Bribing politicians and interference in developing countries
View(s):When investments are made in major development projects especially in poor countries, the implementing firms or the governments tend to bribe politicians. Such cases make inroads into interference in the democratic process of the recipient country. “Sri Lanka, thus, should not be a playground for these loan awarding agencies,” said Nishan de Mel, Executive Director, Verite Research.
He was speaking during a presentation on ‘The Third Narrative on China’s Belt and Road Initiative – The Ethiopian Model and Beyond” held last week at Verite Research Centre, Colombo.
The other researchers who addressed the discussion-workshop were Ms Yan Hairong, Hong Kong Polytechnic University and Barry Sautman, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.
China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is a mobilisation on infrastructure building and investment in developing countries with two discourses on BRI polarised into two camps. The Chinese government and media, along with some of the beneficiaries, present a narrative that BRI is a wholly positive and mutually beneficial initiative.
The West and media present BRI as almost and entirely negative, pointing to the debt trap and the resulting loss of developing country sovereignty. This current seminar proposed a third narrative on BRI that unpacks research evidence, which tends to depart from both the narratives above.
Much of the BRI discourse is about Africa. Ethiopia is the continent’s model BRI country, because of elaborate Chinese infrastructure building and manufacturing. Based on documentary research and fieldwork, the speakers have developed the third narrative on BRI through the Ethiopian case.
Bribery could be a threat on democracy with large amounts of funding that is employed in countries at will accountable to nobody while the people cannot counter the threat, he said.
When there is no responsibility taken by the Chinese government in implementing the large transfer of bilateral debt to the poor world, this would be a concern of the interaction of financing the poorly governed, to the disadvantage of the poor people which then cannot be a ‘free market’ , he indicated.
He said that China would not be the only country that would have offered funding for candidates of presidential campaign as western countries or firms may also be funding.
He said the Moratuwa University has prepared a study showing the cost of building roads in Sri Lanka has escalated at an alarming rate and that the Chinese roads are more expensive than the roads funded by others like JICA or ADB.
In terms of Sri Lanka just because the debt is cheap, it does not become beneficial in the initial capital cost, he pointed out. The ‘third narrative’ he said is to say that BRI has positive opportunities for countries like Sri Lanka.
He said that countries like the UK, US and many Western countries passed laws to criminalise bribery by their firms even if they are committed in the Third World countries as lot of money created opportunity to influence the poorly governed countries.
Yet his thinking was that looking at the Sri Lankan perspective it is important to recognise that there are financial advantages. With regard to Chinese debt the interest rate is 2 per cent while the payback period would be 90 years.
Barry Sautman, speaking on the Ethiopian perspective, said that on average 85 per cent of the workforce throughout Africa working in Chinese enterprises are local Ethiopians.
He said that the Chinese FDIs in Ethiopia would be around $1 trillion and with infrastructure projects there were around 50,000 Chinese working.
He said that the Chinese have built the majority of new roads and railways in Ethiopia and in addition, they worked on dams, pipelines etc, while railways from Addis-Ababa to Djibouti and a big port in Djibouti is run by the Chinese.
From 2000 to 2018, China gave $12 billion and 65 per cent is for energy, 0.7 per cent for transport projects and this is about half of the external debt in Ethiopia. Locals were complaining of the Chinese presence while low quality Chinese products are sold. It is a low income country and a few locals knew about BRI.
He indicated that China is investing heavily in the BRI countries due to a major political and economic campaign and Africa consists of 55 countries and the largest political support comes from China. He said of the Chinese contribution in the industrialisation nations in the developing world, Ethiopia is the model. He said that Chinese media has recognised Ethiopia as a successful country.
(QP)