MATHABA | Corruption, 2006

Asked about the criteria by virtue of which heads and members of the committees assigned to check and revise the 'transparency declarations' filled by state officials, the answers came as follows:

- 32.76 percent for "Appointed by the 'Communication Bureau' of the Revolutionary Committees";

- 30.71 percent for "Personal interest with those in charge of each institution";

- 27.14 percent for "Tribal, family, and interest links".

The least rate of opinions came for the norms of integrity, competence, and public nomination at People's Conferences:

- 5.31 percent for integrity, competence, authenticity and profession;

- 4.08 percent for public nomination at People's Congresses.

2. Impotent and Dependent Apparatus of Control of the State and Civil Society Organizations

Among the major defects of the “People's Authority System is the lack of commitment to the principle of balanced separation of powers, the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of power. In the Libyan political system, there is a great overlapping among the three powers. The power of 'Revolutionary Legitimacy' overwhelms all powers, which causes some drawbacks to the principle of mutual control. The impotence, lack of independence and integrity of the judicial apparatus is one of the major factors of encouraging corruption.

Asked about the criteria by which secretaries and members of the inspection, public control, bureaucratic and financial auditing committees in the state's institutions, the answers came as follows

- 31.30 percent for "recommendation and direct appointment by the Communication Bureau of the Revolutionary Committees";

- 30.71 percent for "Tribal, family and region kinship";

- 28.79 percent for "Personal interest with those in charge of the institution".

The results were not surprising when the least percentage was given to "competence, integrity, and profession". They also give no credit to the process of public nomination at People's Congresses, which may be viewed as an indictment of the entire experience of 'People's Authority':

- 6.11 percent for "Public nomination at People's Congresses"

- 3.10 percent for "Competence, integrity, and profession".

It may be noted from the results that the traditional links based on the tribe, clan, kinship, and affinity play a major role in taking the top positions in executive institutions, regardless of competence, integrity, and profession. The Libyan society is a tribal one ruled by tribal and clan kinships. Individuals always have strong motives to acquire gains for the tribe or the clan, though this may be at the expense of the law and the values of society. Some tribes even vehemently vie for some vested rights in the municipalities to which they belong.

Among the other defects of the totalitarian revolutionary system in Libya, despite all allegations and slogans, is the absence of any apparatus for bureaucratic or financial surveillance and auditing. Chaos, inadvertence, and lack of any control at all levels are the overwhelming characteristics of the Libyan State's institutions, save security. In time, this resulted in more chances for corruption, especially at the present while the country undergoes major political, economic, and social transformations.

Chaos and bureaucratic inadvertence, which are direct results of the totalitarian revolutionary system, curb the state's need to go on with the institutional construction and the legal framework, which may provide the right milieu for curbing the schemes of the corrupt. The opposite has happened. Chaos and bureaucratic inadvertence prevalent in all state institutions provided the proper environment for the corrupt, which profited from the powerless control system in the state.

The prevalent sense in public circles is that corruption has broken out in state institutions and society for two reasons:

1. The authorities, state institutions and society's inability to expose and fight corruption.

2. The authorities' suspicious role in backing and protecting the corrupt.

Both questions were raised to the respondents in this questionnaire. Regarding the various institutions' role in exposing and fighting corruption, the respondents had the options to describe this role as 'positive', 'negative', 'neutral', or 'helpless'. The results came as follows:

The results displayed how helpless and negative state institutions and official media organizations are in exposing and combating corruption. Civil society organizations, if found in the first place, are always marginalized and besieged by the regime. However, their results proved encouraging compared to those of the authorities' instruments. The rate of helplessness in these civil society organizations was relatively close to those in state institutions. Yet, the rate of positive roles was relatively higher in the following order: Libyan opposition abroad, private media, and finally civil society organizations.

.

The relatively higher rate of the positive role given to the Libyan opposition abroad is distinguished from other tribunes because of the efforts of some websites abroad to expose corruption practices with documented and highly objective reports akhbar-libya.com and transparency-libya.com had a greater role in this respect.

Objectively considering the results of the Questionnaire, under the current circumstances, there is no chance to practice any kind of control. The possibility to work on combating bureaucratic and financial corruption, by any objective and neutral authority over the performance of both public and private sectors is also not plausible.

