people have no access to basic necessities of life because their leaders have enriched themselves with the money.
Every effort to get the Nigeria government to develop the oil rich areas fell on death ears until the unemployed youth took up arms against the federal government and oil companies. They kidnapped foreign oil workers and demanded ransom before their victims were released. They disrupted the oil production forcing the oil companies to move several miles offshore for their own safety but they were not safe either. Eventually, the companies had to reduce their output by 25% in 2007-8. These disruptions affected supply of oil in the world market forcing the price to skyrocket to $140 a barrel in the summer of 2008.
If Abacha could steal $4 billion within 5 years then you can tell how much the leaders who have ruled for decades have stolen. For example Gaddafi of Libya has been in power for 39 years now. Omar Bongo of Gabon 31 years, Teodoro Obiang Nguema of Equatorial Guinea 28 years, Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe 28 years, Hosni Mubarak of Egypt 27 years, Paul Biya of Cameroon 26 years, Yoweri Museveni of Uganda 22 years, Omar Al Bashir of Sudan 19 years, Iddriss Derby of Chad 17 years, Yahya Jammeh of Gambia 14 years.
I think you have now got the picture and understand why the African Union says $148 billion leave the continent every year.
The late Lansana Conte ruled Guinea for 24 years from 1984 to 2008. Sometimes having a leader maintaining stability in a country could translate into economic prosperity but this is not the case for Guinea. Even though Guinea is the world’s biggest exporter of bauxite, there is little very the country can show for it. Apart from bauxite, Guinea also have large deposits of gold diamond, iron, nickel and uranium yet poverty is so severe that the country was ranked among the top 1% of most corrupt countries in Africa. In fact according to a report by UN, Guinea ranks 160th out of 177 in the UN’s Development scale.
According to available documents 70% of revenue from of all mineral exports every year finds its way in the bank accounts of Lansana Conte and his cronies. Today the people lack portable water and electricity. Roads, rail lines, telecommunication, schools, hospitals are in severe deplorable conditions while money meant for their repair and maintenance sit in Europe and America being protected by banking secrecy laws. According to Aljazeera a credible and popular news broadcaster, corruption is so woven in Guinean society that school girls need not study as their promotion to next class is always assured by their male teachers who solicit sex from them. According to the students, those who refuse to sleep with their teachers are made to repeat a year in class. Female teachers on the other hand demand money to be paid in exchange for higher marks.
Why won’t the people be poor when their livelihoods have been taken away from them? Why?
On Friday 31, 2007 the Guardian newspaper in Britain reported a corruption scandal perpetrated by former president of Kenya Daniel Arap Moi and his family. According to the Guardian a 110 page report prepared by international risk consultancy firm Kroll exposed Arap Moi and his family and accused them of banking £1 billion in 28 countries including Britain. The report went further to say that the family used Shell Oil Company, secret trusts, front men and his entourage to siphon the money away.
Apart from the money, the Moi family also bought several multimillion pound properties in London, New York, South Africa including 10,000-hectare ranch in Australia and bank accounts containing hundreds of millions of pounds. It is on record that Mr. Moi’s sons Philip and Gideon are wealth £384m and £550m respectively. While majority of Kenyans live in rural areas, and live in mud/thatched houses with bamboo/raffia leaves as roofing sheet the Moi family live in a £4m home in Surrey and £2m flat in Knightsbridge. Arap Moi’s 24 year rule was largely corrupt and contributed to endemic poverty seen in Kenya today.
How do you expect the continent to develop when monies meant for her development are stolen by her leaders and kept by countries who praise themselves as civilised, cultured, loving and democratic?
In South Africa, Jacob Zuma is still battling it out with the court for his part in the multi-billion arms deal in South Africa in 2001. He was forced to resign as Deputy President of South Africa a clear embarrassment to the ANC government of former president Mbeki.
In 2006 former president of Malawi Bakili Muluzi was arrested for pocketing $12m donated to his poor country by foreign governments. Again former Zambia president Frederick Chiluba was arrested together with two business men Aaron Chungu and Faustin Kabwe and charged with 11 counts of stealing money meant for the Zambia’s development.
