BOTTOM LINE : Fighting corruption: A lesson from South Korea

South Korea recently stunned the world; entering history books for being one of the countries that unpityingly deal with corruption, regardless of who’s implicated. Disgraced ex-president Park Geun-hye was booted out of office after she allegedly allowed her consigliore, Choi Soon-sil to misuse her office to illicitly mint and print money.

Choi – also behind bars – used her amity with Park to strong-arm companies to furtively donate money to her low-down non-governmental organization, the same many wives of presidents or consigliore use nowadays in their voracity for illegal opulence. One time, Samsung donated $69 million to Choi’s outfit.

Park was dragged to prison waiting for her case to be determined along with her consigliore Choi. The CTV (March 30th, 2017) reports that when she arrived at the prison, an opponent held up a mock laudatory ribbon with flowers that read “Park Geun-hye, congratulations for entering prison. Come out as a human being after 30 years.”

The treatment is different from how the big sacred cows of Africa run the show. In many cases, they are not supposed to be touched or punished for their clutter.

If Park were an African leader, she would be home. She could even be ordering the arrest of those opposed to her. The difference, however, is that nobody is above the law in South Korea. They know all too well.

Once a bin-Adam’s above the law, s/he’ll become corrupt through and through knowingly; nobody will make him or her face the music. In Africa, power’s about who bears it to rake in some money; not alone but also his family members, courtiers, major domos and whomever one is pleased with. Essentially, African countries are like private estates when it comes to their (mis) management.

No doubt, like many other African countries, Tanzania is currently engrossed in multiple mega-billion scams involving senior government officials or their right-hand persons, all motivated by greed, ignorance, malice and whatnot.

Tanzania’s decision to take on exploitative investors head on attracted a lot of attention, worldwide. There have been congratulations to the extent that some have become incongruously monotonous.

But they said, powers that be, at least, have tried. However, opponents argue that the country’s leadership is not doing things scientifically because the laws that pulled the country into this enmeshment are still intact, not to mention the bogus pacts entered into.

Furthermore, detractors demand that the process of resuscitating the New Draft Constitution should be rejuvenated in order to enable the country to have legal tools to deal with mega graft. For instance, how do you fight mega graft while you’ve people who seem to be above the law; thus immunised from their criminal acts?

Nkwazi Mhango is a Tanzanian writer who is based in Canada