'As a caring people," declared Finance Minister Paul Martin on Monday, "Canadians know that hunger knows no creed, misery no religion."
As an increasingly and justifiably cynical people, Canadians should also know that political hyperbole and hypocrisy are seldom as unchained as when they are linked to development spending. Mr. Martin's rather limp rhetoric led up to the announcement the Liberals are to spend an additional $1-billion on development aid in the coming three years, plus throw an extra half a bill into an "Africa Fund."
According to the Post's Robert Fife, in the lead up to this week's budget, Mr. Chrétien "called Mr. Martin into his office and insisted money be poured into foreign aid." The Prime Minister, it seems, is primarily concerned about his ability to belly up to the World Aid bar. Canada is a statistically stingy donor, but Mr. Chrétien wants to look good when he hits the Debt Continent in a couple of months and then hosts the G8 meeting at Kananaskis next year. At the G8 meeting in Genoa in July, Canada took charge of the "Genoa Plan for Africa," which would, among other things, emphasize democracy, transparency and good governance, and take action on corruption.
We could do with a Genoa Plan for Canada.
Without any suspicion Mr. Chrétien is involved in an Auberge Côte d'Ivoire, this is surely no basis on which to exercise either fiscal responsibility or aid policy. Again, when it comes to spreading good governance, we cannot ignore the recent trials of Maria Minna, the Minister who will be in charge of most of the new spending (although perhaps not the Africa Fund).
Prime Minister Chrétien announced this week that he is to ask the Ethics Commissioner to look into the fact Miss Minna voted in a recent Toronto by-election even though she was not eligible. This fiasco followed closely on allegations Ms. Minna had given untendered contracts to political supporters.
Ms. Minna is responsible for the Canadian International Development Agency, CIDA, an organization historically rife with patronage and corruption. This summer, a report from the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee concluded that CIDA was awarding close to $1-billion in contracts annually without proper accountability.
Enough of donor corruption, what about the recipients? The C.D. Howe Institute released a devastating report just two weeks ago noting Canadian aid money appeared to be concentrated on the most corrupt countries. The report, by Danielle Goldfarb, points out 10 of Canada's top 25 aid recipients during the 1994-99 period were actually going backwards in terms of per capita growth. A significant part of the reason is corruption. In such circumstances, aid, by keeping incompetents in power, obviously can do real harm.
Canada already hits the aid/corruption jackpot in the case of Bangladesh. Bangladesh was not only Canada's top recipient of bilateral development aid in the past two years, it also had the dubious distinction of being the highest-ranked country on Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index.
Indeed, this week saw former prime minister Sheik Hasina Wajed and six of her former Cabinet colleagues charged. In one case, Sheik Hasina is accused of taking kick-backs from the purchase of eight MiG 29 jets (As all development theorists know, a fleet of MiG's is de rigueur for anybody wanting to jump start a desperately poor agrarian economy).
The Agence France-Press report noted "Corruption cases are a frequent weapon in Bangladeshi politics." That's hardly surprising, with so much of it about. Indeed, the current Prime Minister, Khaleda Zia, was also charged with graft when Sheik Hasina was in power. Bangladesh is hardly an exception when it comes to Canadian aid. The C.D. Howe study notes "the more important is Canadian aid in terms of total government spending, the higher is the level of corruption in the recipient country." Of course, the most corrupt nations are often also the poorest, which puts donors such as Canada in a bind, but only if they are more concerned with being seen to give out cash rather than whether it does any good.
Corruption is one of the main barriers to development, but it is also endemic in politics. Intriguingly, the second case against Sheik Hasina involved "misuse of power and embezzlement" in appointing a consultant. The lady Sheik described the charges as "manifestations of a political vendetta." Ms. Minna described the allegations about her own direction of CIDA consulting fees "a smear."
The reason that corruption does not have such an obvious impact in developed countries is that we got rich before we got so much government. It has nothing to do with the moral superiority of our politicians, particularly those whose political posturing -- by funding corruption -- is bought at the expense of the poorest of the poor.
Letter in Response:
Canada's bottom line on aid is stinginess
Peter Foster, in his article How CIDA Aid Does Gross Harm (Dec. 14), tries to draw a straight line from corruption to foreign aid. Unfortunately he is mirroring the simplistic approach taken by the C.D. Howe Institute in its report Who Gets CIDA Grants.
The methodology used by the institute is misleading. The top 25 aid recipients are simply placed along side the top 25 corrupt countries according to Transparency International. This comparison does not take into account who is providing the aid and where the aid is going (to support programs aimed at strengthening the judiciary, democracy, etc.) The real harm that is being committed is by those who, after cursory analysis, wrongfully broadcast to caring Canadians that they should be suspicious about how their aid money is spent.
Instead of questioning usefulness of the aid money set aside in last week's budget, we should be questioning the amount which, after all is said and done, still leaves Canada in the position of one of the least generous donors on the planet.
- Gerry Barr, president and CEO, Canadian Council for International Co-operation, Ottawa.
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