In Equatorial Guinea where oil export has earned the country billions of dollars, the 600,000 people living in the country continue to live in poverty while Teodoro Obiang Nguema and his cronies continue to siphon the oil revenue with no accountability.
Gabon and Angola both Oil exporting countries are no different. In fact, the governments in Gabon and Equatorial Guinea can best be described as Kleptocracy that is government by thieves. In countries such as Nigeria, Egypt, Cameroon, The Gambia, Sudan, Uganda, Libya, Tunisia a Kleptocracy class of people have replaced anything democracy. In these countries very few people continue to remain in power and the people have no say in the way their country is govern or run. For example Gaddafi of Libya has been in power for 39 years now. Omar Bongo of Gabon 31 years, Teodoro Obiang Nguema of Equatorial Guinea 28 years, Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe 28 years, Hosni Mubarak of Egypt 27 years and the list is unending.
How do you expect a person to rule for 30 years without being corrupt?
What is clear is that these unelected leaders continue to amass wealth at the expense of their poor countries and continue to mismanage whatever remains of their corrupt activities. Because most of the leaders are former military officers or former rebels with no grasp of economics and management, they are unable to formulate any good economic policies that will transform and grow their economies hence poverty has become a part of the people but their leaders know not what poverty is.
In DR Congo it is estimated that gold and diamond deposits alone could fetch the country 23 trillion dollars not to mention the abundance of timber and other several minerals that are found in large quantities such as columbo-tantalite (coltan) and cassiterite (tin ore) yet years of corruption, mismanagement, conflicts and foreign involvement have made this resource rich nation one of the poorest in the world.
It is often said that western nations cannot maintain their current level of lifestyle without Congo and most corporations in the west can easily go bust without Congo. The question is if Congo is the blood line of the west and the west is rich because of Congo then why is Congo so poor?
And where are the billions of dollars from the sale of these minerals? The answer lies in the history of the nation which is endemic corruption, colonialism, armed conflicts and foreign involvements. Mobutu in his 32 year reign is believed to have taken several billions of dollars from the treasury and deposited it in his numerous Swiss bank accounts. When President Kabila requested the Swiss for the money to be returned he was told Mobutu had just $7.6m. President Kabila frustrated and disappointment with the Swiss announcement said he had expected the Swiss to announce something like $1 billion or more.
But unconfirmed report indicate that the Swiss decided not to give the billions of dollars to the Congo government for fear that it would be stolen again by Kabila and his regime who are also deadly corrupt. Mobutu have several villas and mansions in France and Switzerland bought with money stolen from the Congo people. In 2001, items auctioned in his luxurious home in Switzerland fetched $100,000. The billions of dollars taken away from the country have made Congo one of the poorest in Africa. In Congo today there are no schools, hospitals, roads, telecommunication, rail, electricity and potable water. The only means of transport is through River Congo.
Everyday in Walikale about 16 aircraft fly out of the city with loads of minerals bound for Rwanda. These stolen minerals further find their way in the western mineral markets in London and Switzerland. The proceeds are shared by the Generals, politicians, western companies the businessmen in Rwanda, the warlords in Congo who use part of their share to acquire weapons that are used to terrorise the people and prolong the war. Watch the video below about Congo.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Io8c81xHLmw
Conclusion
Western governments are quick to preach good governance to Africa but they fail to preach the same message to their banks who act as save havens for these corrupt leaders. The western governments have forgotten that the existence of bank secrecy laws in Switzerland, Jersey Island, Britain, Liechtenstein, Luxemburg, Austria have encouraged these corrupt leaders to bank away monies meant for their countries’ development.
The name of Switzerland, Britain, France, Jersey Island, Liechtenstein and Luxemburg came up several times throughout this study of corruption in Africa as I try to establish where most of the stolen monies go. Even though these countries like to portray themselves as civilised and cultured with hearts of angels, they have failed to recognise that keeping monies that were dishonestly obtained from the poor people on earth taint whatever reputation they might have. In the case of Switzerland and her allies who keep these stolen monies it is so pathetic that they know they are receiving stolen monies yet due to greed they have done nothing to stop it.
The next time you are looking for stolen money from your country ask the Swiss government and the Swiss banks they always have a clue about it where about.
