Corruption erodes citizens' trust: Namibian president

Namibia's president Hage Geingob said Tuesday that suspicion of corruption has eroded the global citizens' trust in the ability of government to deliver essential services.

Geingob said this when he delivered his keynote address at the ongoing 6th Annual General Meeting and Conference of Heads of Anti-Corruption Agencies in Commonwealth Africa meeting at Swakopmund.

Governments, Geingob said, have a duty to demonstrate political commitment to promote transparency and be accountable.

He said the people are the ultimate sovereigns, who have ceded their rights to govern to elected officials and that leaders should apply the formula - Transparency + Accountability = Trust.

"The people want and deserve dignified lives. Our people want employment, decent housing, quality education and good healthcare. These are reasonable, basic expectations which require us to act with a sense of urgency to remove all barriers which hamper the effective realization of the people's wishes," he further said.

He called on the public sector to emulate government by being accountable and transparent, saying that he declared his assets and has also asked his ministers to do the same.

"For an act of corruption to take place, there is always a corruptor and a corruptee, each as corrupt as the other," he said, adding that although the 2016 Transparency International report noted that some developed countries are relatively corruption free, their firms engage and promote corrupt practices in developing countries.

"Similarly, there are Western countries which are anti-corruption warriors yet the proceeds of corruption from developing countries easily find a way into their financial systems.

"We need to debunk the hypocrisy and double-speak that paints corruption as a largely developing world, public sector issue. Corruption is a manifestation of human greed which needs to be rooted out and exposed at all levels," he also said.

While all corruption is destructive, he added, it is important to distinguish whether corruption is endemic or not because there will always be those who seek dishonest means of self-enrichment.

If corruption is not dealt with, he explained, it becomes systematic.

"Systemic corruption increases the daily cost of living and negatively impacts on service delivery in many ways, including misplaced spending priorities and inflated costs," he said.

This year's conference, being attended by representatives from various anti-corruption commissions, is being run under the theme Partner Exchanges and Peer-to-Peer Engagements in the Fight Against Corruption. Enditem