Ways of Combating Corruption and Deterring the Corrupt

Samih Massoud Al-Hayat - 14/01/07//

The Jordanian capital was the venue for the first conference attended by the signatory countries in the UN Convention against Corruption. It was adopted in 2003, signed by 140 countries, ratified only by 80 countries so far, and went into effect last year.

The significance of the convention lies in the fact that it is a legal international tool introduced by the UN to put anti-corruption measures by the various States within a framework of regulatory agreements and laws.

These agreements contain key points, the most prominent of which are related to identifying the means of protecting State funds from corruption and the corrupt, providing logistical and practical support to combat corruption, and the intensification of the battle against the corrupt and their prosecution.

Remarkably, the UN convention lacked any clear definition of corruption, leaving it to each State, according to each State's legal status. At the same time, the convention only identified different forms of corruption and urged for their criminalization, such as bribery, graft, embezzlement, money laundering, and abuse of authority, which are causing significant losses to the world's countries.

It is noteworthy that the recent years prior to the introduction of this convention witnessed great international interest in the phenomenon of corruption, and its negative impact on social and economic development.

Also worth pointing out are the significant early efforts exerted in this field by the World Bank, which calculated the amount of bribery worldwide to be ten times the total value of funds paid internationally in financial aid.

The World Bank also laid down its own anti-corruption strategy, which targeted all forms of fraud and corruption in the projects it funds. It also extended aid to developing countries that are combating corruption, and encouraged the implementation of packages of political, economical and administrative reform programs, aiming to improve public services through boosting wages and curbing political favoritism in job placement and promotions; ensuring judicial independence, the effective separation of authorities, guaranteeing the upholding of penal laws, and empowering the role of the legislature and civil society groups in the field of combating corruption.

In the same vein, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) was early in focusing on corruption issues, as it set the value of funds being laundering internationally at nearly US$500 billion each year.

The IMF also laid down regulations pertaining to the provision of loans and financial aid, and successfully upheld a policy of suspending financial aid to any State in which governmental corruption was proven to obstruct economic improvement efforts.

In its reports, the IMF confined corruption cases to the practices that diverge public funds to fields other than their own domains, back-door customs and tax, misuse of hard currency reserves by officials of official bodies, bribing functionaries, abuse of power by bank officials, and corrupt practices in the field of foreign direct investments (FDI) in developing countries.

In this respect, we should not disregard the many efforts exerted by other bodies in combating corruption, such as the World Trade Organization (WTO), the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and Transparency International, which is considered to be the most non-governmental active and influential organization. Transparency International has developed an indicator to measure the prevalence of corruption in various countries. It issues reports in this regard that indicate the ranks of countries according to this indicator.

At the Arab level, a large number of civil society organizations paid early attention to combating corruption. Also, the Center for Arab Unity Studies (CAUS) held a major symposium on corruption and good governance in Arab countries, in which serious studies were presented on corruption in some Arab countries, showing the extent of this phenomenon and its negative impact on economic and social life. In light of this symposium, an Arab institution for combating corruption was founded.

Interest in the corruption phenomenon is of great importance, since it is one of the main obstacles to development, and has negative effects on the integrity of the political and economic system. It undermines the ethical and legal standards, as well as credibility of the legislative authority, causes unrest and political and social chaos, and increases the economic costs of enterprises and institutions because of waste in production and resources. Corruption also diverts government spending away from the intended objectives, reduces investment, increases inequality in the distribution of incomes, and aggravates poverty and unemployment.

There is no doubt that the UN Convention against Corruption is crucial, but it lacks many aspects that were discussed by the aforementioned conference, which emphasized their importance. The conference outlined these aspects in the agreement on a mechanism to combat corruption worldwide, restore funds smuggled from the States because of corruption, coordination among countries for adopting the best possible ways of reimbursement, in addition to the need to agree on the operational mechanisms to ensure the implementation of the agreement and provide the necessary technical assistance to the States.

The Arab States are most concerned with unifying their stances, especially in the fields of legislation, which governs the process of combating corruption, exchanging technical information related to the UN Convention, strengthening the role of civil society organizations in fighting corruption, and responding to their reports and proposals in draft laws and mechanisms of action to ensure the prosecution of the corrupt. All this requires an Arab political will to fight corruption and make it a top priority.

* Mr. Samih Massoud is an economics expert at the Canadian Center for Middle East Studies

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