Africa is poor today because of colluding and connivance of Swiss and other western banks and the kleptocrats who rule Africa. Corruption is rife on the continent because those who steal the money never lack a place to hide them.
Fighting corruption should not be left to the poor countries alone.
Western media who always portray Africa as underdeveloped and backward must expose the banks in their countries who serve as save havens. The media should put pressure on politicians in Europe and America to reform the banking secrecy laws and make it punishable offence to receive monies from these corrupt leaders. Again the western media must campaign vigorously for all looted monies to be returned to their rightful owners in Africa. The western media must team up with civil organisations to expose western companies who pay bribes to secure contracts in Africa like Acres International, Halliburton, Trafigura, Achair Partners and Progresso.
Western countries have a duty to stop their nations being used as save havens for stolen monies from the African continent. Western countries should reform their banking laws. They should return all looted money put there by corrupt African leaders to the African people. There must be an international coalition dedicated to tracking all stolen monies on the face of the earth with Africa given to priority.
Africans should establish well funded independent Corruption watchdogs to investigate, prosecute and severely punish corrupt officials who engage in corrupt practices. The Africans must demand transparency and accountability in government. Laws must be enacted in Africa to protect whistle blowers who take the risk to expose corrupt practices.
It is by uniting to fight corruption that Africa can ever dream of parting with poverty.
Lord Aikins Adusei
http://www.articlesbase.com/economics-articles/corruption-in-africa-a-cancer-that-wont-go-away-738350.html
Government Jobs for Sale – Pay to Play Gone Wild
Most Americans sit in wonder of the long path from the Founding Fathers, whose best intentions were patriotic, to the “Floundering Fathers” whose best intentions are greed, self-importance and power lust. Attempting to conjure the images of Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams or George Washington, wallets open, handing money to partisans for a plum position in government is repulsive. The reality is that the path from honorable government to dishonorable government has swung wide and long into what has become the politically acceptable game of “Pay to Play”: Paying huge sums of money to a political party with the forward-thinking intent of garnering a seat in the Senate, House of Representatives or a governorship as an accepted, albeit, less than honorable means to an end.
Pay-to-play is so deeply ingrained into American politics that the floor of the Senate is littered with special interest lobbyists, highly paid, to sway government to their thinking. The position of the rest of citizenry, in terms of rights, is hazy at best. Government bought is government owned. The bigger the price tag, the bigger the parcel of ownership of government. To call such a political fantasy democracy is to contort the definition of the word, as it is commonly understood.
When big business has become big government, citizens lose on every level. Freedoms, enacted and legislated by constitution, become games of double entendre. Laws apply only according to financial status. Elitism abounds and serfdom rears its ugly head, even in the most modern of governments, when a seat in the Senate has a price tag.
Who is most responsible for “Pay-to-Play”? In a word, party bosses. These demons of the political world call all the shots. They and their closest inner circle cronies determine who can and will represent their party. From that point on, cronyism plants its roots that extend to the floor of the Senate, the House of Representatives and even, the Supreme Court. With a bastion of cronies at the ready to fill positions once their political star has won an election, the price tags are merely a matter of protocol. A shot at the position of governor only requires the fortunes of the Robber Barons for political support. But, a shot at a Senate or Congressional Rep seat is handled in truest party boss tyranny.
Each party boss believes in his own political divinity to the extent that “yes” men fairly bow at their feet. This cannot be construed as the honor of the Founding Fathers. Therefore, it must be construed as the dishonor of the Floundering Fathers. It is the dedicated virtue of all party bosses to totally annihilate any tendencies toward populism. If their political star doesn’t make hearts flutter or pant breathlessly, there’s always the electoral vote to bring in the desired results.
Presidents can undo an entire seated jury’s verdict with a simple pardon. Governors select state court judges, influence local politicians and on occasions, believe in the purity of selling Senate seats. With the audacity of a visionary, placing a price tag on a political position requires no accountability or integrity.
For more information on politics, visit http://senateseatforsale.com.
