Lesotho

Lesotho versus international corruption

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• published: 20 Apr 2013
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Lesotho is credited with making historic legal advances in the areas of jurisdiction, definitions of bribery, and trans-national corporate responsibility for corruption. As the Harvard Business Review reports, corruption costs Africa $148 billion per year. The World Bank estimates the global cost at about $1 trillion. How much is 1 dollar worth? According to the Economist, for example: every dollar spent promoting breastfeeding in hospitals yields returns of between $5 to $67. And every dollar spent giving pregnant women extra iron generates between $6-$14. Nothing else in development policy has such high returns on investment. What was the pipe-dream? When officials in Lesotho, a small, developing country, saw that under-the-table payments had compromised the management of a reservoir and hydroelectric construction project, then the largest in Africa, they decided to take action. The project was Lesotho's hope for economic advancement. The administration was determined to protect the governance of the enterprise, and to show that corruption isn't a standard African practice. They were up against the most powerful construction companies in the world, German, French, Italian, Canadian.. Lesotho lacked funds and manpower. It did not have the experience. No nation had taken another country's corporations to court for bribery. Skeptics felt that there was little chance of winning. There were other obstacles - political upheavals with riots, burning, looting and foreign military occupation. Earth tremors when the dams began to fill. Striking construction workers were shot and killed. The media held Lesotho up to ridicule and the world of high finance was skeptical. Why this topic is important - (Harvard Business Review supplement): - The Economist, in a 2002 article entitled, "The Worm That Never Dies," called bribery an "ancient and universal practice [that] has been condemned as a worm that gnaws at the fruits of economic endeavour." - The World Bank estimated (2006) the cost of corruption to the global economy at USD1 trillion annually. - The cost of corruption to the African economy was $148 billion each year (2006) - Each year, approximately USD80 billion was paid in bribes by multinational companies abroad.(2006) - In the list of top 20 corrupt government leaders, the embezzlement figures range mostly in the billions.(2002) "In a typical year, 1998, the U.S. intelligence community found that some 60 'major international contracts' valued at $30 billion went to the biggest briber." (2002) Lesotho's efforts to combat corruption and its corrosive long-term social harm should be widely reported, given the resulting burden of debt that can cripple a developing nation. The legal pioneers deserve broad recognition.This documentary project enjoys supportive communications with the key parties, from the Lesotho authorities, to expert observers in London, and from Washington's World Bank to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. What the project needs: Telling the story will require interviews with the people involved, and location footage. There are many key players across the globe including Attorney General Fine Maema, Richard Lugar and James Wolfensohn. The events are well documented already, with voluminous court judgments, opinions, print interviews, articles and studies. The challenge is not to find the material, but to weave it into a tale that is exciting and influential. The precedent-setting legal issues are complex, introducing and establishing historic jurisprudence on issues such as cross-border jurisdiction, corporate responsibility and definitions of bribery. Contact Daniel Brian O'Leary: dmedworks@gmail.com