Reforms? What reforms? [Archives:2002/45/Focus]

COMMON SENSE
By Hassan Al-Haifi
Much has been said about reforms that this country needs in order to be able to keep pace with the developments of the world and keep up with improvements in the standard of living. In fact the word reform has taken the shape of a movement or coup, which inspired the coup d’etat against the late Qadhi Abdul-Rahman Al-Iriani, may God have mercy on his soul, in 1973.
However, most Yemenis are ready to tell you that the word reform never seems to find its way to the nitty gritty world we live in and accordingly things carry on as usual or get worse. What seems to be the problem? No one seems to be able to answer this question and it seems that the word reform is no more than a play on semantics, to infer that the government understands what is eating at the people’s mind, but has no place for them in the government’s priorities now.
The truth of the matter is that there just has to be a place in the government’s list of priorities of must do items, if the government is going to prove to the world that it is really adamant in wanting to live by its commitments to the donors and more important, to fulfill the aspirations of the Yemeni people.
Weak political will
The basic problem with the reform agenda in Yemen apparently seems to be a weakness in the political will and determination to confront some of the basic fundamentals of any reform package: accountability, corruption and standards and norms, etc. For all intents and purposes, this political will and determination seems to be absent from overall government functioning and needs to be addressed very soon. Otherwise, we will just continue to be writing about reforms and making speeches about it, not to mention the volumes of studies that continuously pour out and the workshops, etc. One realizes that all that all this talk about reforms ends up being no more than redundant ideas and agendas that never get a chance to get off the ground for some reason or another.
One hears the murmurs of many people here and there, every time the word reform is uttered on the various government media channels, as if to underline the feeling that we are sick and tired of hearing this word over and over again, while the situation on the ground seems to get worse and worse every day. Some people are even thoroughly convinced that the government is really not inclined towards activating any real effective reform mechanisms, for the simple reason that government officials are either unable to, or have a vested interested in not to implement any real effective reforms whatsoever.
Clean up needed
Thus, we are not in a position to state that the government is truly interested in living up to its important responsibilities of cleaning up itself from all the corruption that has plagued it for decades, nor is it looking with favor in achieving any of the aspirations of the Yemeni people, which can never be realized without any effective anti-corruption drive that will clean up the accumulated garbage and reduce some of the impotence that government has become characterized by.
If I am not mistaken, the World Bank has also taken a very strong position vis a vis corruption in the developing world. I am not sure how this position is translated in the policies pursued by the World Bank in deciding its development assistance to these countries, but it would probably be difficult for such a position to be translated into effective measures. This is partly due to the political considerations that are involved in determining how much assistance to grant any country, especially in the wake of the confused state of international developments that arose after September 11, 2001. In addition there is the lack of coherence in the positions of the international community as to the directions that the international arena should pursue.
But more significant is the fact that it is difficult to define the overall foundations of corruption in the Third World, because it has become so widespread and so enmeshed in the daily workings of government that no one really knows just where to start. Perhaps the World Bank is looking into this problem, as this is a personal issue with the Chairman of the World Bank himself, who has raised the issue of corruption as the major drawback to development. We agree with him on this matter, because we really see it on the ground, the roofs and the alleyways of all our government offices. If the reforms do not start with this issue, with diligence and perseverance, then one might as well throw all the other reform agendas out the window.

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