John Parks
http://www.articlesbase.com/politics-articles/government-jobs-for-sale-pay-to-play-gone-wild-704779.html
Nigeria: State and City police
The former President of Nigeria Olusegun Obasanjo fondly called “ Baba Iyabo” made an attempt to ask the nation if we needed a federal police system at the same time former Governor of Lagos state Asiwaju of Yoruba land Tinubu was advocating for a state police, the issue became so popular that it generated lots of opinions among Nigerians in and out of the country and in my contribution which was titled “ Towards internal Security” which was published online I was advocating for city and county police system similar to what is operated in the United States of America.
The article revealed Nigeria police as presently constituted was not only underpaid but under equipped for job in the 21st Century. A police recruit in the state of Texas gross pay is over $48,000 per annum in addition to this pay, if the recruit can speak other languages he earns more than his colleagues, his life insurance is over $250,000 if he dies in the line of his duty, the incentives attached to the job of Police in the state of Texas is so mouth watering that it will be difficult to accept bribe as a police officer and a mere look of a police officer in Dallas County is enough to convince any observer that the officer is not only well paid but also well equipped for the job.
The internal security of Nigeria is so broken down that kidnapping is more of an acceptable fashion like we used to read in James Hardly Chase novels with some notable titles like “ Wants to stay alive? “ Believed violent ‘and Well now my Pretty” which were very popular with my generation in the seventies. Kidnapping as handled by police in those novels revealed how United States of America handled issues of serious nature and how crimes were departmentalized as federal, state and city issues, it revealed how the country was able to move beyond sentiment of federal to allowing state and city to handle crimes.
With the above understand, in mind, and actual real situation on the ground, research revealed more than what James Hardly Chase mentioned, it revealed US police system was just as corrupt and under equipped like Nigeria before each state was allowed to have its own police and with only a supervisory role from the FBI. The last administration made a cosmetic approach toward this by establishing the EFCC but failed to remove the federal police system which would have given the supervisory role to EFCC over the state and city police through out the country.
The questions in the mind of the readers will be as follows, what will happen to the states and cities that can not afford to set up the police administration right now? Suppose the governors turn the new police system to political control machine? Suppose non indigenes are victimized with state and city police? These are understandable fears of those who will rather look at negative effect than looking at how such problem was handled by nations that had similar problems.
Our nature and composition, does not allow us to effectively operate a single federal Police system in a nation with various ethnic compositions, to alley the fear as mentioned above, the laws to give power to state and city to establish police must make it difficult for governors, local government chairmen and city mayors in future to exercise undue influence on the system. The law will allow those states and cities which will rather have the Federal police to stick with the present system while those states and cities in Lagos, Oyo, Anambra, kano to test the market for the state and city police.
The transition to state and city police can not happen overnight for all states because some will rather stick with what they are used to, it took the state of Oregon in America 100 years to adopt state police behind the state of Texas. Recruitment must reflect the state composition and federal character before funds can be released by the Federal government, and each state or City police must be subjected to EFCC supervision and when a complex which case can not be solved by the state or the city police the EFCC will move in to reorganize the police system of the state or city for a reasonable period that will be stated by the law.
The Present Mobile Police must be under the EFCC to take over any state or city police in case of emergency and the rest of the police force will be re-deployed to operate solely at state level and city that will require their services if they can not be totally employed by the states or cities they can be laid off and such men in uniform can work as security men for companies or private sectors.
The Yoruba has an adage “Opo kan ni eyin afaa, Iba je eyo kan ko sa le fi mu musa” meaning “The chief Imam does not need to have lots of functional teeth even if it is one as long as the Imam can pick donut with it” It is very funny, but it is true with the police system we have right now, it is not the numbers of men in uniform but a functional police system which can only be achieved by creating state and city police.
The current Federal police system is making a mockery of security in Nigeria, kidnapping today is more of lucrative business than 419 or internet advanced fee fraud, kings, wives and concubines, children and movies stars are being kidnapped on daily basis and the ransom are being announced by the press like lottery winning games.
