Mr Ivarsson in Africa
As an avid, some would say obsessive, blog reader, I’ve been thinking I should start my own for commenting on the documentary projects I work on for the moment, specifically the oil industry in the Niger Delta. I’ll do that as soon as I have some time. Now I don’t have time, but yesterday I saw something outrageous that I simply have to translate and share with non-swedish speaking friends.
The man in the video is Staffan Ivarsson.
Translation
[title card] Sweden gives SEK 32 billion in aid. There are suspicions that large amounts disappear due to corruption. The question is why?
“My name is Staffan Ivarsson. I have audited Swedish aid to Africa for the Swedish National Audit Office. It was a mess. It was hard to see where the money went. We got an idea of the reasons.
When I came to Tanzania to carry out my examination of the corruption there, I came to talk with a very highly positioned civil servant at one occasion. As he heard what kind of inspection I was doing he looked concerned and took me to the side, and said, ‘Mr Ivorson, what you are doing is very dangerous. There are powers that want to eliminate you from the surface of the earth’.
I realised there had never before been Swedish auditors out there to do this kind of inspection. I experienced very threatening situations when I was to deliver tough messages to those I examined. For example: Millions of kronor are missing here! I sensed, this was dangerous. I wanted protection.
Perhaps it’s not strange that losses occur when one sends large amounts of money without the slightest conditions on own risk or contribution. Luckily there is a remedy against corruption.
[title card] By investing in companies in which there are requirements for performance and clear rules for auditing, the risk for corruption decreases.
Last I heard of Staffan Ivarsson was a year ago, when he was on sick leave from the Swedish National Audit Office after his conclusions from an audit of Swedish funded NGO projects in Africa had been thoroughly debunked by subsequent follow up. The story then was that Ivarsson had given colourful interviews to the media about his findings that Sida had no control and that most of the money had disappeared in a huge black hole of corruption. It did not matter that his facts were wrong, that the audit had not found that aid money had been stolen, and that the National Audit Office had to apologise in public for his statements half a year later: the damage to Sida’s and the NGO’s reputation and goodwill was already done.
And yesterday he surfaced on YouTube in this creepy production by the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise (Svenskt Näringsliv) to recycle the story about his heroic struggle against corruption in Africa. Last time he talked about how he was in “khaki dress and mosquito repellent” for months. Now our Indiana Jones auditor explains how his tough stand resulted in threats from evildoers who wanted to “eliminate” him from “the surface of the earth”
Seriously, who talks like that?
A Tanzanian government official whispering theatralic warnings to the khaki-clad auditor? Tintin stuff.
And NGOs threatening an auditor who complains about missing receipts?
This embarrasingly uncool video is part of an ongoing campaign aimed at giving Swedish companies better access to aid money. Yesterday CSE released a desk study report (pdf, Swedish only) by Staffan Ivarsson and Stefan Fölster that discussed the boring but probably important subject of evaluability of Sida’s activities. Their conclusion, if I understand them correctly, is that neither Sida’s project support nor the alternative strategy of budget support can be evaluated. Therefore Sida should stop doing those things. Luckily there is a third form of Swedish aid which they say is evaluable and presumably also free from corruption: Swedfund, a Sida-funded risk capital company specialised in investments in developing countries. Because then, Stefan Fölster explains in a debate article in Aftonbladet, “at least you can see if the investment pays off” and measure how many people get employed.
Coincidentally (or not), the new issue of Sida’s paper “Omvärlden” has several articles about Swedfund. One of them reveals that 20% of Swedfunds investments is routed through tax havens like Cayman Islands and Mauritius. Another points out that Swedfund, by supporting the establishment of Swedish companies in Tirld World countries, goes against a trend in international development cooperation of un-binding aid. Furthermore they note that independent Swedish evaluation institute Sadev last year criticised Swedfund (pdf report) precisely for poor evaluability. “It is not possible to assess if Swedfund’s investments has contributed to development or not”
Also (not?) coincidentally, Development Today wrote yesterday that Sweden’s troubled biofuel company SEKAB has asked Sida for money, presumably through Swedfund:
The cash-strapped Swedish biofuel company SEKAB AB has asked for Sida’s help to rescue its controversial biofuel project in Tanzania, Development Today has learned. A figure of SEK 100 million was mentioned by SEKAB.
At a meeting at Sida Headquarters in Stockholm last Friday, Per Carstedt, former CEO of SEKAB AB, and Maria Stridsman of SEKAB East Africa were among the company representatives who presented the idea to Sida. Stridsman is a former employee of Sida, but left her post as Head of the agency’s Department for Democracy and Social Development to work for SEKAB last year.
According to sources informed about the meeting, SEKAB wants Sida to look into the possibility of supporting the company’s biofuel activities in Africa. A figure of SEK 100 million was mentioned during the meeting, but no documents were presented and no specific plans were described.
Sources tell Development Today that SEKAB wants assistance in the form of loans or guarantees. The possibility of arranging something through Swedfund or other financing instruments was also mentioned.
Stefan Fölster complained in Aftonbladet that “The world’s poor have no voice in Sweden”.
Well, sometimes they have, if someone wants to listen, as in this video with and by poor people in Africa, compiled for a discussion on Sida’s poverty focus last year. Feel free to copy, embed and spread further.
11 minutes on poverty from Lars Johansson on Vimeo.
See also Hans Linde:Biståndsmotståndarnas krumbukter (in Swedish)