The negative idea prevailing in public circles is that whoever tries to expose corruption or stand up against its figures would be making themselves susceptible to oppression and intimidation by the 'Fat Cats' benefiting from the regime and the forces that back them with support and protection.

3. Absence of Free Media and Lack of Access to Public Information and Records

The Jamahiriya system has totally marginalized the controlling role of the fourth power, which has eventually turned into a propagandist tool for the head of the regime. As private, independent press is absent, the official press is not expected to expose violations and corruption. Although some newspapers have published a few reports criticizing a few aspects of corruption, such moves have always been counted among the revolutionary liquidation of the so-called "anti-Revolution reactionary forces".

The lack of anti-corruption legislations that impose real penalties on those involved and secures guarantees for media reporters against persecution and oppression by the corrupt and figures of corruption has contributed to a great extent to marginalizing the role of the media.

4. Low Levels of Public Wages and Services

The low payments of public servants, who represent the majority of the working force in Libya, in addition to the ever-increasing standards of living, has created a proper environment for corruption to thrive in both state and society. Thus, every citizen's priority has become how to secure additional financial resources by any means, including bribery.

Meanwhile, the low-level (or complete absence) of public utilities and services that naturally secure citizens' interests, by virtue of the rights of citizenship, has forced citizens to seek illegal means of competition to get their rights and interest. This environment has encouraged the development of bribery, nepotism, and favoritism in public sector institutions.

For example, one of the means a public servant may use to obtain more income is to keep at home the stamps and seals of his employer government institution so that they may illegally use them in return for cash commissions from those who may need them. Customers, company agents, or store owners thus wind up with two options: either pay large amounts of money in taxes, or bribe public servants for getting the government authority's seal on official documents. Some houses even turned into dens for forged documents, including tax forms, contracts, deeds, official receipts, and many other forms of illegal transactions.

Impacts of Corruption

Corruption has so many costly effects on all political, economic, social, intellectual and educational aspects of life. The slogan we have adopted on our website, transparencylibya.com, (shown below) may show how comprehensive the impacts of corruption are in state and society.

The major negative effects of corruption are summarized in the following table, which was part of the Questionnaire. Respondents have 3 choices: 'major effect', 'limited effect', or 'no effect'. The results came as follows:

.

a. Effects of corruption on economic development:

Corruption yields several negative impacts on economic development, including:

Inability of the economic system to stop the indigenous funds smuggled to foreign countries or to attract foreign investments to the country. Financial and bureaucratic corruption is inconsistent with free, competitive environment, which is an essential precondition of encouraging local and attracting foreign investments.

Lack of, or weak, development projects yields an overall weak job opportunities for the young working class and, meanwhile, exacerbates unemployment and poverty.

Waste of public resources because of the higher financial cost on public treasury.

Drain of scientific, academic, and technical brains, because of nepotism and favoritism in public offices.

Frail performance of government and political system.

b. Effects of Corruption on the performance of government and political system

Financial and Bureaucratic corruption has deep, negative effects over a government and the political system as a whole, especially its legitimacy, stability, and reputation. This is due to the fact that:

Corruption causes deficient democratic practice and disrespect of the basic rights of citizens, notably the right to equal opportunities and free access to information.

Corruption causes paralysis to the system, especially when fatal political decisions are needed on the basis of national interest rather than of the private interest of the political leadership and the corrupt junta.

Corruption drags the system and society into fatal conflicts between certain social groups when the private interests of those groups collide.

Under corruption, political hypocrisy thrives as a result of buying out tribal and political loyalties.

Corruption weakens public institutions as well as civil society organizations.

Corruption harms the political regime's reputation and foreign relations, especially with the countries and companies that may want to invest in national economy.