Finally, unlike what all the doubting “Thomases” will want us to believe on the shortcomings of State and City Police, establishing it, is where the solution to internal security of Nigeria lies, it will not only solve the problem it will put tribal “things” called OPC, Egbesu and area boys out of business, Governors and future Mayors of each city performances will be measured before re-election, State and City police will help to enforce all the local laws passed by the State House of Assembly and those of the local government, to ignore this, is to postpone the evil day, Nigeria Bless Your Hearts
Zents Kunle Sowunmi
New York USA the author of “Before the Journey became Home”
Kunle Sowunmi
Corruption in Africa: a Cancer That Won’t Go Away
‘Corruption is one of the most formidable challenges to good governance, development and poverty reduction’ in Africa says 2008 Transparency International Report.
It has been said that corruption in Africa is like an advanced cancer or tumour that cannot be treated. Like cancer, corruption has tragically devastated African societies and made millions of people very poor. From South Africa to Egypt the tentacles of corruption reaches every where. Corruption has no boundaries. From the offices of presidents and prime ministers to the smallest administration unit of government corruption is everywhere. According to the Africa Union (AU) around $148 billion are stolen from the continent by its leaders and civil servants every year. The recent Forbes’ list of most corrupt nations had 9 out of the first 16 countries coming from Africa.
In Africa, very few government officials and civil servants perform services for free. You cannot get your birth certificate or passport unless you grease the palm of officials. You cannot get good education for your kid unless you pay a bribe. You cannot obtain electricity meter for your house unless you pay a bribe. You cannot get your goods out from the harbour unless you pay kickback. Anything involving signing of documents involves paying inducements. In Africa you can hardly find someone who has not paid bribe before either willingly or unwillingly. To receive attention when you are sick you need to grease the palm of hospital officials.
In Ghana, officials illegally charge 15 and 150 Ghana cedis for a birth certificate and a passport respectively. Again in Ghana Police officers openly ask bus and taxi drivers to pay bribe before they are allowed to cross mounted road blocks. Customs officials adopt all manner of tactics in order to collect money from importers and exporters before their goods are allowed to leave the ports.
Most projects in Africa are carried out by corrupt contractors who collude and connive with public officials to inflate project cost in order to enrich themselves. As a result every project carried out cost three times the usual cost and it is always the tax payers who bear the brunt of it. Due to corruption, project inspectors fail to do their job and allow substandard work to be done at the expense of the people and the nation.
In Africa, it is totally useless to bid for contracts because contracts are awarded to the contractors who are able to pay the biggest bribe. In most countries there are no announcements for tenders rather contracts are awarded to companies who secretly pay large sums of commission to government officials.
For example on 17th September 2002 a Canadian Engineering company called Acres International was convicted by a High Court in Lesotho for paying $260,000 bribe to secure an $8 billion dam contract in the tiny Southern African nation of Lesotho.
Achair Partners a Swiss company and Progresso an Italian company have been accused of bribing Somali Transition Government officials in order to secure contracts to deposit highly toxic industrial waste in the waters of Somalia.
In 2002 Halliburton a US company was accused of establishing $180m flush fund with the intent of using it to bribe Nigeria officials in order to secure a $10 billion Liquefied Gas Plant contract in the Nigeria. In response to the accusation the company fired Mr. Albert Jack Stanley. Mr. Stanley a former executive of Halliburton (KBR) has pleaded guilty for orchestrating the $180m flush fund. Even though Halliburton denied any knowledge of such a fund a report by the company later named a British called Jeffrey Tesler as the middleman behind the bribery. Such corrupt practices by western companies seeking contracts in Africa are not uncommon.
In Africa contracts are awarded to party faithfuls who in turn make handsome financial contributions to the party in power. Because of corruption and nepotism anyone can become a contractor in Africa. In Africa, state coffers or the treasury are the personal property of the president/prime minister, his family, his cronies and his political party. In most African countries there is no separation or difference between state and ruling party resources.
Corruption is so endemic in African societies that, political parties have been pledging to combat it with deadly force but when they are elected nothing seem to change. When former president of Ghana John Kuffour took office he said ‘there will be zero tolerance for corruption’ in his government but his party recently lost power amid accusation that he was unable to tame his corrupt officials.
Despite years of exports of oil, gold, diamond, bauxite, tin, coltan, uranium, manganese timber and several other valuable minerals the continent continue to be ranked as the poorest on earth because most of the revenue from these exports do not get to the people but find its way into the bank accounts of corrupt government officials, civil servants and their allies.
