All across the world, the hapless, dual passport-holding members of the oppressed multi-billionaire middle-class are heard beseeching the deities for justice and recompense that have consistently been denied them and their kind. While all manner of politicians are left free to loot and plunder, the average corporate Joe (with a summer home outside Toronto and a winter hacienda in Bunny Gala) can barely make ends meet because of his innate sense of righteousness and his visceral derision for the status quo.

Cliftonia Ali, a Wharton MBA, former Wall Street banker, and the current owner and editor-in-chief of Zamzama Times, spoke to Eos about this vital issue that is riling up CEOs across the world. “What we average middle-class folk are sick to death of is the rampant corruption that is so shamelessly indulged in by the political class of our country. Corruption is akin to the deadly termite; it begins eating you up from the inside … and before you know it, you are left with nothing … not even a measly two-bedroom apartment in TriBeCa!” she said.

“As someone who spent years working on Wall Street before moving back home, I was shocked to see the callousness with which our politicians were flouting the law, stealing the resources of our poors, indulging in money laundering and bribery, and blatantly using the system to benefit themselves and their coterie of thieves. I was appalled! Who are these people, I wondered? Have they no shame? Have they no gardeners or cooks or are they such upstarts that they want to buy everything in their own names?

Middle-class millionaires fight for the rights of the poor, ordinary corporate sector vice president

“Perhaps my shock was a result of the line of work I was in for I had never seen any corporate entity steal public resources and break the law. Also, as a naive middle-class multimillionaire who hails from eight generations of gentlemen farmers who never had to work a day in their lives by the grace of God and who never ever benefitted from the system, I suppose I was brought up with a different set of values. 

“Maybe that is why I was recently asked to deliver the keynote address at the annual meeting of the corruption watchdog, Transparently International. Entitled ‘Corruption: Theirs and Ours’, my talk focused on the transparent, inherently honest, perpetually law-abiding and ethically superior private sector.

“In my lecture, I shared with the world the many instances of malpractices that have never taken place in the corporate world. For instance, did you know that even though HSBC was fined 1.92 billion dollars by US authorities in 2012 for ‘allowing itself to be used to launder a river of drug money flowing out of Mexico and other banking lapses’ — as per a Reuters report — I am convinced that it never happened. Are you aware that even though Goldman Sachs agreed to pay more than half a billion dollars to settle ‘federal claims that it misled investors in a subprime mortgage product as the housing market began to collapse’ — according to that vile newspaper of fake records, the New York Times — I refuse to believe that?

“And it’s not just the financial sector on whose inherent goodness I am willing to stake my hypocrisy. There are many other corporate sectors that are just as squeaky clean. According to a rag called the Independent, senior officials at Shell were aware that the money ‘they paid as part of a 1.3billion-dollar deal for a huge Nigerian oil field would end up in the hands of a convicted money launderer who awarded the asset to his own company when he was oil minister of the country.’ Do I believe this happened? No, absolutely not! Hashtag fake news!

Corruption is akin to the deadly termite; it begins eating you up from the inside … and before you know it, you are left with nothing … not even a measly two-bedroom apartment in TriBeCa!” she said.

“Did you know that a few years ago something did not happen even in neighbouring Pakistan? Yes, the two biggest urea manufactures in the country — Engro Fertilisers and Fauji Fertiliser — were handed a maximum penalty of 8.6 billion rupees by the CCP for being involved in ‘excessive pricing of urea.’ This was something I am convinced never occurred because how can companies that regularly produce leaders of impeccable character, hefty compensations and exceedingly sharp political acumen, indulge in such unsavoury practices? How can the corporate sector, which was founded on the high moral principles of robber barons, be guilty of such crimes, I ask you?

“So you see I feel passionately for the integrity and rights of the poor, ordinary, corporate senior vice president. We who’ve attended Ivy League business schools, worked hard to earn our sub-prime annual bonuses, hustled for global corporate entities that have given nothing but a profoundly colonial sense of justice, economic fairplay and law-abiding ethics to the toiling masses of emerging markets around the world, refuse to be short-changed when it comes to matters of corruption!” she concluded.

Farid Alvie was born. He currently lives.
He tweets @faridalvie

Published in Dawn, EOS, November 26th, 2017