Finally, corruption weakens political participation as a result of distrustful public institutions and accountability mechanisms.

c. Effects of Corruption on the Educational and Social Aspects

Financial corruption causes moral values to unfasten (moral corruption), and leads citizens to frustration, carelessness, and negativity. In a tribal community, it causes fanaticism and extremism against state and social institutions. More dangerously, it causes individual as well as organized crime to thrive in reaction to the collapse of values and unequal opportunities among individuals.

d. Effects of Corruption on Profession and the Values of Public Action

Corruption leads to a lack of profession in duty fulfillment, loss of the value of work, and regress of interest in the public right.
The sense of injustice, inequity, and inequality of participation in the national wealth by the majority of the individuals of society results in social congestion, malevolence among classes, more poverty, more deprived and marginalized categories, especially women, children, youth, and those of special needs.

Is There Some Standardized Strategy Against Corruption?

At the end of the Questionnaire, the following question was listed: Is there a need to have a wide-range alliance of civil society organizations to fight corruption and to expose and pursue the mafias with all means possible, inside the country and abroad? An overwhelming majority of answers (82.33 percent) were for such a wide-range alliance; while only a minority was against or neutral (9.36 percent and 8.32 percent).

No doubt that the fight against corruption and standing up against its symbols in state and society is not an easy job, especially when corruption is so widespread like the case in our countries. This is not something to be done by statements, political threats, rhetoric festivals, or even by forms of financial statements to be filled out after a grace period during which the corrupt may arrange their situations, paperwork, and statements. Rather, this may be done by an overall strategy based on comprehensiveness and closely linked to an overall national prospect for economic, human development, and political reform.

Finally, to conclude this primary reading of the results of the Questionnaire on corruption, we may emphasize that standing up against corruption is linked to a variety of intertwined concepts. We view them as principal elements in any strategy to stop this phenomenon in all its financial, bureaucratic, political, social, and developmental aspects. These concepts include transparency, accountability, integrity, and effective media. The bulk of these concepts constitute what one might call "culture of transparency and reform".

Transparency:This term means clarity of bureaucratic and financial transaction done by any institution, organization, company, municipality, conference, bank, college, brigade, etc, especially in connection with citizens and clients, who seek to benefit from their services and bureaucratic and financial procedures. Here it should be asserted that some certain overt culture must prevail in all ends, goals, means, and procedures in all institutions. Citizens, public servants, and officials should not feel any obscurity concerning the rights, duties, and roles of each one of them. This point is most related to citizens' right to know and to have access to information, as ensured by international treaties and charters. This also means that the concepts of freedom of expression, the right to have access and to publish information must be ensured. This should go for all transactions of government and non-government organizations, agencies and institutions.

Integrity: This is a synonym of transparency. Integrity is concerned with the moral aspects of the concept of transparency, and is linked to the set of values related to honesty, uprightness, loyalty, devotion, and profession at work. Transparency has to do with the practical and procedural aspects; integrity deals with the moral values. Thus, both are two faces of the same coin. Neither of them may exist without the other. In the absence of integrity, no practical bureaucratic procedures, no matter how transparent these may be, can stop public servants from accepting a bribe. In the absence of any deterring bureaucratic and legal regulations and procedures, a public servant's integrity cannot stop others from practicing corruption

.

Accountability: This is the duty of young public servants to their superiors. To be more specific, it is the duty of the officials, be they appointed, escalated, or elected, to the public. Each and every official is required to give periodical reports on their work and how successful they are in executing it. Each and every citizen has the right to get the information needed on the transactions of public administrations so that one may make sure that they are doing their jobs. Accountability is closely related to the right to ask and inquire. This is a legitimate right of every citizen. Here comes the role of the media, government as well privates, in practicing accountability with a fact-finding mind to ensure that the officials are doing their jobs and tasks as regulated by the law. This should form the basis for continuing to acquire legal legitimacy, and remaining in their positions.

The spread and penetration of corruption in all aspects of bureaucratic, economic, and political life requires the adoption of a strategy that is based on the following necessities:

Supportive, clear political will: Any anti-corruption strategy can achieve success only when the political leadership has the will to combat corruption. Only this can mobilize all efforts of state and society to back up such a strategy, or at least ensure that any anti-corruption approach does not collide with the political power.

Deterrent regulations and legislations: The major props of such a strategy lie in bringing about deterrent, enforceable legislations and anti-corruption regulations at all levels. Such legislations should include codes for transparent financial position of top officials, illicit gain, the right to have access to information, and severe penalties in the code of criminal procedure against bribery, favoritism, and misuse of public office.

