"CORRUPTION: SO WHAT, WHO CARES"
By Brian Lightowler

Copyright © Brian Lightowler 2002 All rights reserved
Material may be copied if the title of the book and the author are acknowledged

CORRUPTION--So what, who cares

Executive summary

Global threat of corruption:

1. US $80 billion per year exchanges hands as bribes and gifts mainly from the West to ministers and officials of developing nations--The World Bank and the OECD in 1999
2. By 2005 the drug barons could have capital of US$1500 billion for investment and loans, potentially creating a world criminal culture--William Rees-Mogg, former editor of “The Times”, London
3. A quarter of all money circulating the world is illicit, grey money in need of laundering--Claire Sterling, author of “Thieves’ World”
4. Asian Development Bank chief Mitsuo Sato said that corruption was widely seen as a cause of the 1998 Asian financial crisis. Some Asian countries lost 50 per cent of their tax revenue through corruption.
5. John Githongo, executive director of Transparency International in Kenya, speaking at an international seminar organised by the Finnish government, said that corruption had reached such a scale in some countries that it went beyond “grand corruption” to “looting”. The sums of money were so huge that when the scam or corrupt deal was successfully concluded they quickly had macro-economic implications, causing banks to collapse, inflation to rise and the exchange rate to fall.
6. Gallup International conducted a survey of large scale business contracts, interviewing 779 executives. It found that the construction industry, including roads, dams and airports, and the arms trade were the most corrupt in the world
7. The financial collapse of large corporations in the USA and elsewhere through dishonest accounting has given a further dimension to the reach of corruption. Maurice Newman, chairman of Australia’s Stock Exchange, commented, “It is hard to escape the conclusion that corruption in corporate America is endemic, and will take many years to clean up, at incalculable cost”

Response from governments and official organisations:

1. By 1999, 29 of the richest nations in the world had given legislative effect to an OECD convention, signed by them in 1997, criminalising foreign bribery by companies from OECD nations and ending tax deductibility for foreign bribery payments

2. The Hong Kong Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC), established in 1974, intensified the fight against corruption. Jeremiah K H Wong, author of Corruption and its control in Hong Kong, wrote, “From the outset, the action of the ICAC was impressive enough to strike fear into the hearts of the corrupt.”

3. Similar bodies have been set up in many parts of the world, the latest in South Korea in February 2002

4. The Deputy Commissioner of HK’s ICAC in 2001 listed seven points basic to HK’s fight against corruption:

Political will at the top

A three prong strategy--deterrence, prevention and education

Strong legislative support

Initiatives to bring about a change of culture

Professionalism in investigations

Being pro-active in unearthing corruption

Partnership with other law enforcement bodies

5. In India, the Central Vigilance Commissioner in 2000 took the novel step of publishing on the internet the names of 106 administrative and police officials who had been convicted of crimes and were awaiting punishment. The Commissioner said, “Public pressure will mount and concerned government departments will now be forced to take action.”

6. The World Bank, under the leadership of James Wolfensohn, has taken up the fight against corruption instead of saying in effect , as in the past, “it is not our problem”. Through the World Bank Institute it offers well planned assistance and advice to any nation wishing to address corruption in its administration and business.

Action by individuals, business and NGOs:

Even with rigorous police work, an impartial and independent judiciary and well-paid public servants, there is still the unpredictable factor of human nature, its motivations and temptations. Laws, institutions and the culture of society as a whole can strengthen people in their resolve, but ultimately, as India’s Central Vigilance Commissioner has stressed, the personal choice, however difficult, has to be made.

Corruption is a two-way street. It involves a decision of the will by both parties. Both parties have to decide to be corrupt. The contrary is also true to the extent that a decision is involved. Faced with corruption, or the opportunity for dishonesty, a person can decide against it, upholding his and society’s integrity. The examples are given in chapter 3, many of them coming from India, of what boldness and integrity can achieve in testing circumstances.

People ask, “What difference can the individual’s stand make on the global phenomenon of corruption?” In a number of areas, the answer is that the decisions of individuals and the initiatives they have taken have had an impact on corruption far beyond their immediate environment, both in business and politics. For instance:

1. Much of the drive to get the business world and its illicit “benefactors” to clean up their act has come from the small Berlin-based non-profit organization, Transparency International (TI). TI’s influence illustrates what the decision of one individual can lead to in combating corruption. Peter Eigen had been the World Bank’s Resident Director in East Africa but was so appalled by the sheer wastage of resources on inappropriate development projects that he took early retirement to launch TI in 1993.

