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Dark Secrets of Transparency International

R.A.McCartney | 07.12.2008 15:13 | Analysis | Anti-militarism | Other Press

It has a reputation as the world's foremost anti-corruption organisation. But TI is helping to cover up fraud and corruption in equipment purchases for Britain's armed forces. Moreover its doing it at a time when equipment failures are being blamed for the deaths of “50 to 60” service personnel. TI dissident Rob McCartney explains.

The leadership of Transparency International (UK) have tried to stop me telling other members what's been going on. The only way I can get my message to them is by handing out leaflets at TI meetings. At a joint TI/Royal African Society meeting, on 27th March 2008, Executive Director Chandrashekhar Krishnan (Chandu) gave orders to stop me handing out information. His actions are evidently supported by the ten person TI governing body. So much for “Transparency”!

The TI(UK) AGM in November was the first opportunity I had since then to put my case to members. I explained the situation to everyone and challenged Chairman Lawrence Cockroft to respond. After hearing his excuses, one person described them as “nonsense”. “These can't be the real reasons!” he said with incredulity. (I've listed the excuses they've given below). Judy Moody-Stuart, who was standing down from the governing body, said that even she hadn't been able to get “a sensible explanation” for the position TI had adopted.

Widespread fraud on MOD Equipment contracts is potentially costing billions of pounds every year, and may have caused the deaths of “50 to 60” service personnel (see Indymedia articles listed below). For decades MOD civil servants and government ministers from both parties have protected companies accused of fraud. Its impossible to get an impartial criminal investigation because the MOD controls all such investigations.

I had a long meeting with Cocktoft in 2003 at which I explained all this and presented absolute proof in relation to government ministers. I also explained how companies commit fraud by overcharging for changes to the specifications of equipment. In January 2004 former head of British Aerospace Sir Raymond Lygo publicly confessed that it had regularly overcharged for changes when he was in charge. Never the less, later in 2004 TI(UK) published the “National Integrity Systems TI Country Study Report United Kingdom 2004”. This was financed by a government department and has several false statements and omissions which distort the picture in favour of the government.

- It spoke at length about the MOD and mentioned the MOD Police by name, but falsely said that the Metropolitan Police was the only force directly accountable to a government department

- it said ministers do not interfere in judicial decisions (the Attorney General has always had this power)

- it said that the press were free to report on corruption scandals (People come from all over the world to sue for defamation in the UK. News organisations will not publish my proof).

- it said that there was little evidence of widespread systemic fraud and corruption in the UK. This was despite Lygo's admission of widespread systematic fraud, and the absolute proof I had presented, of government ministers from both parties protecting companies accused of fraud!

Since March 2007 I have been asking for this outrageous report to be withdrawn and repudiated. I have also called on TI(UK) to issue a press statement condemning all fraud and corruption in the purchasing of MOD equipment, and calling for all such crimes to be subject to impartial criminal investigation and prosecution. This could be done without any significant work or cost, and without running the risk of any legal action against TI(UK). They refuse any sort of compromise. Here is a list of the pathetic excuses Lawrence and Chandu have given (mainly at a meeting on the 7th of March 2008):

- In 2000 I reported several types of fraud, in different companies, over a 15 year period. I have proved ministers and civil servants have protected fraud for decades. The system is fundamentally corrupt because its impossible to get an impartial criminal investigation and prosecution. Chandu's response is that TI does not campaign on single instances of corruption. That is both irrelevant and untrue. TI has campaigned on Al Yamamah.

- Chandu tried to claim MOD control over criminal investigations was not a fundamental flaw in the UK system for dealing with corruption. He then shot himself in the foot by pointing out that the OECD had cited it as a reason why the UK was not complying with the OECD anti-bribery convention.

- Lawrence said TI campaigns on Al Yamamah because it is “the biggest arms deal of all time”. In fact it is small compared to UK government arms purchases. It was only worth £2bn a year, whereas UK arms spending is currently over £20bn annually. Its total value was just £20bn. The government says replacing Trident submarines will cost up to £20bn, but Scottish CND say, based on official figures, it will cost £70bn.

- Lawrence whined about the amount of work I was causing, but no one disagreed when I pointed out it would only take about 30 minutes to take the report off the TI(UK) website and email out a press statement.

- Lawrence said withdrawing the report would make it look like they'd put out wrong information. This is a lousy excuse for refusing to follow the TI(UK) Mission Statement. Right now anyone can go to the TI(UK) website and see the report is a piece of crap! It even tries to claim that the Hutton Report was a triumph for free reporting, despite the fact that it led to the forced resignations of BBC reporter Andrew Gilligan, BBC Director-General Greg Dyke and BBC Chairman Gavyn Davies!

- The Campaign Against The Arms Trade have documented revolving door corruption at the MOD. They say there is so much movement of staff between the arms industry and the MOD that “the existence of any real separation has been questioned”. The TI definition of corruption does not require that illegal bribes be involved. Chandu said that I couldn't prove that illegal bribes had been paid, and tried to use that as an excuse for not acting.

- I spent about one and a half hours going over the evidence that the MOD and government ministers have been lying for decades to protect companies accused of astronomical fraud. My evidence is not disputed by anyone. I also pointed out that TI member Paul Gregory reported MOD officials blatantly lying to cover up fraud when he carried out an enquiry on behalf of the Treasury. Yet after all that, Chandu still said that 'the MOD say its not possible to commit fraud'!!! Given their record, no one with an ounce of common sense would believe MOD denials.

