[afro-nets] UN has been against corruption for one year (sarcasm!)

[Peter Burgess <Profitinafrica@aol.com>]

Big anniversary... UN has been against corruption for one year
(sarcasm!)
--------------------------------------------------------------

Dear Colleagues

I really don't like cross-posters... but if you will excuse me
today.

One of my colleagues has alerted me that the first anniversary
of the signing of the United Nations Convention Against Corrup-
tion has just passed. Does this mean that it is only since De-
cember 2003 that the UN and its member states have been opposed
to corruption? Actually, looking at the record, it seems pretty
clear that most of the member states, at least at the official
government level, are just delighted with the history of corrup-
tion that goes back, not 12 months, but a number of decades.
Some would argue, corruption has been for ever. And while this
may be true, corruption has boomed in the last two decades with
a global free market economy, and an anything goes attitude by a
lot of corporate and government leadership... North and South.

And can you believe that the UN took to defining corruption in
the most narrow way, "the abuse of public office for private
gain" according to Daniel Kaufmann of the World Bank Institute.
The corruption that has derailed success in development is much
more than that, and in my view, includes all sorts of abuse of
power for unfair advantage, including indeed the monopoly situa-
tion that the World Bank, IMF and the ODA community has created
for itself.

I think most ordinary middle class and poor people (in the North
and the South) are sick and tired of the abuse of power by those
who control the decision making processes. Especially the sloppy
way in which scarce resources are accounted for, and therefore
can be diverted from important activities that will save lives
and care for people to personal wealth creation. There are two
dimensions of this: (1) outright misappropriation of the re-
sources; and, (2) somewhat legitimate use of the resources for
low priority activities. Both of these are huge problems, and it
seems that the official development assistance (ODA) community
has no intention of addressing either of these issues any time
soon.

The TRACnet community is going to make some waves. There are
some excellent activities that are going on, and they deserve
more funding... and there is a lot of not such good fund use
that has to get stopped as fast as possible. Our tools are sim-
ple: (1) Transparency and (2) Accountability. Non of the ODA
community really wants it... but its seems to me that it is time
the people had a say and made excellence in TRAC the norm rather
than the exception. TRACnet has some tools that will make trans-
parency and accounting and accountability, and monitoring and
evaluation much more effective... and while we don't expect the
big and powerful leadership to sign on... we know the small and
good organization is with us, and frankly, deserves a much big-
ger slice of the resource pie... simply because it will be much
better used.

Sincerely,

Peter Burgess
TRACnet in New York
Tel: 212-772-6918
mailto:peterb@afrifund.com
Database
http://www.afrifund.com/wiki/index.pcgi?page=AfrifundDatabase
Coffee: http://afrifund.coffeefair.com
Blog: http:/taame.blogspot.com


--
In a message dated 12/17/2004 11:39:56 PM Eastern Standard Time,
krisdev@gmail.com writes:

Subj: A recent posting I made is reproduced below
Date: 12/17/2004 11:39:56 PM Eastern Standard Time
From: krisdev@gmail.com
To: profitinafrica@aol.com

My advice to World Bank and Transparency International would be
to ask all countries of the world ban Currency (BANC) circula-
tion and make all transactions of all individuals and organiza-
tions transparent through genuine bank accounts with biometric
authentication, to introduce total Transparency and Accountabil-
ity (Tr-Ac). This can minimise corruption to its lowest common
denominator.

We are trying to implement this through a worldwide consortium
of social organizations who want true Transparency and Account-
ability (TRAC) implemented, rather than just to make statements,
to show their our existence and only preach about corruption. It
only indirectly aids in further promoting corruption.

Kris dev
mailto:krisdev_at_gmail.com


You are correct that no country is corruption free as human
greed is common but here is the rating of all nations. This list
is compiled by Transparency International, an NGO. Sixty of the
world countries are plagued by rampant corruption. The index fo-
cuses on misuses of public offices for personal gains or one can
call the bribes for the Government employees. Countries are
scored from Zero to Ten.

Finland is the top most country with the least corruption.


These are the ranks according to The Economist:
Finland=1,
New Zealand=2,
Singapore=5,
Britain =11.
Germany=15,
Hongkong=16,
USA=17,
Chile=20,
France =22,
Japana-24,
Botswana=31,
Taiwan=35
Malaysia=39,
Italy=42,
South Africa =44,
South Koria=47,
Brazil=59,
Mexico=64,
China=71,
Turkey=77,
India=90
Russia=90,
Philippines=102,
Argentina=108,
Pakistan=129,
Indonesia=133,
Nigeria=144 and
Bangladesh=145.


--
No country is corruption-free, says World Bank

This Day, 14 December 2004
By Kunle Aderinokun

Abuja

The World Bank has observed that no country is free of Corrupt
practices since countries rated highest in terms of ethics still
practice some measures of corruption.

A statement by the Director of Global Governance at the World
Bank Institute, Mr. Daniel Kaufmann, noted that, "there is no
such thing as zero corruption, even in countries that rate at
the highest levels in terms of ethics and the control of corrup-
tion."

Kaufmann, who made the comment in a radio interview with Corpo-
rate Communication as the Bank Group to mark the first anniver-
sary of the signing of the United Nations Convention Against
Corruption, said the standard definition of the phenomenon, "the
abuse of public office for private gain", was too narrow and
does not include more subtle and complex forms of corruption.

"These," according to him, "may not include outright bribery but
include such actions as influence peddling and political financ-
ing that unduly influence laws and policies for the benefit of
the few."

He said that one does not fight corruption by "fighting corrup-
tion," noting that, "Merely embarking on more campaigns, adopt-
ing more anti-corruption laws, or creating anti-corruption com-
missions will not do."

He said instead, "the answer is to take a complex, systemic view
of all the institutions and governance components in a country."

He added that in addition to the political resolve from the
country leadership to reform key institutions and adopt far-
reaching transparency measures, one "litmus test" of success in
this area is to have a steady, credible stream of prosecutions
against those key figures involved in corruption, including "the
big fish, and not necessarily always from the political opposi-
tion or the previous government."