Western Policies and African Realities: the New Anti-Corruption Agenda

Abstract

The late 1990s have not been good years for Africa’s surviving autocrats nor for the shaky democratic regimes that replaced some of them in the early and mid-1990s. The ageing Daniel Arap Moi’s government in Kenya was faced with yet another funding crisis when the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank refused to tolerate any longer the escalating levels of corruption in public office. The Nigerian military regime’s international credibility was further undermined as several new scandals emerged involving Sani Abacha’s military cronies and business associates. The rapid collapse of Mobutu’s long-term and decadent kleptocratic regime in the former Zaire was closely followed by the overthrow of the short-lived democratically elected government in Sierra Leone which had tried to end a bloody civil war (Africa Confidential, 24 October 1997; Gourevitch, 1997; Riley, 1997; Versi, 1998).