2. Action through the courts. For example, the Maharashtra High Court in India ruled in favour of a senior police officer who was fighting government corruption at the highest political and administrative level.

3. Clean Election Campaigns in Taiwan, initiated by ordinary citizens, became in the words of a national magazine “a raging fire” and helped prompt government action against political corruption and vote-buying.

4. The Taiwan campaign stimulated similar campaigns in Brazil, Kenya and Sierra Leone.

Turning point:

In 1984 John Noonan in his classic text, Bribes, made the bold prediction that “as slavery was once a way of life and now...has become obsolete and incomprehensible, so the practice of bribery in the central form of the exchange of payment for official actions will (one day) become obsolete.” Members of the World Economic Forum Davos Group, commenting on the intense anti-corruption efforts by both official and non-government organisations, wrote, “In less than half a decade, the worldwide backlash against corruption has swept like a firestorm across the global political landscape.”

Some may see this as overly optimistic. But the prototype for action in the area of human motivation and character has been demonstrated. If enough people are seized by the vision of a world based on integrity and are ready to pay the price involved it is achievable in the decades ahead. The choice is before us.

I: ‘Clear and present danger’

Corruption-- a hidden force on global scale

Global terrorism is visible and the horrors of 11 September 2001 unforgettable. Worldwide corruption however is as insidious and as dangerous to society.

In the words of the outgoing head of Australia's National Crime Authority, it is "a clear and present danger" which, linked with international crime and money laundering, should be seen as an issue of national security.

Interpol's chief, Ronald Noble from New York, speaking at the International Anti-Corruption Conference*1 in October 2001, stressed that terrorism could not be beaten on the battlefield alone. "If customs, police and security professionals are corrupt, no expense on high tech devices will provide our citizens with the security they deserve." The most sophisticated security systems and dedicated personnel would be useless if undermined from the inside by a simple act of corruption. "The strongest fortress will crumble if built upon sand." Corruption and terrorism had to be beaten "one person at a time" by bringing individuals to justice.
Corruption of course has been around a long time. A European Parliament working paper on corruption in 1998, for instance, referred to archaeologists finding an archive naming corrupt officials who had taken bribes at an administrative centre in Assyria in the 13th century BC...

Today in politics and business as in the past, choices are being made between corruption and truth, and the choices made will help determine the future course of the 21st century. Corruption's organisational power and speed of action today, due to modern technology, however is much greater than in the past. It was estimated both by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the World Bank in 1999 that 80 billion US dollars a year exchanges hand as bribes or "gifts" largely from the businesses of industrialised nations to developing nations’ ministers and officials to win contracts, gain influence, by-pass regulations and speed up bureaucratic processes. And that is only the tip of the iceberg.

Beyond that, is the internal bribery and corruption that takes place in every nation on earth, for which there is no overall estimate as to its extent. A trillion and a half dollars a year, a quarter of all the money circulating in the world, is illicit, grey money in need of laundering, according to Claire Sterling, author of Thieves' World.

In the Third World , according to Transparency International (TI), corruption skews economies against the poor, deepens poverty and exacerbates inequalities. It sustains informal power structures that contribute to a further weakening of vital institutions of governance that can sometimes lead to political crisis.

The causes of corruption are legion. A succinct definition, used by the World Bank, is the abuse of public office for private gain. But today corruption goes beyond those parameters. Electoral corruption, through rorting the integrity of the ballot by party apparatchiks or by buying the votes, and international sporting corruption through match-fixing or the use of banned drugs, are spreading the scourge further and further. ...

