Global Policy Forum

Slow Progress in War on Corruption

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By Jeremy Scott-Joynt

BBC
October 15, 2001


Corrupt politicians and businesses are finding it harder to hide their activities from the mass media and anti-corruption activists, a new report says.

But the report argues that there remain plentiful opportunities for corrupt behaviour, and some of the prevailing economic policies of recent years may well have made things worse.

The survey - the Global Corruption Report 2001 - is published by Transparency International, a private anti-corruption watchdog body set up in 1993.

It says that increasingly, and in many countries around the world, corrupt behaviour is being dragged out of the shadows.

Steps forward

In India, high-level military and governmental officials have been caught on camera allegedly soliciting and accepting bribes for arms contracts.

In France, top-level politicians are in court facing criminal charges over the Elf Aquitaine scandal.

In the Philippines, public disgust with pork-barrelling and nepotism helped topple the government of former President Joseph Estrada.

And in Mexico, 70 years of corrupt rule by the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) was ended by a new president, Vicente Fox.

New commitments According to TI, these developments and others have come about because of an increasing public commitment by some politicians and international bodies to fighting corruption, as well as by increased efforts by the media to spotlight the problem.

That has impacted the private sector in a big way, TI says.

Where before the payment of bribes by firms was glossed over, and banks' tacit connivance in money laundering - a vital part of getting the proceeds of corruption out of the country concerned - ignored, the pressure is now growing.

TI points to the movement towards a labelling system to cut down on the number of "conflict diamonds" from places like Sierra Leone and Angola making their way unheeded onto the market.

The OECD's Anti-Bribery Convention has helped, TI says, although some countries - notably the UK - have yet to bring its stipulations into domestic law.

And civil society in some countries is gaining strength.

Stumbling blocks

But much more work is needed, the report says, particularly in areas such as party funding, institutional development and government procurement.

In Germany, the scandals of the past two years involving the Christian Democrat Party - in power throughout most of the 1980s and 1990s - demonstrate the insidious tendency of political parties to fund themselves through favour-broking and kickbacks.

Thailand's prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, only narrowly avoided a court probe into alleged corruption and vote-buying.

And in the US, the whirlwind - if ultimately unsuccessful - presidential campaign of Senator John McCain was largely built on opposition to what many Americans see as graft by much of the political class.

Worse, where anti-corruption efforts are instituted, they can be undermined either through insufficient independence or by being used to settle political scores.

It is only in the past few weeks that South African anti-corruption investigators have been able to penetrate ruling party opposition and question senior government figures about a huge alleged arms procurement scandal.

Procurement is a universal problem, TI points out, and similar cases can be found across the world.

Kenya's anti-corruption force was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.

And in Vietnam, most accusations of corruption have come from the prime minister, and most of the accused are his political opponents.

Private sector responsibility

Businesses, too, need to do more, TI says, quoting its own "Bribe Payers' Index" which shows that numerous multinational firms are still happy to bribe foreign officials to get what they want.

And the wholesale liberalisation and privatisation required of developing countries as a condition for receiving aid has often exacerbated the problem.

Without proper oversight, privatisations have too often been decided on the basis of whose sweeteners are best, not who provides the best deal for the country and its population.


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FAIR USE NOTICE: This page contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Global Policy Forum distributes this material without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. We believe this constitutes a fair use of any such copyrighted material as provided for in 17 U.S.C § 107. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.