网吧媒体,错爱在清朝,拉托恩的狡诈之剑
The Beginning Of The Anti Corruption Sentiment Economics Essay
多年来，参与科学合理利用资金，通过上述多边金融机构拨付而导致的日益增加的腐败现象已引起了全世界的谴责；因此这样就出现了一个需求：用政策框架来对付这种威胁。事实上，过去的十年里，我们发现国际社会在解决腐败问题的兴趣显著增加。从1998年至今，约有38个国家已经批准了经合组织反贿赂公约。不同的约定，从2005开始被称为是联合国反腐败公约。在2007年加强治理世界银行集团参与和反腐败（GAC）和外国腐败行为的行动，这是由美国司法部和证券交易委员会的策略。除了这些，许多国际援助机构包括千年挑战公司已经有了一个国家的腐败的记录来援助资金给一些低收入的国家。
让我们不再矫揉造作，我们需要解决腐败的重症。一个又一个世纪后，是时候让我们在这个问题上采取行动了！
Over the years, the increased corruption involved in utilizing appropriately, funds disbursed by the aforesaid multi lateral financial institutions has attracted worldwide condemnation; thus emerged the need for a policy framework to deal with this menace. As a matter of fact, the last decade has witnessed a prominent increase in the international community’s interest in tackling corruption. From the year 1998 till date, about 38 countries have ratified the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention. Different conventions that have henceforth been called are the UN Convention against corruption in 2005, Strengthening World Bank Group Engagement on Governance and Anti-corruption (GAC) strategy in 2007 and the Foreign Corrupt Practices Action by US Department of Justice and the Security and Exchange Commission. In addition to these, many international aid agencies including the Millennium Challenge Corporation have made a country’s corruption record a parameter for making aid disbursements to low-income countries.1
The Beginning of the Anti-corruption Sentiment
“Let us not mince words; we need to deal with the cancer of corruption .In country after country , it is the people who are demanding action on the issue. They know that corruption diverts resources from the poor to the rich , increases the cost of running businesses, distorts public expenditures, and deters foreign investors. They also knew that it erodes the constituency for aid programs and humanitarian relief.And we all know that it is a major barrier to sound and equitable development ….Let me emphasize that the Bank Group will not tolerate corruption in the programs we support; and we are taking steps to ensure that our activities continue to meet high standards of probity” 2 – Mr. James P. Wesberry Jr., President of World Bank in Oct, 1996 - World Bank/IMF Annual Meetings
Evidently, the misuse of these funds by the beneficiaries for their own personal gains, highly impact the poor of the country for whom these funds are actually intended. Further, it is noteworthy to recall that one of the Indian Prime Ministers formally announced in parliament that only 15% of aid money got through to its intended beneficiaries. Such corrupt practices of bribes and illicit kick-backs put up the prices of the projects and pose a serious problem for public authorities and public; as it makes services costly, undermines development, and distorts rational decision making. Over a period of time, ordinary public end up paying through the cut-in basic infrastructure necessities. Increasing corruption across the internationally funded projects would ultimately lead the country into a serious debt crisis, thus making it difficult for it to pay the loan with interest back to these multi-lateral banks.
Corruption Scenario in India
A Global Financial Integrity Report suggests that India lost US$462 billion since independence in illegal capital flows. Corruption in Arms-deals was a worldwide phenomenon and India also witnessed one of its biggest bribery scandals in the history of independent India connected to the arms dealings. In 1986, the Indian government bought field guns worth US$1.3 billion for Indian army from Swedish firm ‘Bofors’. Within months of the completion of the deal, Swedish radio claimed that kickbacks worth millions were paid to then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and his associates. In one of the other instances, Mr. Natwar Singh, a former cabinet minister was charged by Independent U.N. Enquiry Committee (Volcker Committee) as a beneficiary of illegal pay-offs in Iraqi Oil-for-food scam. Such examples portray a negative image of the Indian bureaucrats in handling the public money. Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks, provided evidence of Indian money stashed into Swiss Banks. He added saying “There is more Indian money in the Swiss banks than any other nationality.”
In addition to the cash-stashing into the overseas banks, tax havens around the world also play a part in boosting the corruption by creating financial environment which allows complete freedom to the companies due to lack of transparency in the operation of legislative, legal or administrative provisions. Such lack of transparency makes it difficult for other tax authorities to apply their laws effectively. This loophole is used by many corrupt bureaucrats in routing their illicit cash flows through irrelevant companies operating in such tax havens.
Recent scams like auctioning of 2G licenses in the telecom sector and the corrupt practices adopted in hiring of contractors in CWG have led to the rise of public sentiment in the form of India Against Corruption (IAC) movement. On the Corruption Perception Index, India scored 3.1/10.0, ranked 95th amongst 183 countries. Such dismal score underlines the public frustration and anger against the government handling of the public funds.
Corruption Perception Index Rankings: Corruption Perception Index (CPI) is one of the tools which ranks countries and territories according to their perceived levels of public sector corruption. CPI combines different sources of information about corruption, making it possible to compare countries across the world. On the Corruption Perception Index, India scored 3.1/10.0, and thus ranked 95th amongst 183 countries. Such dismal score underlines the public frustration and anger against government handling of the public funds.
Importance of World Bank in Indian Context
India, China, Brazil, Indonesia and Mexico form a major part of the total funding made by World Bank for different developmental projects. India is the highest beneficiary of the funds available for developmental projects, with 551 projects totalling US$91.92 billion. A bird’s eye view comparison of the developing countries’ funded projects vis-a-vis their CPI rankings can be seen in Table 1.
INITIATIVES AGAINST CORRUPTION
Structural Adjustment Programmes :
Initially, these multi-national banks used to provide outside consultancy on the issues of governance to the beneficiary countries, wherein the role of the banks was limited to assessing the feasibility and the need of the projects; and finally providing the funds for the execution of the selected projects. The World Bank and IMF were not allowed to intervene in the internal political systems of the participating and beneficiary countries. To promote the idea of good governance, these institutions implemented Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) in 1980s, wherein the beneficiary countries were compelled to change their internal structures to promote further participation of the private players and NGOs in the implementation of the funded projects. The SAPs introduced a macro-economic level conditionality into the bank’s lending activities. SAPs were built on one of the fundamental condition that debtor countries would have to repay their debts in hard currency. Such measures led to huge debt crisis across the debtor countries, with increased inflation and decreased currency exchange. However, despite such measures, the economic performance of the countries worsened.
-----Check the flow here------
Corruption, until late 1990s, was considered a taboo and a highly political issue which could not be handled because of the Bank’s article of agreement. However, after a series of instances involving corruption across projects and countries, these multi-lateral financial institutions realised that if a country’s inability to pay interest on its loans is due to its leaders siphoning off national earnings into their own bank accounts, surely extending aid or cancelling the debt will merely sanction further grant. The following factors attributed these banks and other donors to formally adopt the ‘good governance’ as a part of their agenda.
The emphasis for project assessment was changed from ‘getting the price right’ to ‘getting the institutions right’. The World Bank believed and claimed that corruption can be battled through the deregulation of the economy, public sector reforms and decentralisation. The Bank defined corruption as “the abuse of public power for private gains”. Generally, the SAPs were prescribed on the following conditions for new loans or for reducing the interest rates on the existing loans:
Reduction of government deficit through cuts in public spending. |