The financial collapse of large corporations in the US and elsewhere through dishonest accounting has given a further dimension to the reach of corruption. For example, Sherron Watkins, then a Vice-President of Enron, wrote to her Chairman, Ken Lay, “I am incredibly nervous that we will implode in a wave of accounting scandals...the business world will consider the past successes as nothing but an elaborate accounting hoax...”*2

II: Scams, grand corruption and looting

In some societies corruption is more deeply embedded than in others. There are networks and understandings established, which while not publicly acknowledged are widely accepted as the way business is conducted. John Githongo, executive director of TI in Kenya, illustrated this in a speech to an international seminar on Corruption and Economic Development organised by the Finnish government in May 2000. Grand corruption involved, he said, businessmen and government officials of senior rank and the financial figures involved were significant. A more serious type of corruption however was "looting", described as large-scale economic delinquency, scams whose figures were so huge that when they were successfully concluded they had macro-economic implications fairly quickly - they caused banks to collapse, inflation to rise, the exchange rate to decline. The impetus for looting was often political and it happened under the direction or with the acquiescence of the dominant political players in a given country. It often involved, for example, the printing of currency to fund fictitious projects, using public revenues to award enormous contracts to individuals who never supply the goods or the services. The primary movers in the companies behind these scams did not just cream off 10 or 20 percent with a cut within that for the higher-ups. In these deals the cut can be as high as 100 percent and most of the cash went to the higher-ups. These resources funded election campaigns and paid for private militias in many African countries.

William Rees-Mogg wrote in The Times of London (....1995) that the large drug operators make a net profit of US$15 billion per year, on which little or no tax is paid. He believed the drug barons could have amassed $300 billion by 1995, which could rise to $1500 billion by 2005. That would be equal to the value of the total world stock of gold. He warned, “If Cali (headquarters of a Colombian drug syndicate) becomes a town with almost unlimited funds, businesses which need capital will go to Cali . We may be putting the investment future of the world in the hands of people whose own business regularly requires them to employ both corruption and hit men. That could create a criminal world culture...”

Claire Sterling warned in her book, Thieves World, of an emerging underworld order, a Pax Mafiosa, with competing crime syndicates agreeing to avoid conflict, devise a common strategy and exploit the planet together... The British publication Night and Day paints an even more radically dangerous position. After interviewing business personnel and officials in Russia , America and Europe , it wrote that many people believed that the world was witnessing “the emergence of an unstoppable criminal super power”. Night and Day wrote, “With its control of vital resources--oil, gold, diamonds and minerals--Russia’s Mafia is in a position to achieve what Russia’s communist system never could: the manipulation of the world’s markets and the effective control of vital economic sectors, with Western companies actively assisting the process.”

Corruption to be successful has to be hidden and untraceable. Consequently, such seemingly extreme estimates of corruption's reach in the world, while impossible to verify precisely, should not be carelessly or easily dismissed. They are a wake-up call for both leaders and people and an insight into the scale of the problem humanity faces. The fight to overcome corruption cannot however be left to the professionals, the police or the judiciary. There needs to be a passion for a corruption-free society in both the leaders of society and the people at large.

III: ‘Integrity's a black and white issue. We do not look for grey’

Even with rigorous police work, an impartial and independent judiciary, well-paid public servants and effective pressure from NGOs, such as TI, there is however still the unpredictable factor of human nature, its motivations and temptations. ...

Corruption is a two-way street. It involves a decision of the will by both parties. Both parties have to decide to be corrupt. The contrary is also true to the extent that a decision is involved. Faced with corruption, or the opportunity for dishonesty, a person can decide against it, upholding his and society's integrity. The examples below are not exhaustive but are illustrative, many of them coming from India , of what boldness and integrity can achieve in testing circumstances.

Business leaders choose integrity, reject graft

Joseph Wong, a Malaysian timber merchant from eastern Papua New Guinea , outlined to a business and industry conference in Melbourne in November 2000 radical changes in his business practices following his decision to break with any form of dishonesty. One outcome of this was his company's continuing repayment to the PNG government of more than one million Kina (AUD 500,000) of unpaid income tax. As a result of his action, a national enquiry has been launched into the conduct of Papua New Guinea 's timber industry.

Azim Premji, head of Wipro, India's premier hardware and software company, told a journalist*3, "I would go to every conceivable length to preserve integrity at Wipro. Once, it took us eighteen months just to get a dedicated power sub-station activated because we refused to bribe. The power was for use in our Vanaspati plant, which is heavily dependent on power. Yet we ran the plant for twenty months on captive generation which cost us dearly.

"Wipro has a clear policy that for all reimbursements, one has to spend the money to claim them. An employee in our Mumbai office travelled in second class and claimed reimbursement for first class. We found out about it and fired him. He was a union leader and the entire Mumbai office was on strike for two and a half months. But we didn't take him back. There is no point talking of integrity and not doing it when it comes to the bite."