Since oil was first discovered in Nigeria about 50 years ago, over $400 billion have been realised from its sale but today the whole population continue to live in abject poverty and the country has nothing to show or account for the billions of dollars she has received for years. Those who have benefited from the oil are corrupt politicians, civil servants, a shadow economy, armed bandits, army generals and the big oil corporations such as Shell, Mobil, BP and their American counterparts. As a result able men and women are battling dangerous seas just to enter Europe and try their luck. Others have resulted to 419 a popular scam used to trick people into given out their money and valuables. In fact Nigeria has consistently featured in the top 1% of the most corrupt nation on the planet.
Between 2005 and 2007 several state governors and their immediate families were arrested by Scotlandyard in London on corruption and money laundering charges.
Among them are James Ibori of oil rich Delta State and his wife Theresa who had their $35m asset frozen by the English court. Mr. Ibori earns about a thousand dollars a month but during his eight years as a state governor he managed to acquire wealth to the tune of $35m and was a key financial contributor to the campaign of the current president of Nigeria. He owns a private jet and a lavish London home.
Another corrupt governor is Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, governor of oil-rich state of Bayelsa who was also arrested in London for money laundering charges. Mr. Alamieyeseigha broke his bail conditions and evaded capture in Britain by dressing up as a woman. When Police conducted a search in his London home they discovered one million pounds worth of cash in his home.
Another governor who was arrested in England was Joshua Dariye of Plateau State. He was arrested in a London hotel for stealing money meant for development of his state.
But these thieves have no rank compared to the heavyweights like Abacha, Mobutu, Eyadema, Lansana Conte, Obiang Nguema, Omar Bongo, Mubarak and Arap Moi.
In the 1990s economic hardship, abject poverty and destruction of the environment forced the people of Ogoniland in Nigeria to demand a say in which Shell operates but the military regime led by Gen. Sani Abacha arrested the environmentalists led by Ken Sorowiwa and executed them. You may wonder why Abacha killed his country men instead of protecting and providing for their needs. According to available data Nigeria government Lawyers within the period that Abacha became Head of State i.e. between 1993 and 1998 he stole $4 billion of Nigeria’s oil money and stashed it in several secret bank accounts in Switzerland, Britain, Luxemburg, Jersey Island and Liechtenstein. In April, 2002 these countries agreed to return $1 billion of the stolen money to the people of Nigeria. So far about $2 billion have been returned to the government of Nigeria and the rest of the money is still sitting in bank accounts in Western countries notably Switzerland and Britain.
A visit to the Niger Delta region of Nigeria shows that majority of the people especially the youth are unemployed. Years of oil spills have made the soil unfit for any agricultural activity. Their streams and wells are polluted and the people have no access to basic necessities of life because their leaders have enriched themselves with the money.
Every effort to get the Nigeria government to develop the oil rich areas fell on death ears until the unemployed youth took up arms against the federal government and oil companies. They kidnapped foreign oil workers and demanded ransom before their victims were released. They disrupted the oil production forcing the oil companies to move several miles offshore for their own safety but they were not safe either. Eventually, the companies had to reduce their output by 25% in 2007-8. These disruptions affected supply of oil in the world market forcing the price to skyrocket to $140 a barrel in the summer of 2008.
If Abacha could steal $4 billion within 5 years then you can tell how much the leaders who have ruled for decades have stolen. For example Gaddafi of Libya has been in power for 39 years now. Omar Bongo of Gabon 31 years, Teodoro Obiang Nguema of Equatorial Guinea 28 years, Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe 28 years, Hosni Mubarak of Egypt 27 years, Paul Biya of Cameroon 26 years, Yoweri Museveni of Uganda 22 years, Omar Al Bashir of Sudan 19 years, Iddriss Derby of Chad 17 years, Yahya Jammeh of Gambia 14 years.
I think you have now got the picture and understand why the African Union says $148 billion leave the continent every year.
