Fighting graft: Cooperate, coordinate, communicate

JUSTICE Lawrence Gidudu, a senior judge in the Ugandan Anti-Corruption Courts, was in the country last week to lead a training programme for local judicial officers in handling corruption cases in court. Uganda has one of the highest conviction rates for corruption cases since the specialised courts were established in 2008. Our Senior Reporter,

Lincoln Towindo (LT), sat down with Justice Gidudu (LG) to discus his training programme and his experiences with the Uganda corruption-fighting model.

LT: Can you explain the purpose and scope of your visit to Zimbabwe and the context of your exchanges with corruption-busting agencies here?

LG: We are here at the invitation of the Chief Justice of Zimbabwe (Justice Luke Malaba), who asked the Chief Justice of Uganda to give him personnel to speak about corruption since they are establishing anti-corruption courts here in Zimbabwe. Uganda has had anti-corruption courts since 2008, so we have over 10 years’ experience in managing business in the anti-corruption courts. Now Zimbabwe wanted to learn how we manage them and how we handle business. So we came down to share experiences with the Zimbabwe courts and judicial officers, ZACC (Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission), NPA (National Prosecuting Authority), SACU (Special Anti-Corruption Unit in the Office of the President and Cabinet) and the ZRP Zimbabwe Republic Police) — the agencies involved in the fight against corruption.

We came to share with them some of the strategies that we are using to deal with the problem, because the problem is there and we are fighting it.

We have to share that experience and also learn what they are doing here.

It is kind of mutual cooperation between African states dealing with a similar problem.

LT: We understand Uganda has an exceptional corruption conviction rate of 95 percent. What do you attribute this to and what lessons can Zimbabwe draw from your model?

LG: Firstly, we attribute this to the fact that the investigation and the prosecution work together.

We attribute it to the fact that our investigations have gone digital.

They are using digital tools and science, because corruption is a sophisticated crime that uses computers, mobile phones and communication gadgets in order to be committed; so we can say it uses technology.

Because of that, our investigators and prosecutors have sharpened their skills in that area; they are able to bring evidence to court that speaks for itself because that is the nature of scientific evidence. Invariably, there will be evidence that would require an accused person to defend themselves and usually they will not have answers to the evidence that has been laid on the table, which is scientific.

So inevitably, they end up being convicted because if you investigate a crime committed on digital platforms using your bare hands and mere eyes you will not prove the case.

You must get the evidence from the phones and the computers. You must be able to retrieve including deleted evidence from computers, servers and phones.

LT: Corruption remains a big challenge to the developmental aspirations of Africa. Where do you think the challenge with fighting graft lies; is it a legislative problem or an enforcement shortcoming?

LG: The problem of corruption is not because of legislation or enforcement; the problem of corruption is corruption. Corruption, by its nature, is not a simple thing; it keeps evolving and now it has gone digital. It is now scientific, it is sophisticated. You can only keep pursuing it and keep convicting those you get. Corruption is global, therefore you cannot say let’s wipe it out in Zimbabwe because Zimbabwe is part of the global economy; so it will continue anyhow. If you chase it in Zimbabwe, the ones in Malawi will come in and those in Botswana will come in and so forth because it is an international thing. Fighting corruption is a global issue which needs global attention.

Some of the messages we have brought from Uganda are that it also needs a multi-sectoral approach.

In other words, no single agency whether the police or the Prosecutor-General, ZAAC, the armed forces or politicians can fight it alone. They must coordinate, cooperate and communicate. That is the Uganda model that we want to interest you in, so that they pull in the same direction and hunt the animal called corruption.

The moment these agencies fight, the criminals will celebrate because the intention of the criminals is to break the joint effort of the law enforcement agencies. LT: How important are deterrent sentences in fighting corruption? We have examples of countries like China, where in some cases we see people getting death sentences for corruption?

LG: We do not have the death sentence in Uganda like they do in China.

But the anti-corruption laws here give an option of a fine before imprisonment and we think that is a problem.

In Uganda the option of imprisonment comes first and a fine is an exception. We do not impose a fine unless the offence is minor, like a traffic policeman receiving a bribe so that he allows a traffic offender to go, or some clerk receiving “lunch money” in order to pull out a file. In those cases we impose a fine.

But in terms of our law once you are convicted you are barred from holding any government job for 10 years.

The other thing with our law is that once you are convicted and the case involves money, an order is made for you to refund that money and the process of recovering that money and attaching assets starts immediately.

So you go to prison and also lose what you stole.

LT: We have many cases of judicial officers and law enforcement agents being caught up in sleaze and corruption. What do you think is needed by Zimbabwe to ensure that officers are insulated from corruption in the scope of their operations?

LG: I have told the prosecutors here that once you have been assigned to this post you need to be mentally ready.

There has to be a process of picking the right characters in the selection process. For one to be assigned to the anti-corruption court or as a prosecutor the authorities need to know their character and ability to resist corruption based on their previous performance. That is one way of dealing with it. The other thing is that we support each other and regularly meet in engagements were we can call each other to order if we feel someone is losing track. Also those that head the institutions should be an example so that their subordinates follow suit, because once the head of the fish is rotten, the rest of the thing will rot. We depend on the integrity of those who head the institutions and, so far, we have not been disappointed. Because if the leadership is compromised then we have a big problem.

LT: The wheels of justice tend to move at a snail’s pace when it comes to prosecution of corruption cases compared to other criminal cases in Zimbabwe, what suggestion do you have for local authorities on this issue?

LG: One way is to equip those in charge of the investigations and those in charge of institutions with the tools.

I have said this, if the evidence is in the computers you cannot go with your bare hands and obtain it.

There is software to obtain that evidence, and software for imaging phones or computers; there is also software for storing that evidence and producing it in court.

The other thing is to ensure that the anti-corruption champions are well facilitated both in terms of work environment and in terms of finances; they should be paid well.

But I know that a salary increment alone does not change a corrupt person but then you should also have disciplinary mechanisms in place so that you are able to weed out the bad apples.

There are some people who, even if you increase their salaries, they will remain corrupt. You should have mechanisms of removing bad judges, magistrates, prosecutors and investigators. The leadership should also have the capacity to identify the bad apples in your team and take immediate action to deal with them.

Otherwise, why would you head the court when you are incapable of supervising the other people or obtaining information that the court has become corrupt? The other thing is transparency. At our anti-corruption court we have developed rules that all players abide by; they are transparent rules like disclosing the case and when we come to trial we just try the matter, we don’t have challenges of the case taking long to investigate or having cases adjourned in court. Our rules say within this period you must bring witnesses, within this period you must finish this and within this period you must write a judgment.

And we are comfortable with these rules because they were developed by all stakeholders.