For Premji, number three to Bill Gates in terms of wealth, integrity is not negotiable. "It is a black and white issue. We do not look for grey and there are many shades of grey."

Amol Karnad in 1978 launched Alacrity Foundations, a construction company, as an institution aimed at changing society. Today it is recognised in India not only for its high quality construction work and reasonable prices but also for its integrity and moral and innovative leadership.

On completing its first building project the tax authorities suspected Alacrity of fraud and dealing in black money. Karnad says, "When we finished our first project we delivered flats at one hundred and fifty rupees per square foot against the market rate of two hundred and fifty. Almost immediately the income tax department issued notices against all twenty-four flat owners asking them to show cause why the undervalued flats should not be taken over. They obviously were implying that there was a large component of black money involved. Were they, in effect also saying that they would not facilitate good, honest pricing?

"When my auditor and I went to meet the official concerned, I was quite taken aback initially when, without as much as offering us a seat, he unleashed a barrage of charges: 'All you builders are the same and I am not going to believe a word of whatever you have to say.' For a fleeting moment, nothing else - not the success of our project, not the excitement of our future plans, seemed of any importance as I found my carefully nurtured sense of personal dignity being trampled all over. I exploded: 'If you don't want to hear me, at least consider sending your inspectors to examine our records and the sources from which each of us has financed the investment. They will find no black money involved. Thereafter, if you are still unconvinced, all I can offer is that, the next time your department builds its staff quarters, we will show you that they can be constructed at the same rate.' If I had been unprepared for his outburst, he was even more unprepared for mine!

"The crowning piece of this whole encounter was something quite unexpected. At the end of our dramatic meeting, he got up, took my hands in his and said, 'I was once a communist, an activist, pursuing my own brand of idealism. Somewhere over the years, I have allowed layers of rust to accumulate within me. Please don't let this happen to you.' He seemed to be saying, please do it for me too, not just for yourself. When I had spoken to him, I was thinking only of my own emotions. But I suddenly realised that if you are honest and you assert honesty, you awaken it in others."

Alacrity of course does not always get its building sanctions on time. As Karnad puts it, "Not asking for a bribe does not amount to efficiency...There are delays. But because we observe regulations strictly we are on a very strong wicket and since we have established a track record, we finally get what we want." When Alacrity does not get what it believes it is due, the company takes the matter to court and has won every single case...

Alacrity's annual turnover is in the region of A$ 40 million. It is involved in 30% of flat building activity in Chennai working in accordance with Development Control Regulations and free of black money.

Asked at a public meeting why he did not pay bribes, S B Hundre, chairman and managing director of Polyhydron, one of India's leading firms manufacturing hydraulic pumps and equipment, replied, "Because I do not cheat anybody."

Hundre says, "You must be sure that you do not cheat the government, the bureaucrat, the customer, society or nature. It is no use just putting up such ideals on the factory walls. You have got to practise them. We established systems to ensure that we did not exploit or cheat any of the constituents of the business and that gave me a lot of courage." The firm's policy is not to give credit. By careful planning it can offer the customer a competitively priced product of top quality with a guaranteed delivery time. This reduces the firm's cash flow problems and the need to borrow from the bank.

With this philosophy and policy behind him, Hundre's approach to a government officer is, "Please come and help me do my business better My intention is not to cheat the government; my intention is to pay the government. Help me make more and in turn get more money for the government. With this policy brought into reality no government officer can afford to stop my work. So don't harass me. If you do I will get rid of you because an honest man is never afraid of a dishonest man. If someone says I am honest and he is afraid of someone then he is not honest. He is dishonest. This was what I realised and now no-one troubles us. No customer demands any bribe from us. We have made it very clear this is our policy."...

Brazilian businessman Ricardo Semler, Chief Executive of the $200 million public services company Semco, speaking at TI's International Anti-Corruption Conference in 2001, said that his company was about a third of the size it might have been "had we accepted to play along with the (corrupt) rules of the game". Instead they had acted as whistleblowers, and this had led to several arrests.

Once, government environment inspectors wanted paying off when they found that the company's paint tanks were located in the wrong place. Semler refused. They told him: "You have a two-and-a-half year old son. Are you sure you want to do this?" Despite the threat, Semler decided to fight the criminal indictment they were threatening him with. But he also decided not to expose the individuals threatening him. "I felt I could not take the risk in dealing with four or five people known to be extremely violent and who were telling us that they knew exactly where we walked every day, how my kid walked to school." And Semler had no desire to be a posthumous hero.

