Men Steal More, President Sirleaf Tells International Media

Men Steal More, President Sirleaf Tells International Media

Source: http://allafrica.com/stories/201006281408.html

New Democrat (Monrovia)

26 June 2010

President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has given her verdict on gender and endemic corruption in the system, telling the New York Times in an exclusive interbiew that men are emphatically more corrupt than women.

"In every time and every place I've worked, wherever there has been a scandal, wherever there has been indication of impropriety, it's always been men," the President said.

The verdict comes as many women,top in the government, have been listed for alleged corruption.

The Minister of Gender and Development, Ms. Varbah Gayflor, has been accused by the Liberia Anticorruption Commission of theft, exploitation and abuse of power. The General Auditing Commission is currently auditing the Ministry, said to have received millions from donors.

The Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Liberia, Ms. Ethel Davies, now re-deployed at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, was forced to resign following US1.117m dubious transaction. Amongst those charged in $7m case at the Central Bank of Liberia are several women who served as tellers.

A yet unreleased audit report lists a female legislator for allegedly receiving about US40,000 bribe to let a contract deal go.

The Monrovia City Mayor, Mrs. Ophelia Saytumah, according to a World Bank report, was engaged in conflict of interests, awarding contract to her company and could not account for thousands of dollars.

Amongst those briefly jailed for alleged corruption was the Superintendent of Mntserrado County, Beauty Barcon. Full story:

The Nation Full of Strong Women

When she pleaded for her life, as taunting rebel soldiers vowed to bury her alive, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, now the Liberian president, remembers defending herself with her most basic strength: "You can't do this. Think of your mother."

"Women have stronger commitment. They work harder. They're honest, and the experience justifies it," Mrs. Sirleaf, 71, said in an interview in the Foreign Ministry building where she maintains her office. "In every time and every place I've worked, wherever there has been a scandal, wherever there has been indication of impropriety, it's always been men."

As Mrs. Sirleaf prepares to run for re-election next year, she is not free from controversy. While the United Nations peacekeeping force in Liberia is winding down, she faces pressure from the nation's truth and reconciliation commission, which urged that she and dozens of others be banned for 30 years from holding public office for their roles in the war. She has conceded that she gave $10,000 while abroad in the late 1980s to a rebel group led by Charles Taylor, then a warlord, but for humanitarian services.

In Liberia, she contends, men are more tempted by corruption. "In an African context, men have too much of an extended family. They have too many obligations outside their families and homes, so the demands on them are harder and more intense."

At the outset of her election campaign in 2005, Mrs. Sirleaf took on corruption as "Public Enemy Number One." She has since had to confront cold reality in a nation of 3.5 million people who struggle with an 85 percent unemployment rate, where 60 percent of the population is under 25 years old.

Mrs. Sirleaf, a Harvard-trained economist, established a structure for combating graft with an anti-corruption commission and a code of conduct for public servants. The rules ended up snaring two government ministers, including her close relative, A.B. Johnson, who resigned last month as internal affairs minister in a scandal over spending of a community development fund.

She said she was personally betrayed by those former ministers but that Liberia was still overcoming the corruption of values through war and survival.

People sought "public positions because they could engage in extortion for small services rendered," she said. "What we have done is to expose it."

Mrs. Sirleaf says she is running for re-election to achieve ambitions that stalled with the global economic crisis. "I want to be sure I leave a legacy behind and I made a difference," she said.