Battling Corruption And Greed

An attorney in private practice, Ferrieux-Patterson is very much back in the picture as a warrior fighting political corruption, though this time it's from outside looking in as the president of Transparency International Vanuatu.

Most politicians "do not have a sense of what is right or wrong," she told Pacific Magazine of the ongoing difficulty of cleaning up corruption in Vanuatu. Ferrieux-Patterson is blunt. Most politicians have "no sense of working for the community and the nation," she says. "It's an individualistic, selfish attitude. They are filling up their pockets. Most people complain that (after being elected) their MPs don't come back (to the villages)."

“I don’t believe that voting is as representative as people believe” —Marie Noelle Ferrieux-Patterson Photo: Giff Johnson

The reason that greed and lack of respect for the laws of Vanuatu is so apparent, she maintains, is that "there is no strong consequence for not following the law." A glaring example of this, she says, is the case of former Prime Minister Barak Sope. Convicted and jailed two years ago for forgery but subsequently pardoned, he is now, on the strength of winning in the July election, back in Cabinet as Foreign Minister in Serge Vohor's new government.

Ferrieux-Patterson is determined through Transparency International to build a grassroots understanding of ethics and values that she hopes, in time, will prevent many of the abuses that are now just the stuff of everyday politics in Port Vila.

Transparency International (TI) is working on two levels: inside government with public servants and at a grassroots level, both in the community and through schools. The small TI staff has run three day workshops in the Port Vila area for community leaders, women and chiefs, and aims to take the presentations to more remote islands as staff and funding allow. Ferrieux-Patterson says it is essential to introduce civic values into the primary and secondary school curriculum so that ideas about ethics are instilled at an early age. This underpins a project that TI has with the Ministry of Education for both curriculum development and teacher training.

She's the first to admit that awareness raising won't solve all the problems. "Awareness is not enough," she says. "How to limit the damage is the issue. It's a long-term project and it's important not to give up," she says, adding that public exposure of wrong doing, even if it doesn't lead to prosecution, is often very effective. "When I was ombudsman, there was a fear (among politicians) of exposure through reports in the newspaper," she says. "Exposure is a tool to stop them from misbehaving." She thinks the attitude of the current ombudsman to generally not make reports public, but attempt to resolve issues behind closed doors, is wrong. Change will come about more readily "if the leaders are more subject to ombudsman's reports," she says.

Accountability isn't solely about money. TI has identified the need for election reform as a priority. "I don't believe that voting is as representative as people believe," Ferrieux-Patterson says. One of the problems, she contends, is that more people than are registered vote in each election. "Too many people are voting," she says. TI has been involved in a review of the voter registration rolls. She says the aim is to straighten out the registration system-a basic problem that can't be improved by simply changing voting systems or improving equipment used. "If the grassroots information is wrong, it's not going to improve with computers," she says.

Though there has been obvious tension between Ferrieux-Patterson and at least some top political leaders, she says the government in power in the 2002-2004 period generally welcomed TI's efforts. The organization also has received a good response from high-level public servants. She is keen to see develop what she terms "islands of integrity"-high-ranking public servants who understand ethical limits and their rights under the constitution, who are able to say "I won't sign it" to a Cabinet minister looking to take personal advantage of government resources.

Setting the limits of what's right and wrong is the key, she says. "There are different ways to put it," she adds. "But without it, the country will fall apart."

TI's grassroots campaign in Vanuatu has led her to another conclusion about the future. Speaking about rural villages, "communities couldn't operate if they didn't have values," she notes. "What we need is to pull those values from the village into the political system."