Pressing rule of law: In stable democracies, the constitution ensures the principle of separation of powers and the rule of law, and that all citizens are equal before the law. The Libyan system of governance, however, is so far from the values of democracy that the rule of law has become a far-fetched matter. Consequently, the potentials of this rule of law depend on the political will. Therefore, public, institutional, and media pressure becomes inevitable for more transparency and accountability.

Courageous independent judiciary: Among the most important factors for the anti-corruption strategy to succeed is to have an independent, powerful, and just judiciary that is free from all influences that might weaken its deterrent role. Only then it becomes impossible for the mafias of big wheels to corrupt the judges, attorney general, or lawyers, and the executive power will abide by the judicial rules.

Liable bureaucratic and financial control: Financial control and bureaucratic accountability must be given a role over the legislative institutions through the available tools. Public accountability of cabinet members, officials, and secretaries must be deepened. All significant matters should be subjected to public debate. Investigations and interpellation of officials must be overt and civilized seeking nothing but transparency. In the case of Libya, who claims to apply the 'rule of the people', surveillance of this sort becomes rational and in accord with such an allegation.

Daring public surveillance: The public surveillance that depends on the civil society institutions and tribunes contributes significantly to the role of official surveillance agencies, like the Accounting Council and Bureaucratic Control Apparatus. Public surveillance bureaus can unveil – through the press, magazines, and websites – cases of mismanagement and negligence in government institutions, arbitrary use of power, bureaucratic and financial fraud, and absence of transparency in the procedures of public office practices. There are many examples of media initiatives in which the private reporters unveiled certain legal violations and helped justice and surveillance authorities bring violating officials to justice.

Dauntless scrutiny press: The press has such a major role to play in extracting significant rights, including the right to have access to information. This role requires that the forth power should be given the immunity needed to publish information, and do the inquiries required to unveil cases of corruption at any bureaucratic and political level.

Reverberant non-government and civil tribunes:Among the more important tasks of non-government tribunes – mosques and religious groups – and civil society organizations – clubs, societies and NGOs – is to focus on the moral dimension in their anti-corruption efforts in both public and private sectors. It is also important to mobilize their adherents to stop being negative and careless and stand up against corruption in society.

Development/edification programs: Public enlightenment is a necessary tool in fighting corruption. Edification programs can spread information on this epidemic and increase public awareness of its dangers and high costs to citizens and the country as a whole. A cultural revival is needed to show the political, economic, and social dangers of corruption. To combat corruption, field action requires an active, aware public opinion that pursues events, cares to unveil cases of corruption, and punish the corrupt by denying them the public support they need in the political system at local levels.

The starting point on the road to form a wide-range alliance of civil society organizations against corruption is to collect information on the phenomenon by pursuing big wheels of corruption like:

Bank accounts and deposits at home and abroad;

Names and addresses of the companies that acquired privileges to execute various projects;

Names and addresses of the foreign companies that deal with the indigenous symbols of corruption, and the names of the intermediaries in between.

Documents and data on the fortunes of each one of them inside and outside Libya, including photographs, diagrams, video tapes, cellular phone snapshots, etc.

Documents of public areas (camps, woods, parks) illegally granted to the regime's aids, including names, dates, the bribes paid, etc.

Documents of the value of intermediary commissions paid for illegal deals, oil sales, and various projects (the Great River, arms deals, agricultural projects, etc).

Documents on the expenditure of the Colonel's sons, ministers, investment company executives at home and abroad.

Information on the actual trade agents and middlemen who obtained exclusive privileges to import cars, appliances, equipments, plants, medications, provisions, and cigarettes, excluding other Libyan citizens.

Documents on commissions paid for purchases of military manufacturing, medications, appliances, and equipments for hospitals, universities, research centers, etc.

Documents on the number and photos of the rest houses, palaces, ranches, diamond mines, and night clubs owned by top officials abroad, and the hospitals, private clinics, and luxury cars purchased from the state treasury at home.

Replicas of forged college qualifications and the names of the universities where they obtained their higher education certificates.

Information on the agricultural and animal projects, and those who benefit from their seasonal production.