On another occasion, Semco was negotiating a contract with a Japanese trading company. The Japanese director told Semco that they would have to pay a three per cent "commission": 1.5 per cent to him and 1.5 per cent to the company President. Ricardo Semler approached the President, who confirmed the demand. Semler refused.

IV: Culture of corruption attacked

a) Transparency International’s wake up call

People ask the question, sometimes as an escape from facing the issue and sometimes genuinely, “what difference can the individual’s stand make on the global phenomenon of corruption?”

In a number of areas, the answer is that the decisions of individuals and the initiatives they have taken have had an impact on corruption far beyond their immediate environment, both in business and politics. For instance, much of the drive to get the business world and its illicit "benefactors" to clean up their act has come from the small Berlin-based non-profit organization, Transparency International. TI’s influence illustrates what the decision of one individual can lead to in combating corruption. Peter Eigen had been the World Bank’s Resident Director in East Africa but was so appalled by the sheer wastage of resources on inappropriate development projects that he took early retirement to launch TI in 1993.

One of TI's first targets was the World Bank according to Jeremy Pope, now TI’s executive director, speaking at a meeting arranged by the Ministry of Justice in Mauritius in 1997. The strategy was based on the assumption that as long as international financial institutions were prepared to lend money to governments that use it corruptly, then the fight against corruption was not really being joined. Until the nomination of James Wolfensohn, an Australian citizen, as President of the World Bank, it was a lost battle, said Pope.

Pope described Wolfensohn in the following terms: “He comes from the real world. He is very rich and he doesn't need the job. He says he is doing this job because he loves the job and he wants the job for what the job is. It is costing him a lot of money to take this job he says and he does not complain about that. It's good to have someone there who really does not mind if he will lose his job, fighting for what is right.”

At the time of his appointment it was tough for Wolfensohn. The major shareholders of the World Bank were the countries that gave tax deductibilities to their countries' firms when they went out to bribe in the developing world. In effect Wolfensohn was declaring war on the modus operandi of the international business community. Pope added that the international financing institutions were now changing and TI regarded this "as a very important win in this whole battle against corruption."

b) Indian high court and media accuse government of sinister motives

When corrupt practices are under threat of exposure, governments can sometimes remove the danger by dismissing or transferring the police official or government servant who is uncovering the corruption. In countries where there is a reasonably independent judiciary individuals can take swift action to counter such moves.

In India for example, the Deputy Chief Minister and Home Minister of the State of Maharashtra, Chhagan Bhujpal, two years ago removed Ronald Mendonca from his position as Director-General of the Anti-Corruption Bureau. Mendonca took the matter to the High Court and the court's ruling was "that there was a systematic and sinister design motivating those who were bent upon somehow removing the respondent (Mendonca) from said post" and ordered his reinstatement.

The Bombay Times, under the headline "Did Mendonca know too much?", commented that Mendonca "was inquiring into corruption charges levelled against some top ranking public servants and it was this that resulted in him being unceremoniously transferred."...

Within two days of Mendonca's reinstatement as head of the Anti-Corruption Bureau by order of the High Court, Home Minister Bhujpal divided the Bureau into two, comprising a key section based in Mumbai and less sensitive section based in the rural area of the State. He then transferred Mendonca to head the new rural section.

Three Mumbai citizens immediately responded by challenging the State government's decision to bifurcate the Bureau by filing a public interest litigation in the High Court. The petitioners, R K Anand, a leading paediatrician; Dara Gandhy, a businessman; and B G Deshmukh, former Union (Federal) Cabinet Secretary, in their submission stressed the need for the Anti-Corruption Bureau to be independent of government interference, and said that the State Government by dividing the Bureau was "playing games" with the High Court's decision and by marginalising Mendonca was acting against the public interest in an arbitrary and capricious way.

c) Ombudsman faced death threats

In the five years 1994-99 as Vanuatu's first Ombudsman, Marie-Noelle Ferrieux-Patterson, exposed maladministration and corruption among the top leaders of the Pacific island state. Speaking at the 10th World Anti-Corruption Conference in Prague in 2001, she said that political leaders "issued illegal Reserve Bank guarantees representing twice the annual budget; sold passports; plundered disaster relief funds; sold government assets and housing cheaply to themselves; robbed the nation's pension fund to award themselves non-commercial housing loans; and paid themselves illegal compensation from public funds for alleged political grievances."

