Opinion

Congress clears the way for corruption Payments to foreign governments belong in the public eye

Followers of Iraq's influential Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr chant slogans as they wave national flags during a demonstration against corruption in Baghdad, Iraq, Saturday, Feb. 11, 2017. (AP Photo/ Karim Kadim) less Followers of Iraq's influential Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr chant slogans as they wave national flags during a demonstration against corruption in Baghdad, Iraq, Saturday, Feb. 11, 2017. (AP Photo/ Karim ... more Photo: Karim Kadim, STF Photo: Karim Kadim, STF Image 1 of / 8 Caption Close Congress clears the way for corruption 1 / 8 Back to Gallery

Twenty years ago a mentor of mine in Kenya described how he mistakenly opened a closet door in the presidential palace and found dozens of miscellaneous briefcases stacked to the ceiling.

Back then business people needed something to carry the gold bouillon and U.S. hundred dollar bills they used to win government contracts, and President Daniel arap Moi's staff didn't know what to do with them once the loot was removed.

When President Donald Trump signed a Republican-backed bill that rolled back disclosure requirements for energy and mining companies operating in poor countries, I could only think about the Mercedes Benz sedans that rush through African capitals.

Government corruption eats away at a country's social fabric and hobbles a nation's economy. A sure sign of a corrupt country is when a government job is most people's highest aspiration.

Poor countries are particularly vulnerable to corruption. When the primary source of revenue for a government is a natural resource extracted by a foreign company, corruption often leads to civil war, a phenomenon known as the resource curse.

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Take one look at the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Southern Sudan or even Nigeria, and you can see how weak justice systems, corrupt officials and amoral corporations can condemn hundreds of millions of people to poverty. Money that should go toward education and health care ends up enriching kleptocrats.

That's why anti-corruption activists lobbied so hard to force U.S. energy and mining companies to disclose to the Securities Exchange Commission how much they pay foreign governments for the right to operate. Knowing how much money was going to the government would allow citizens to make sure that cash ended up in the treasury where it belongs, not the president's offshore bank account.

Trump and the Republican majority in Congress, though, decided that requiring such disclosures are hurting the competitiveness of U.S. companies, even though European companies must also make such disclosures.

"It's a big deal," Trump said. "The energy jobs are coming back. Lots of people going back to work now."

Outright bribery will remain illegal under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, but how much a company must pay in fees or licenses to a government official will now remain secret. And what the official does with that money after they receive it will remain his or her secret.

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"These deals deprive some of the world's poorest people of oil wealth that is rightfully theirs," said Corinna Gilfillan, head of the U.S. branch of Global Witness, an anti-corruption group. "Given the president's massive conflicts of interest and his administration's broad attacks on regulation, it appears our institutions are increasingly being abused to further the business interests of a powerful few. This is how corrupt dictatorships start."

I understand the desire to lessen regulations on U.S. business. I support efforts to put Americans back to work. But if the only way we can do that is to allow our corporations to operate secretly, I'm not sure that's a bargain worth making.