fighting corruption

Back from a two-week assignment in Sierra Leone, I finally have a few minutes to record the very last part of my holiday in Cote d'Ivoire, an encounter at the airport as I was on my way out of the country.

By the time of the encounter I suppose I was not in the best of spirits, having got to the airport to find that my flight was not listed on the departure board and finally, after lots of initially fruitless conversations with people, finding that it was delayed by several hours - enough for me to miss my once-a-day connecting flight in Ouagadougou.  More conversations followed, and eventually they were persuaded to re-book me onto a different flight, this one going directly to Dakar but requiring me to wait another three hours before I could even check in.  Thankfully I managed to grab one of the six seats in the pre-check-in part of the airport ... where I was grateful for my emergency muesli bar that I always travel with and the half-bottle of water that remained in my bag.

So, finally in the check-in queue, I was pulled aside by a man in military uniform to be asked what was inside the paper I was carrying.  I showed him that it was not a weapon, but just a wood-carving that I'd bought the previous day in one of the stalls next to the Grand Bassam museum.  He muttered something that I didn't catch about papers and left me to continue my check-in.  At that stage, zipping the rucksack straps into their cover, I put the wood-carving in too so that I didn't have to carry it as hand luggage and risk forgetting it on the plane.

But as I walked towards passport control, the same man appeared.  "Did you forget?" he asked, "Your papers!"  A bit confused, I showed him my 'papers' - airline ticket, boarding pass, passport ... but this wasn't what he was after.  "Your papers for the wood-carving!".  Of course I didn't have any 'papers' for a $20 wood-carving ... and so was told to accompany him to the office.  The office of the Department of Forests and Water, where a besuited gentleman was sitting behind his desk.  They started to talk to me about people smuggling artifacts out of the country, and how I had to have export papers for my little carving.

It was now clear that they were trying to extort money out of me.  I kept it friendly, laughingly telling them that my carving was not an 'artifact' but a cheap copy made in the workshop next to the museum, and that I knew 'artifacts' when I saw them, recounting a story from 1999 when a villager in Pays Dogon (Mali) tried to secretly sell me one of the village masks, how I felt a 'power' of some sort emanate from the mask, how I'd have loved it but it wasn't right to buy it, etc, etc.  & that the shop in Grand Bassam hadn't given me any papers so if these were really necessary then we would have to recall my luggage and take the carving out.  They smiled and said that was not necessary, that they would let me off this time, but in return did I have anything for them?  I tried to look confused and told them that I didn't.  So they tried to clarify their request, asking if I had any money from my home country - dollars or euros.  At that, I launched into another friendly tale about the pound, the euro, Brexit, etc ... but it didn't entirely derail them.  So I decided to tell them (very politely) how the UK has two laws that operate globally for British citizens, one being an anti-corruption law that prevents me from giving money to government officials if it is not in an official transaction with a receipt.  That I wasn't saying that this was corruption, but that it might look like it to someone else, and I didn't want to get into trouble...

At this point the soldier left and was replaced by a different soldier, and the besuited official said he could give me a document.  So he filled in an export form, on headed paper, listing my wood-carving, signed it, and handed it to me.  "So, the payment!" he demanded.  I looked at the form.  "I don't see any amount on here..."  "It's 5,000 francs" (not too much - equivalent to US$9 - but on principle I don't want to ever pay a bribe).  I explained that I could not see that written on the form anywhere, which was therefore not a receipt.  Exasperated, he said I should have got a receipt from the stall where I bought the carving.  "No, a receipt for the 5,000 francs" I explained.

"Madame, I cannot give you a receipt."

"Then I cannot give you money."

I looked at him and he just sat there, saying nothing.  So I got up and walked out of the room, fingers mentally crossed that he would not follow - which he didn't.

I had spent twenty minutes in that room.  In a situation where I know many would have felt compelled to pay.  I'm pleased that I have the experience (and, to an extent, the protection of my white skin) that enabled me to hold out, but so cross that these things happen.  Many Africans moan about their corrupt presidents, but that corruption goes right down through society, and if people pay up it will continue.  On my way into Sierra Leone I saw one man hand over money as he took back his passport from the official in passport control.  Just wish I could do more to stop it, that I could fight it rather than just resisting it on a personal level.