- I first spoke to Lawrence within a year of my last dealings with the MOD Police, yet he and Chandu said that everything I was raising happened a long time ago. My best documented fraud example is from the same time period as Al Yamamah, which they keep going on about. Many of the other examples occurred a decade later. At our meeting in March 2008 I explained why the deaths of 14 service personnel in the 2006 Nimrod crash might be attributable to fraud and corruption (see my article “Did corruption kill the Nimrod 14” at indymedia.org.uk). Amazingly, in his response at the AGM Lawrence once again said “this all happened a long time ago”. Some one in the audience then shouted “the Nimrod crash was only in 2006!”

- Lawrence said publicising MOD corruption, in line with the TI Mission Statement, was different from the approach TI had taken with the construction industry. He said this had been very successful in terms of Forum membership (although I note he did not claim it had measurably reduced corruption). I said that corruption on MOD contracts is fundamentally different from that in the construction industry. Most construction work is in the private sector. This means there are a large number of different organisations which could go to the police, and a large number of police forces which might investigate. The MOD is the sole UK arms purchaser. It also controls all criminal investigations and virtually all information relating to this. Lawrence and Chandu ignored my main point and disputed the fact that most construction work is in the private sector. They said that spending by the Highways Agency alone was huge. In 2001 the BBC said “The construction industry in the UK is worth in the region of £65bn. Expenditure by government departments and agencies accounts for £7.5bn of this figure”. According to its 2007/2008 Annual Report, the Highways Agency spent only 0.8bn on maintenance and £0.12bn on strategic roads.

- Lawrence said that I had to produce fresh proof of fraud from the period after I left the arms industry. This is clearly an impossible demand.

What could possibly explain TI's position? During the 1990s and early 2000s, spies working for BAE Systems infiltrated the headquarters of the Campaign Against the Arms Trade (see  https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2003/09/278079.html). Under Stalin, the secret police actually created an “opposition” organisation which it controlled, in order to draw in opponents and neutralise them. The least disreputable explanation for TI's actions is this: the people running TI genuinely want to put a stop to British companies using bribes to get overseas contracts. Unfortunately they don't really care about corruption in the UK. At best, its peripheral to their main concern. In this case, its toxic. They're afraid that if they do anything to highlight corruption on military equipment contracts, they'll have all their government funding cut and they'll be ostracised. Or, as TI Managing Director Cobus de Swardt put it last February “if we adopt a confrontational stance we will lose influence”. Condemning the bribes paid for Saudi arms exports is more confrontational than the action I've urged. They're happy to do that though, because its overseas bribes they're really concerned about.

If they were honest, said UK corruption was outside their remit, and refused to comment on it, that wouldn't be so bad. Some one could then set up an organisation to combat corruption in the UK. The trouble is, TI are lying about their real aims, and lying about UK arms corruption it in order to curry favour.

They are not just being dishonest, but stupid too. What TI are being offered is the illusion of influence, not the reality. A special unit of the City of London Police was set up this year to investigate bribery on arms export contracts. TI have trumpeted this as a success. However, it only has 15 police officers to deal with £5bn worth of arms exports. That doesn't seem like a serious effort. Even worse, the new unit will be excluded from investigating crimes involving MOD staff (according to an OECD report on 17th October 2008). This means the MOD remains above and beyond the law; it and it alone will investigate any crimes it commits or in which its staff are involved. Bribes to Saudis for Al Yamamah (to which TI attach so much importance) were channelled through the MOD, so the new unit wouldn't stop this happening all over again.

Unlike TI, most British people are quite stoic about corruption aimed at oil-rich Saudi Arabia. Arms industry apologists say “if we didn't bribe them some one else would; it brings jobs and money to Britain, and no one's been hurt”. As I've explained in previous Indymedia articles, there is a clear link between corruption on overseas arms contracts and corruption on UK arms purchases. British taxpayers are being screwed, and British service personnel may be being killed, because of fraud on equipment contracts. If TI want to exert real pressure to end corruption, they should concentrate on that.

© Copyright R.A.McCartney

References:
“National Integrity Systems TI Country Study Report United Kingdom 2004”
 http://transparency.org.uk/reports/UK_NIS_country_study_report.pdf

TI Mission Statement  http://www.transparency.org.uk/aboutus/index.htm

Campaign Against the Arms Trade report “Who Calls the Shots”, 2005,
www.caat.org.uk/publications/government/who-calls-the-shots-0205.pdf


Cumulative index of Indymedia articles by R.A.McCartney (most recent first)

28.06.2008 Outrageous demands for more money
 http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/06/402065.html

21.05.2008 Did corruption kill the Nimrod 14?
 http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/05/399295.html

15.04.2008 Anti-corruption chiefs 'protect UK arms fraud & corruption'
 http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/04/396660.html

06.01.2008 Max Hastings lies about corruption
 http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/01/388887.html

17.12.2007 Major Corruption
 http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/12/388046.html

10.12.2007 Arbuthnot backs arms industry campaign
 https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/12/387431.html

25.11.2007 Ex-Defence Chiefs paid by arms industry
 http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/11/386546.html

05.11.2007 Channel 4 Dispatches plays safe on corruption
 https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/11/385134.html

02.10.2007 Thatcher gave Pergau Dam arms company “unjustifiable” £300m contract
 http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/10/382700.html

09.09.2007 'Lies' by Transparency International 'protect UK corruption'
 http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/09/380641.html

30.04.2007 TI re-examine UK fraud & corruption report
 http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/04/369088.html

R.A.McCartney