The late Lansana Conte ruled Guinea for 24 years from 1984 to 2008. Sometimes having a leader maintaining stability in a country could translate into economic prosperity but this is not the case for Guinea. Even though Guinea is the world’s biggest exporter of bauxite, there is little very the country can show for it. Apart from bauxite, Guinea also have large deposits of gold diamond, iron, nickel and uranium yet poverty is so severe that the country was ranked among the top 1% of most corrupt countries in Africa. In fact according to a report by UN, Guinea ranks 160th out of 177 in the UN’s Development scale.
According to available documents 70% of revenue from of all mineral exports every year finds its way in the bank accounts of Lansana Conte and his cronies. Today the people lack portable water and electricity. Roads, rail lines, telecommunication, schools, hospitals are in severe deplorable conditions while money meant for their repair and maintenance sit in Europe and America being protected by banking secrecy laws. According to Aljazeera a credible and popular news broadcaster, corruption is so woven in Guinean society that school girls need not study as their promotion to next class is always assured by their male teachers who solicit sex from them. According to the students, those who refuse to sleep with their teachers are made to repeat a year in class. Female teachers on the other hand demand money to be paid in exchange for higher marks.
Why won’t the people be poor when their livelihoods have been taken away from them? Why?
On Friday 31, 2007 the Guardian newspaper in Britain reported a corruption scandal perpetrated by former president of Kenya Daniel Arap Moi and his family. According to the Guardian a 110 page report prepared by international risk consultancy firm Kroll exposed Arap Moi and his family and accused them of banking £1 billion in 28 countries including Britain. The report went further to say that the family used Shell Oil Company, secret trusts, front men and his entourage to siphon the money away.
Apart from the money, the Moi family also bought several multimillion pound properties in London, New York, South Africa including 10,000-hectare ranch in Australia and bank accounts containing hundreds of millions of pounds. It is on record that Mr. Moi’s sons Philip and Gideon are wealth £384m and £550m respectively. While majority of Kenyans live in rural areas, and live in mud/thatched houses with bamboo/raffia leaves as roofing sheet the Moi family live in a £4m home in Surrey and £2m flat in Knightsbridge. Arap Moi’s 24 year rule was largely corrupt and contributed to endemic poverty seen in Kenya today.
How do you expect the continent to develop when monies meant for her development are stolen by her leaders and kept by countries who praise themselves as civilised, cultured, loving and democratic?
In South Africa, Jacob Zuma is still battling it out with the court for his part in the multi-billion arms deal in South Africa in 2001. He was forced to resign as Deputy President of South Africa a clear embarrassment to the ANC government of former president Mbeki.
In 2006 former president of Malawi Bakili Muluzi was arrested for pocketing $12m donated to his poor country by foreign governments. Again former Zambia president Frederick Chiluba was arrested together with two business men Aaron Chungu and Faustin Kabwe and charged with 11 counts of stealing money meant for the Zambia’s development.
In Equatorial Guinea where oil export has earned the country billions of dollars, the 600,000 people living in the country continue to live in poverty while Teodoro Obiang Nguema and his cronies continue to siphon the oil revenue with no accountability.
Gabon and Angola both Oil exporting countries are no different. In fact, the governments in Gabon and Equatorial Guinea can best be described as Kleptocracy that is government by thieves. In countries such as Nigeria, Egypt, Cameroon, The Gambia, Sudan, Uganda, Libya, Tunisia a Kleptocracy class of people have replaced anything democracy. In these countries very few people continue to remain in power and the people have no say in the way their country is govern or run. For example Gaddafi of Libya has been in power for 39 years now. Omar Bongo of Gabon 31 years, Teodoro Obiang Nguema of Equatorial Guinea 28 years, Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe 28 years, Hosni Mubarak of Egypt 27 years and the list is unending.
How do you expect a person to rule for 30 years without being corrupt?
What is clear is that these unelected leaders continue to amass wealth at the expense of their poor countries and continue to mismanage whatever remains of their corrupt activities. Because most of the leaders are former military officers or former rebels with no grasp of economics and management, they are unable to formulate any good economic policies that will transform and grow their economies hence poverty has become a part of the people but their leaders know not what poverty is.
In DR Congo it is estimated that gold and diamond deposits alone could fetch the country 23 trillion dollars not to mention the abundance of timber and other several minerals that are found in large quantities such as columbo-tantalite (coltan) and cassiterite (tin ore) yet years of corruption, mismanagement, conflicts and foreign involvement have made this resource rich nation one of the poorest in the world.
