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| Greasy India | | | - By Joginder Singh
According to Transparency International’s latest report, 11,000 high-flying business executives in 125 countries were asked by World Economic Forum’s Executive Opinion Survey to rank foreign companies in order of their propensity to pay bribes. By a very decisive vote, the executives ranked India at the bottom of the list of 30 countries, meaning, Indians are most ready to do business by paying bribes. The 30 countries picked are global or regional trading powers, and in 2005, among themselves accounted for 82 per cent of world trade. China came in after India. Then there were Russia, Turkey, Taiwan, Malaysia, South Africa, Brazil, Saudi Arabia and South Korea.
The countries least willing to pay bribes are Switzerland, Sweden, Australia, Austria, Canada, UK, Germany, Netherlands and Belgium. However, none of these countries, including Switzerland, was found to be "clean." Even Switzerland scored only 7.8, and not the perfect 10. Of course, it is no satisfaction that our country has consistently scored the worst in most such surveys.
The Bribe Payers’ Index (BPI) indicates that India is not just burdened with corruption at home, in a way it is also the world leader in the business of corrupting others. It shows that our businessmen are prepared to do whatever it takes to enhance their share of the global trade pie. It also reveals that our financial controls and mechanism have failed to cope with the liberal policies of the government. This is the third BPI released by Transparency, after the two that were released in 1999 and 2002. India features in it for the first time and as the worst of all nations featured.
Etymologically, the word "corruption" is derived from the Latin corruptus (to break); it literally means a broken object. Hypothetically and notionally, corruption is a form of behaviour which departs from ethics, morality, tradition, law and civic virtue.
The UN’s Global Programme Against Corruption (GPAC) delineates corruption as the "abuse of power for private gain" and includes both the public and private sectors. Although apparently varying from country to country, corruption includes conflict of interest, embezzlement, fraud, bribery, political corruption, nepotism, secrecy and extortion.
It is only black money that is used for paying bribes internationally. There has been no case in our country where any business house has been penalised for corrupting foreign nationals, governments or organisations to swing a business deal. But take the example of France. There, Loik Le Floch-Prigent, one of the seven defendants — who included the former French foreign minister Roland Dumas — in the Elf trial case, said that he was fed up of being made the scapegoat in a culture of corruption that he alleged extended to the very top of the state. "A large number of people at the heart of the government were aware of the sums at stake," he told a newspaper. "All the (French) Presidents knew. Jacques Chirac knows. Once a year, the president of Elf goes to the Elysee with a chart, recording the commissions for the year. It represents hundreds of millions of francs." The scandal centred on allegations that the late President Francois Mitterrand’s close friend Mr Dumas benefited from the commissions paid by Elf in a contract for the sale of frigates to Taiwan.
Hawala networks are often used to launder money or to evade taxes. Hawala is employed even for legitimate purposes, to diversify the risk involved in the transfer of large sums of money. Another method employed in our country is to under invoice and accept the balance payment abroad in foreign exchange, which is used either as kickbacks or is laundered back as additional investment to the existing business.
There is no dearth of international conventions held by the United Nations and the G-8 countries. They have passed many resolutions against corruption as well. But if resolutions and government orders or laws were sufficient to eradicate both national and international corruption, the problem would have been solved long ago.
International cooperation is critical for the successful campaign against corruption, particularly in cases where kickbacks are paid abroad. No country is immune from the ravages of corrupt practices. For dealing with international corruption, the international community needs an exhaustive range of interventions to deal with it in all its known forms.
While policing corruption has its own legal difficulties, the media can play a vital role in exposing corruption by employing investigative journalism to reveal inequities and violations, as was done by a newspaper in our country to expose the Bofors kickback scandal. The media can act as a watchdog to reinforce social values and help in reducing corruption in government and business. Corruption cases usually are of interest to the public, so to expose someone is always news. It is for the media to accept this challenge and clean the Augean Stables. Do not forget that Napoleon had once said, "I fear three newspapers more than a hundred thousand bayonets."
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