As Ombudsman she had brought these matters to public attention through a series of official reports. She came under repeated attack, she said, in the Parliament and the media, as a result. A government minister, attempting to intimidate her, planned her assassination. "I can tell you it is a chilling experience to read statements made by those involved in plotting your death. But to surrender to these fears only makes it easier for evil people to control how we live. I was encouraged from the beginning by widespread support from the general public and civil society--the churches, the chiefs and ordinary people," she said.

d) Clean Election Campaign launched in Taiwan

Business corruption, as we have seen, is often linked with political corruption. The reality of this impacted a group of people in Taiwan in 1992 and caused them to launch what became the Clean Election Campaign...

The Campaign had a four point strategy:

1. Strive for joint action with non-government groups and religious groups.
2. Win the trust and support of the ordinary people.
3. Work for a positive response from the media and the public.
4. Make sure that the government keeps its promises in carrying out reforms.

The Campaign" was launched a few months prior to the 1992 national elections. As the weeks went by its impact grew and became "a raging fire" according to the Taiwan magazine Global Views Monthly. In an interview with two of the Campaign's leaders, Liu Ren-Jou and Jack Huang, a legal adviser to several major enterprises, the magazine reported: "It was Liu who conceived the idea of launching the 'anti-corruption movement'. Some friends criticised him as a Don Quixote but he persevered. His conviction that 'human nature could be changed' inspired others in MRA to join him." The article added that Huang's tactical skills had won the full cooperation of 68 other civic groups. In response to criticism, Liu responded, "We are not engaged in a political struggle." Indeed, all those running the Campaign, he said, were personally committed to maintain political neutrality; seek no personal advantage or gain; generate no hatred towards the corrupt but inspire love of country as the motive for action; and run the public demonstrations peacefully and with joy.

A Japanese TV station crew came to Taiwan to cover the news of the Clean Election Campaign. By the time of the vote, some 670,000 voters had committed themselves in signed statements not to accept a bribe for their vote nor to vote for any candidate who offered a bribe--practices which had been commonplace for two generations. The results of the Legislature elections were hailed by the media as the miracle of the Clean Election Campaign or the victory of people power. Of the 350 candidates for the Legislature, 162 signed pledges against vote-buying. Five billionaire candidates lost their election and in those electorates the highest number of votes went to candidates who had supported the Clean Election Campaign. President Lee Deng-Hui and Prime Minister Hao Po-Ts'un received members of the Campaign and personally handed over their signed pledges against vote-buying and bribery...

The Campaign was certainly one factor in the swing of public opinion against vote-buying. It also helps explain the broad public support for then Justice Minister Ma Ying-jeou's crackdown on corrupt practices in the city and county elections of March 1994. Twenty-three were arrested, including a speaker, a deputy speaker and nine councillors from city or county authorities on charges of buying votes or accepting bribes. They were found guilty and the China Post reported that Ma's move had been "like an earthquake measuring more than six on the Richter Scale, rocking not only the main opposition Democratic Progressive Party but also the Kuomintang." Ma told me that the Clean Election Campaign had a positive effect on his crackdown campaign, in fact the two campaigns had interacted on each other....

From 1992 to 1997, the Clean Election Campaign was in action at every election, national, city or local. Hundreds of teachers and university students volunteered for training for the Campaigns, conducting public meetings, demonstrations and seminars. After 1997 the success of the Clean Election Campaign, which as a voluntary organisation was wound down, led to the setting up of an officially sponsored campaign against vote-buying and other forms of political corruption.

Evaluating the work of the Campaign, its present Vice-Chairman, Buddhist Master Shihjingyao, said that the current government was taking active measures to crackdown on vote-buying because of the persistent efforts of religious and civil society over the last ten years. He said, “We have been telling the voters that this country belongs to us all. It is up to us to help create a political environment based on clean elections and sound politics so that we can have politicians of good character working for the good of our country. This kind of responsibility belongs to each and every citizen.”...

