”Other people's sins should always be condemned, mine never”

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Senast uppdaterad måndag, 22 mars 2010 15:57

This article was written in response to an article of the Swedish minister for Aid and Development co-operation, which was calling for strict control of aid funds, and indirectly questioning the development aid itself. This article is focusing on the international corruption, its roots in the rich countries and counter measures there rather than in the poor countries only.

”Make the right diagnosis, select the right medicine and be aware of its intended effects and its side-effects.” This is true both for the current influenza pandemic and for the prevalent abuses of international development aid. The Swedish aid minister Gunilla Carlsson's statement on corruption and foreign aid has attracted a lot of attention, but her diagnosis is weak. All the blame is laid upon the poor receiver countries; no attention is paid to the role and responsibility of rich states. So the treatment that she prescribes, stricter control of ad money, will not give the results that she is aiming at. The measures which Gunilla Carlsson proposes could however be complemented with more accurately-aimed measures against big-scale international corruption.
One of the problems which Gunilla Carlsson want to investigate is the embezzlement of foreign aid in Zambia. This problem is well known and had been widely discussed. Of course it should be kept to a minimum, even if it cannot altogether be eliminated. The minister states: ”Foreign aid is carried out in an environment extensively polluted by corruption”. In other words, foreign aid is carried out in a corrupt environment that hinders and sometimes ruins the hoped-for development. This is a reasonable diagnosis. But this problem cannot be addressed by controlling foreign aid more rigorously.

Surprisingly, Gunilla Carlsson restricts her argument to foreign aid. As Sweden's minister for foreign aid, she is also responsible for implementing PGU, short for Sweden's Policy for Global Development. According to this policy, all the different ministries shall on the one hand encourage economic and social development and on the other hand help to seal leaks and reduce waste in selected developing countries. Since PGU involves more than direct foreign aid, it gives an opportunity to tackle the corruption that is so widespread.
Transparency International's ”corruption index” is cited by Gunilla Carlsson. This index is based on observations of notorious sites, where bribery and corruption are known to occurr. Most of the countries that receive foreign aid get bad marks from the index. But this does not mean that bribery and corruption stem from these countries. Corruption can be seen from two points of view: on the receiving side, people such as police, schoolteachers and other professionals misuse their position to enrich themselves: on the pay-out side, people or organizations use bribes or other illegal forms of persuasion to secure the decision most favorable to themselves.

Corruption takes place at two levels. The most widespread is usually called petty corruption. Nurses, schoolteacher or police require a gift before giving an injection, approving a pupil's work or not noticing a traffic violation. The most important, but not the only, causes of this are inadequate or unpaid wages, together with long-established traditions in these professions.
Widespread corruption at higher levels, among ministers and civil servants and organisation leaders, often sets an example that starts or encourages a tradition of corruption in the rest of society. It may be a matter of influencing a decision on huge purchases, (for example of armaments), on awarding contracts, on mineral and oil concessions or on selling state assets, (de-nationalizing or privatizing). The energy and food crises have led to a new threat in the land purchase and plantations for energy production. According to the World Bank, many of the bribes in these contexts are paid by big companies in the rich countries, often OECD countries. The bribes amount to about one trillion dollars per year. Many deals, for example on mineral and oil concessions, are not good deals for the poorer developing countries and drain huge sums every year. Corruption at this level has to be tackled internationally.

What then should Gunilla Carlsson and her government colleagues do? First, explain more exactly what sort of corruption they have in mind and at which level. Petty corruption occurs in more different forms and varies more according to local conditions than international corruption. Therefore each country must bare the main responsibility for reducing national day-to-day corruption. Outsiders can help, for example by aid to better wages for the corrupted professions, but this is not enough. Bad habits must be changed.

Second, realise that international corruption sets a standard nationally, and creates bad habits and traditions. The Swedish government has for more than ten years been part of the slothful OECD Anti-bribery Convention. This forbids businesses and other organizations to bribe the representatives of foreign governments, be they ministers, politicians or civil servants. But still, OECD member countries, also Sweden, are dragging their feet in the work to include and implement Convention rules in their national legal framework. Thus, the virus of corruption continues to spread.

Third, tightening our Swedish counter-bribery measures. Sweden has escaped with only a few criticisms in OECD's evaluation. Some of these call for a broader definition of corruption, to explicitly include bribery, on the part of the Swedish law-courts, the development agency Sida and the Swedish embassies. According to the OECD Convention, it is the responsibility of the OECD country to punish bribers, and the responsibility of the receiving country to punish those who take bribes. OECD suggests that Sweden should introduce severe fines for businesses. There should be a follow up and ”black listing” of firms that have been caught bribing and they should not be allowed to tender for government contracts. Particularly the armaments industry should be closely investigated. Other measures could be better protection for ”whistle-blowers”, a massive increase in the support to the complicated and expensive investigations of international corruption, as well as a reconsideration of the periods of limitation.

Forth, from that platform, Sweden could actively support OECD's efforts, and encourage the hitherto feeble efforts within other OECD countries against businesses in our own countries, whose bribery and corruption damage poorer countries. As well as calling for good governance, Sweden should call for clean business. For the developing countries, this could in the long run save millions in lost income, and enhance their economic independence which corruption has sabotaged.

We in the wealthy countries have some work to do in cleaning up the corruption virus in our own back yards. It is needed to get a better division of labor in reducing international corruption. Poorer countries, that already carries the burden of international corruption should not be punished further, say, by cancelling aid to them. The common goal in combating all types of economic crimes is to development is to use aid, and the national resources, as efficient as possible to combat the big plague, Poverty!
By Sören Lindh
Translated into English by Jonathan Howard