It is often said that western nations cannot maintain their current level of lifestyle without Congo and most corporations in the west can easily go bust without Congo. The question is if Congo is the blood line of the west and the west is rich because of Congo then why is Congo so poor?
And where are the billions of dollars from the sale of these minerals? The answer lies in the history of the nation which is endemic corruption, colonialism, armed conflicts and foreign involvements. Mobutu in his 32 year reign is believed to have taken several billions of dollars from the treasury and deposited it in his numerous Swiss bank accounts. When President Kabila requested the Swiss for the money to be returned he was told Mobutu had just $7.6m. President Kabila frustrated and disappointment with the Swiss announcement said he had expected the Swiss to announce something like $1 billion or more.
But unconfirmed report indicate that the Swiss decided not to give the billions of dollars to the Congo government for fear that it would be stolen again by Kabila and his regime who are also deadly corrupt. Mobutu have several villas and mansions in France and Switzerland bought with money stolen from the Congo people. In 2001, items auctioned in his luxurious home in Switzerland fetched $100,000. The billions of dollars taken away from the country have made Congo one of the poorest in Africa. In Congo today there are no schools, hospitals, roads, telecommunication, rail, electricity and potable water. The only means of transport is through River Congo.
Everyday in Walikale about 16 aircraft fly out of the city with loads of minerals bound for Rwanda. These stolen minerals further find their way in the western mineral markets in London and Switzerland. The proceeds are shared by the Generals, politicians, western companies the businessmen in Rwanda, the warlords in Congo who use part of their share to acquire weapons that are used to terrorise the people and prolong the war. Watch the video below about Congo.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Io8c81xHLmw
Conclusion
Western governments are quick to preach good governance to Africa but they fail to preach the same message to their banks who act as save havens for these corrupt leaders. The western governments have forgotten that the existence of bank secrecy laws in Switzerland, Jersey Island, Britain, Liechtenstein, Luxemburg, Austria have encouraged these corrupt leaders to bank away monies meant for their countries’ development.
The name of Switzerland, Britain, France, Jersey Island, Liechtenstein and Luxemburg came up several times throughout this study of corruption in Africa as I try to establish where most of the stolen monies go. Even though these countries like to portray themselves as civilised and cultured with hearts of angels, they have failed to recognise that keeping monies that were dishonestly obtained from the poor people on earth taint whatever reputation they might have. In the case of Switzerland and her allies who keep these stolen monies it is so pathetic that they know they are receiving stolen monies yet due to greed they have done nothing to stop it.
The next time you are looking for stolen money from your country ask the Swiss government and the Swiss banks they always have a clue about it where about.
Africa is poor today because of colluding and connivance of Swiss and other western banks and the kleptocrats who rule Africa. Corruption is rife on the continent because those who steal the money never lack a place to hide them.
Fighting corruption should not be left to the poor countries alone.
Western media who always portray Africa as underdeveloped and backward must expose the banks in their countries who serve as save havens. The media should put pressure on politicians in Europe and America to reform the banking secrecy laws and make it punishable offence to receive monies from these corrupt leaders. Again the western media must campaign vigorously for all looted monies to be returned to their rightful owners in Africa. The western media must team up with civil organisations to expose western companies who pay bribes to secure contracts in Africa like Acres International, Halliburton, Trafigura, Achair Partners and Progresso.
Western countries have a duty to stop their nations being used as save havens for stolen monies from the African continent. Western countries should reform their banking laws. They should return all looted money put there by corrupt African leaders to the African people. There must be an international coalition dedicated to tracking all stolen monies on the face of the earth with Africa given to priority.
Africans should establish well funded independent Corruption watchdogs to investigate, prosecute and severely punish corrupt officials who engage in corrupt practices. The Africans must demand transparency and accountability in government. Laws must be enacted in Africa to protect whistle blowers who take the risk to expose corrupt practices.
It is by uniting to fight corruption that Africa can ever dream of parting with poverty.
Lord Aikins Adusei
http://www.articlesbase.com/economics-articles/corruption-in-africa-a-cancer-that-wont-go-away-738350.html