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Topic Discussion IV
Achieving Good Governance
Controlling Corruption, Improving
Administration
and Strengthening the Rule of Law
Room 5
(3 of 18 pages)
I was very worried about being able to pronounce her lovely last name correctly.
Ms. Massougbodji is from Benin. She has served as the Minister of Health, Social Welfare and Women Issues for some
years but in spite of the fact that she is a distinguished public servant, she is also a cardiologist and was the
first woman physician to teach cardiology in West Africa. She has held a number of very senior medical positions
and also is an expert at the Court of Appeals in Cortinu (ph).
Marina Massougbodji: Thank you, Madam Chairperson. I would like to thank you for having given me the floor.
I want to correct one title. I was rather an expert at the Appeal Court and a cardiologist.
Ladies and gentlemen, before anything else I would like to thank God for the relative experience in Benin for a
few years without any pride nor complex without selfishness. I could affirm that many people are among the privileged
in the world in the heart of the African continent that experiences war, conflict and tensions of all nature.
The honor I have in the framework of this forum is to witness the concept of good governance, namely the control
the corruption, the approvement of administration as well as the enforcement of the rules of the law. Benin is
a small country of West Africa. It has been independent since 1960. It has experienced ever since a situation of
male colonial regime. Of course with political instability which was chronicle and that was very difficult.
The National Conference of the Nation opened a new era of democratic management that we want to reinforce with
the good practice of governance. As a matter of fact, what is good governance? It is very difficult to define such
a term. We define it very simply as efficient government of men by men for men for the others in the spirit of
equity transparency as well as social justice. It is actually obvious that society evolves in all its dimensions
with the fingerprints of dreams, experiences, failures, as well as people who constituted in a given environment.
It is indispensable that without altering in any way the strength of the democratic principle to situate the exercise
in every economic context and every cultural context.
The experience of the practice of good governance that is taking place now in the Republic of Benin can be appreciated
on three levels. Nowadays, all the bodies of counter power foreseen by the constitution are installed. We have
the constitutional courts, the national assembly, the Supreme Court, the socio economic council as well as the
supreme authority of the audio visual and communication in addition to the Supreme Court of Justice. The National
Assembly initiates very often activities of control of the government through a commissions in the parliament.
The constitutional court plays its role that is by concerning or invalidating whenever it is seen all the acts
of the government and that is without any significant obstruction.
Its decisions in the framework of the electoral deliberations, although sometimes they are sometimes rejected,
they have been respected. In accordance with the law the supreme authority of the audio visual plays its role as
a warrant of the free press to which it contributes on the other hand institutional support. I would say that the
power also plays its role and also the people that are ruled and the rulers. However, we should recognize that
if on the level of the judicial power if it the practice on a daily basis of justice, it deserves to be thought
over. This requires it to get closer to people who are judges and fight against corruption.
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