Beyond “mafia” activities and money politics, Su Yin-Kuei, a member of the Legislature, has a track record in tackling corruption in other areas. As a lawyer in Kaohsiung, the second city of Taiwan, in 1991 he brought to public attention in a magazine he published the issue of corrupt payments to judges by “mafia” families. This practice was known among lawyers but not generally by the public. The payments were made to persuade a judge to reduce the sentence of a convicted criminal. In 1995 Su went further and published the names of the judges in the Kaohsiung district receiving bribes and the amount they received. He told me, “When I published this information I anticipated something would happen to me.” Two weeks later he was violently attacked by two men, left for dead, but fortunately survived.

Later the Kaohsiung Lawyers’ Association took up the campaign against corruption in the judiciary under Su’s direction as coordinator. This was followed by the Taipei Lawyers’ Association and eventually the campaign went national. Judges with a bad record were transferred by the government to remote counties...

f) Action in Brazil

Brazil's national elections in 1994 took place following the impeachment of a President and the indictment of 37 Members of Congress for large-scale misuse of public funds. Despite the public's understandable disillusionment with politics the elections were successful: there were demands for candidates to behave ethically and a near complete absence of violence.

The anti-vote buying campaign, Save Brazil with Clean Elections, played its part. It was built on earlier anti-corruption initiatives in the ports, the favelas and among taxi-drivers in Rio de Janeiro. Before the election Congressman Jones Santo Neves said in Congress that Taiwan's Clean Election Campaign was "an example we in Brazil ought to follow". On his invitation three Taiwanese campaigners visited Brazil. They spoke at meetings and gave media interviews across the country.

Correiro Braziliense, the capital's leading paper, reported, "A great movement, above party, is going to take over Brazil, from August onwards. It is a campaign for clean elections which puts a choice before all Brazilians, voters and candidates, ruling out corruption and the buying and selling of votes." Manchete, a TV chain which covers 93% of the country, showed without charge "clean election clips" several times a day during the month before polling--publicity worth US$ 1.3 million. Activists took the message to voters in the busy squares of Rio, and taxi-drivers invited their passengers to sign anti-bribery pledges.

In the elections, nearly all the candidates who had been accused of corruption in the previous Congress were defeated. The power of money had not been broken, of course, but all observers agreed that the election was a big step forward in the right direction.

g) Kenya initiates campaign

Joseph Karanja, a lawyer, and a friend James Mageria, formerly a Vice-President of World Vision, responsible for Africa, brought together ten people for a weekend conference to consider the situation in Kenya.. Based on the effectiveness of the Taiwan Clean Election Campaign, they decided, in the interests of the future of democracy, to launch the Kenya Clean Election Campaign for the 1997 elections.

They talked with the heads of the Catholic, Anglican and other churches and the religious leaders of the Muslims. They put forward three main points: to ask people to commit themselves to accept no bribe nor vote for any one who offered a bribe; to encourage people to take responsibility for the integrity of the voting process in the voting booths; and to encourage honest men and women to stand for election to parliament. The Christian and Muslim leaders gave their full backing to this and encouraged CEC speakers to address their congregations which over the succeeding months the CEC did. This proved a most effective way of reaching the ordinary voter as the churches are always full in Kenya on a Sunday. A group of businessmen helped finance advertising of the Campaign in the Kenyan press and a printer undertook to print hundreds of thousands of brochures without charge.

The Kenya Clean Election Campaign is now preparing for the 2002 elections.

V: 'Turning point' in combating corruption

...Those today who stand up for integrity and campaign against graft, whether in the police, government administration, business or non-government organisations face many challenges and dangers. They take action for many reasons. Some are so angered by the injustice of corruption that they take action. Some are activated because they see corruption as a threat to burgeoning freedom and democracy in their countries. Others take a stand because of their faith in God and a belief in his guidance and justice. Some take a stand because of all three.... Whatever the difficulties which have been faced, the courageous action of such people has brought us to a decisive point in history.

Members of the World Economic Forum Davos Group, commenting on the intense anti-corruption efforts by both official and non-government organisations, wrote, "In less than half a decade, the worldwide backlash against corruption has swept like a fire storm across the global political landscape. It is a revolution that even Karl Marx could scarcely have predicted--a simultaneous, though largely peaceful, public revolt on five continents against one of the world's oldest part-time professions, proffering and accepting bribes.”*4

References

*1. For A Change, December 2001

*2. Time.com 18 January 2002

*3. R M Lala, A Touch of Greatness; Viking 2001

*4. Patrick Glynn, Stephen J Kobrin and Moises Naim in The Globalization of Corruption

Book will be available in 2003 from Caux Books