With Power Comes Accountability

Bugattis paid for in cash at more than 1million Euro a piece. Mansions in Paris. Villas in Nice…

This is not the latest James Bond movie, but the beginning of a long list of properties and bank accounts in the name of five African heads of state and their close relatives. The list of assets was published by Le Monde last week on an investigative expose about an ongoing inquiry by the French Office on Grand Financial Crimes. The presidents of Angola, Burkina Faso, Gabon, Congo, and Guinea are the target of the investigation. The article describes at length how they own a large number of real state properties in some of the nicest and most expensive neighborhoods in Paris and other French cities.

Why are the finances of these heads of government the object of a newspaper article? What interest can the public have in their private lives? People in high level government positions are generally under the public eye due to the public trust they are endowed with. High level government officials and politicians are accountable to the public for their actions, and, yes, their sourcing and use of funds.

The public has a stake in knowing when the actions of their politicians are dictated by their private interests. Disclosure of assets, liabilities and business interests by officials can be a powerful tool in the hands of citizens to monitor their politicians’ accountability. Doing Business is about to publish the first results of a two-year long research on laws that make this monitoring easier through public disclosures.

There are some countries where citizens do not have to read a Le Monde expose to learn that their president’s latest acquisition is a house in the Champs Elysees for 18,875 million Euros. There are countries, like South Africa, where a law allows the public to access their officials’ financial disclosures even on the Internet.