Corruption

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2020.01.19【文茜世界財經周報】貴州女孩貧病致死　前副省長卻貪汙斂財
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLwnfpH ... xu&index=2

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An interesting watch

罗辑思维 53 反腐到底反什么
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qjvzHGMjBI0

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紀委反腐片揭穿政治掮客蘇洪波面目 - 20200508 - 有線中國組 - 有線新聞 CABLE News
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4p5nl2PJn4I

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Laughing all the way to jail

An aide to Congo’s president gets 20 years for graft
Vital Kamerhe says he was framed

POLITICIANS ARE so rarely punished for stealing public money in the Democratic Republic of Congo that some find the idea absurd. Perhaps that is why Vital Kamerhe, the president’s former chief of staff, laughed aloud as a judge condemned him to 20 years in prison on June 20th.

Footage of his trial was live-streamed. His bedraggled appearance, unshaven in a blue prison jacket, elicited little sympathy. He was found guilty of stealing $48m earmarked for building homes for the poor. Few believe his protestations of innocence. (He says the charges were purely political.)

Mr Kamerhe (pictured below on the left) is the most senior Congolese politician ever to be put away for graft. “We are happy, the big fish has been sentenced,” says an interpreter in Kinshasa, the capital. “It is a good start for the rule of law in Congo.”

Yet it was hardly a model case. Raphael Yanyi Ovungu, the judge who had presided over most of the hearing, died suddenly in May. Initially the police said that he had suffered a heart attack.

However, an autopsy revealed that he had been stabbed several times in the head. Somehow, this detail had escaped the cops’ attention. The authorities, who have now started a murder investigation, have yet to explain how the assailant slipped past armed policemen guarding the judge’s house.

Mr Kamerhe’s claim that he was prosecuted for political reasons is not absurd. Even if he did steal a heap of public money, he would hardly be the first Congolese politician to do so. His punishment may have as much to do with his ambition as his morals.

He was powerful enough to be feared. He held various senior posts under Mobutu Sese Seko, Congo’s dictator for three decades. He then worked for Laurent Kabila, the rebel who deposed Mobutu in 1997. After Kabila was murdered in 2001, he helped his son Joseph win a dodgy election in 2006.

He fell out with the second President Kabila and later teamed up with an opposition figure, Félix Tshisekedi (pictured right). Mr Tshisekedi was then handed the keys to the presidency by Mr Kabila after a brazenly rigged election in 2018.

Mr Kamerhe’s repeated turncoatery may have irked Mr Kabila, who still calls most of the shots in Kinshasa. A pre-election pact with Mr Tshisekedi that would have allowed him to run for president in the next election in 2023 may have blunted the incumbent’s incentive to protect him.

Pierre-Olivier Sur, one of Mr Kamerhe’s lawyers, says he was convicted for the “purpose of exclusion in the coming election” and that he “swears his innocence” before the Congolese people.

Mr Tshisekedi may have needed someone to blame for his administration’s many failures. His big infrastructure projects have often stalled. A flyover that was supposed to ease congestion in Kinshasa stands half-built. That plan to build homes for the poor has delivered little.

Also sentenced to 20 years alongside Mr Kamerhe was Jammal Samih, a Lebanese businessman whose company was allegedly paid $57m for 1,500 prefabricated houses. Prosecutors say most of that cash has vanished.

The IMF and World Bank, which this week approved a $1bn aid package, are pressing Mr Tshisekedi to reduce graft. Mr Kamerhe’s conviction will doubtless give him a good talking point. But it also puts Mr Tshisekedi in a quandary.

For although he needs to satisfy donors that he is cleaning up, he would rather do so without annoying Mr Kabila, whose family has extensive business interests and whose party has more than two-thirds of the seats in parliament—and thus has the power to impeach the president.

The case has knocked a troublesome rival to Mr Tshisekedi out of the running in the next election. But it has also weakened him in his tussle for power with Mr Kabila by depriving him of support in Bukavu, Mr Kamerhe’s home town. Protesters there burned tyres when they heard the verdict.

Mr Kamerhe and Mr Samih have been packed off to Makala prison in Kinshasa, where thousands of inmates are crammed together in stinking cells. Even there, the graft may continue: guards are known to take backhanders in exchange for giving inmates a bit more space and comfort.

After decades of colonial plunder and looting by politicians, one trial will not be enough to convince most Congolese that the thieves at the top will be held to account. But it is a start.

Source: The Economist

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China still has much to learn about giving ‘gifts’ to teachers
https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/ ... s-teachers

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Indonesia minister accused of bribery following raid
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-55204061

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號稱三個"一百"的賴小民踩遍所有紅線! 2018嚴重貪腐遭中國政府調查收賄金額高達17.88人民幣 收賄.貪汙.重婚等罪名遭中國法院宣判死刑│記者 陳承泰│【國際大現場】20210108│三立新聞台
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnKogCBkycA

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中國前四大貪官曝光！天高皇帝遠貪官"比大尾" 中國4大惡勢力一個比一個"肥"│主播 李文儀 │【國際局勢。先知道】20210330│三立iNEWS
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=y-PV2nXToyY

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撈政治資本引北京政府出手開鍘！貴州茅台前董座袁仁國遭控收賄4.7億落馬　被判"無期徒刑"褫奪終身 ｜記者 黃瓊慧｜【國際局勢。先知道】20210924｜三立iNEWS
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nOymVfg6Zqo

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Where Corruption Is Rampant
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/ ... on-rampant