Germany adds corruption clause in foreign aid policy

By Endy M. Bayuni

BONN (JP): First it was human rights. Now Germany has added corruption as an extra clause to its foreign aid policy.

"We've introduced a new clause (on corruption) in all our government-to-government agreements (on foreign aid)," says Robert Haas of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development.

The clause calls on both parties to cooperate in preventing corruption from taking place.

While corruption, unlike human rights violations, is more difficult to prove, the clause was nevertheless introduced to appease German taxpayers, Haas told visiting journalists from Asia and the Middle East recently.

"German people ask why are we giving money to corrupt people?" says the ministry's deputy head of the Basic Issues Division.

This perception stems from a controversy a few years back when it was revealed that German aid was used to buy gold bathtubs by an official in an African country, he recalls.

"This is the current layman's perception about how German taxpayers' money is being spent. But that's not how we operate at the ministry," Haas reassures.

The federal ministry scrutinizes how German aid is spent, and Germany maintains the right to withhold further disbursements to committed aid programs if irregularities are found.

"We've done that several times," he says.

Germany has led European countries since the 1980s in including human rights as a condition to foreign aid cooperation agreements.

It lays down five criteria in its aid policy: the observation of political and civil rights; the participation of the people in the political process; the guarantee of the rule of law; the application of market economy, taking into account social elements; and a government that is oriented towards development.

This model has since become European Union policy. Lately, the Swiss government has also adopted these criteria.

"We see human rights as part of the whole issue of good governance," explains Haas, who last month presented a paper in a workshop on good governance for visiting Indonesian officials.

Germany is not questioning the system of government, but it is looking at how a country organizes and exercises power, he says.

There was already international consensus at the human rights summit in Vienna in 1993 that these rights should include the right to development, he says.

The way Germany sees it, it is the obligation of Third World governments to meet the basic rights of their citizens.

Individual citizens have a claim on their governments for basic rights such as the right to protection against arbitrary decisions and the right to basic services such as education and health.

Haas says the five criteria are not intended as a check list but rather as points to consider in the discussions and negotiations to extend aid to foreign countries.

The development cooperation ministry prepares a "concept" for each recipient country. Recently, this concept has become more complicated and lengthy for it includes discussions with non- governmental organizations and with other ministries in Bonn.

But while human rights are important, they are not the only consideration.

Germany also considers the question of what would happen if Bonn decided to cut the amount of aid granted to a country, Haas says. "What would be the result? Would those fighting for human rights improvement be strengthened or weakened (by our policy)?"

"We have certain responsibilities towards those under the governments in other countries," he adds.

Germany has suspended aid to Sudan because there were no guarantees that the money would reach the intended recipients.

Myanmar is another country where Germany does not have any aid program at the moment, Haas says, because "there have been clear cut violations of human rights there. Very strong ones."

This condition will continue so long as democratic movement leader Aung San Suu Kyi remains under house arrest, and her party excluded from the political process, he says, adding that the Nobel peace prize winner fully supports Bonn on this.

Indonesia, in spite of international criticism about its human rights records and corruption, remains in good standing as far as Germany is concerned.

"I've just seen the concept a few days ago," says Haas, who spent some years in Southeast Asia representing the Friedrich Naumann Foundation, first in Malaysia and later in Singapore.

East Timor, human rights and labor problems are among issues that have beset Indonesia in its relations with some of its major donor countries. On corruption, several international institutions, including a private research agency in Germany, have put Indonesia at the top of the list of most corrupt nations.

Germany's development cooperation policy at one time was guided by the belief that it could help Third World countries take the same development path as Europe did, Haas says.

But now, the underlying principle for aid policy is "securing the future", not only for Germany, but also the world.

"We think in terms of globalization. Germany is not isolated from events that happen in far flung places.

"Any upheaval in other countries could harm us, such as in the form of mass migrations.

"So, our prevailing interest is in keeping the overall development in the world under control," Haas says. "Development assistance is a small contribution."

Indonesia is one of the largest Asian recipients of German aid. The amount of aid has been declining. In July, Germany pledged US$66 million in fresh assistance to Indonesia for the 1997/98 fiscal year, down from $208.3 million the previous year.

Haas denies that development cooperation funds have been singled out for federal government budget cutbacks to help pay for the huge costs of German's reunification.

All federal government agencies have been affected by spending cuts, including the ministry of development cooperation. "But the cuts in our department have been less severe than in other departments," he says.

Overall German foreign aid has fallen in the past year more because of the declining value of the deutsche mark, he adds.