Image: Former British Primer Minister Boris Johnson
London, UK – The former ruling party in the UK is under fire for fraudulently awarding multibillion-pound contracts to firms with known political connections and companies recommended by senior politicians from the ruling party. The British High Court ruled that the practice is unlawful.
An anti-corruption charity, Transparency International UK, has identified significant concerns in contracts worth over £15.3 billion awarded by the former British ruling party during the Covid-19 pandemic. The charity found 135 “high-risk” contracts with at least three red flags – warning signs of a risk of corruption.
“Twenty-eight contracts worth £4.1 billion (which is approximately more than 12.3 trillion in malawi Kwacha) went to firms with known political connections, while 51 worth £4 billion went through a ‘VIP lane’ for companies recommended by MPs and peers, a practice the High Court ruled was unlawful,” reports the BBC.
The BBC reports that the practice also involved awarding contracts without any competition or due diligence, similar to how the Ministry of Home Affairs Security in Malawi has been awarding contracts to tycoons connected with the ruling party and relatives and friends with direct lines to the president. This practice has persisted in Malawi since the one-party regime of Kamuzu Banda.
Like the British politicians, the Malawi government has faced accusations of awarding tenders to politically connected companies. It is alleged that the people who secured these contracts were influenced by the donations the ruling Conservative party received from the tycoons.
“A further eight contracts worth a total of £500 million (approximately, 1.5 trillion Malawi Kwacha) went to suppliers no more than 100 days old – another red flag for corruption,” reports the BBC. Similarly, Malawi has faced scandals involving the purchase of fertilizer from a butcher, the fraudulent award of a gold mining contract, and the awarding of an oil supply contract to a dubious company based in Dubai.
“Normal safeguards designed to protect the process of bidding for government contracts from corruption were suspended during the pandemic,” the BBC reports. The government, led by Boris Johnson, justified this at the time by stressing the need to shortcut the bidding process to accelerate the supply of much-needed items such as personal protective equipment (PPE).
The corruption scandal has exposed the hypocrisy of the British government and politicians for championing anti-corruption in Africa while indulging in the same malpractice when it suits them. This revelation casts a shadow over the UK’s credibility as a global leader in the fight against corruption.
