Right to be corruption-free

We may be able to relate to this situation, cited in Corruption and Human Rights in India: Comparative perspectives on transparency and good governance by C. Raj Kumar ( www.oup.com ): “Poor villagers in West Java were baffled when their government rice supply suddenly dried up. Suppliers complained that their payment was 60 million rupiah in arrears. But villagers were adamant that they had paid the bills…”

The story, reported by Jakarta Post , tells us more about the disappeared rice: “It was discovered that one local official had collected money from 4,000 poor families and used it to build himself a house. Another village chief spent the money he was handling on a car. A third financed a wedding party. A fourth financed a second wife for himself.” Quite bizarrely, an article on the same page of the newspaper spoke of a survey that revealed 12,000 malnourished children in the central area of Java. The consequence of the above is clearly reflected in the people's lack of faith in the legal system of Indonesia, the author notes. He rues that if institutionalised corruption is rampant across all departments of the government, including the police, law enforcement machinery, judiciary and other bodies that are supposed to ensure access to justice, there is a crisis in governance.

Bribes in India

Closer home, there is little disagreement on the extent of corruption, Kumar concedes. It is a well-known fact, he adds, that getting anything done in any office or institution without paying bribes is difficult. The book makes a reference to a study by Transparency International which covered 5,000 rural and urban families across sixteen states in India, and found that every year ordinary Indians pay as much as a total of $6 billion (1.5 per cent of India's GDP) in bribes.

Corruption is a ubiquitous scourge in Indian society that undermines fairness in governance, rues Kumar. He is aghast that the institutions of governance make decisions not on the basis of what is best suited to fulfil socioeconomic objectives, but rather, on the basis of how to maximise the corrupt interests of a few. And that power holders work to abuse power in such a manner that they can earn money through illegal means and wield this power in a socially detrimental manner.

Hong Kong's fight

A positive example in the book is about Hong Kong's experience of fighting corruption. “Corruption was clearly ‘a way of life in Hong Kong in the 1960s and 1970s,'” begins the narrative. “Public resources were procured through corrupt transactions and bribery was the primary mechanism used to differentiate who would retain scarce resources and how quickly one could attain them… Corruption in the police force ‘was particularly rampant… where powerful corruption syndicates were institutionalising bribe taking.'”

The country did have its legal mechanism, in the form of a legislation of 1897 forbidding the solicitation or acceptance of bribes by civil servants, the Prevention of Corruption Ordinance of 1948, and the Anti-Corruption Branch attached to the police in 1952. A turning point was the establishment of the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) in 1974, with powers to arrest, search, obtain information, and restrain property.

A visit to www.icac.org.hk at the time of writing shows, among the latest news, the following: ‘Ex-bankers jailed for bribery over loan applications,' ‘Man charged with bribery over murder case probe,' and ‘Trio arrested and charged for alleged $21m payments fraud over road resurfacing works.'

The author informs that the helpful factors behind the fight against corruption were governmental determination, strong legislation, public support, a system of checks and balances, and international cooperation. “These factors, combined with the success of the ICAC model of corruption control mechanisms, have resulted in attitudinal changes and ensured the development of an efficient and ‘cleaner' civil service, as well as a vigilant public sector.”

The Singapore experience

The book also recognises the efforts in Singapore, as best practices that can be emulated. “Singapore attained self-government in 1959 from the British, and, like India, inherited rampant corruption in its public sphere. The corruption in colonial Singapore was due to a variety of reasons, primarily low salaries, ample opportunities for corruption, and low risk of detection and punishment.”

To tackle corruption, the government initiated a comprehensive anti-corruption strategy by enacting the Prevention of Corruption Act (POCA) and strengthening the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB), one learns. Since corruption is caused by both the incentives and opportunities to be corrupt, the government's comprehensive strategy was based on the ‘logic of corruption control' as ‘attempts to eradicate corruption must be designed to minimise or remove the conditions of both the incentives and opportunities that make individual corrupt behaviour irresistible,' explains Kumar, citing studies in this regard.

He extols measures such as charging persons accused of corruption either before a court if there is sufficient evidence, else departmentally; considering both the giver and receiver of a bribe guilty of corruption and giving them the same punishment; fine of SGD 1,00,000 or imprisonment of up to five years or both as punishment; and extending of imprisonment up to seven years if the offence relates to a government contract or involves a Member of Parliament.

Lokpal institution

Importantly, the book's postscript takes up the unfolding topic of the Lokpal as an anti-corruption institution, and calls for sufficient checks and balances in any framework to be established. The accountability of the Lokpal as an institution is critical in the context of its functioning, as issues relating to corruption have almost always taken political dimensions in the past, the author cautions.

Insisting on the need, therefore, to ensure a rigorous investigative process that does not in any way undermine the faith and the trust citizens need to have in the Lokpal as an institution, he underlines the importance of civil society's support for anti-corruption efforts. “Civil society support for the Lokpal will be there only when it is able to ensure accountability. The principle of accountability of the Lokpal as an institution includes the full and complete disclosure of all information relating to the members of the Lokpal as well as procedures for removal for misconduct.”

The book wraps up by observing that, given the enormity of tasks ahead in fighting corruption in India, and the challenges of establishing an independent commission against corruption in the form of a Lokpal, the civil society and political discourse on this issue is of great contemporary significance. India has a unique opportunity, says Kumar, to address corruption at a time when every institution, including every exercise of power or responsibility, has come under the scanner for serious scrutiny in relation to allegations of corruption.

Topical read for any citizen aspiring for good governance.

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