Naming public property after political figures is also corruption: Experts

KARACHI: Corruption exists in different forms with bribery, blackmail and nepotism being some of the well known ones, but naming public properties after political figures also qualifies as corruption.

This was said by the panelists on day two of an international conference on corruption organised in part by the Hamdard law school on Sunday. You need to define and measure what corruption is to stop it, said the experts.

“Landlords become politicians and then their generations continue on their seats,” said Alan Davis, who heads the Institute of War and Peace Reporting in Asia. “We need to build public ownership of public money as the most effective and sustainable strategies are those built at the grass-roots level.”

According to Davis, the problem with a top-down approach is that it is highly dependent on the government’s willingness whereas a bottom-up approach is more sustainable as it allows the participation of individuals. Only the citizens of a country, said Davis, can hold the political and government institutions accountable and make them respond.

According to Wijayanto, the vice-rector at the Paramadina University in Indonesia, corruption also follows the rule of supply and demand. “The practice [of corruption] exists because you have a supply and demand of officers who are willing to do favours in return for a favour or for a price,” said Wijayanto. “Since corruption is a strategic crime, you need to deal with it strategically too. But the people can’t wait for decades - they’ll need to see results soon.”

Prof. Dolly Arora of the Indian Institute of Public Administration highlighted that corruption exists at the most basic levels. “The most legitimate needs, like getting a certificate, are not fulfilled if one does not use bribery - willingly or unwillingly.” She went on to say that the beneficiaries of corruption will not end it and the victims may not attempt to stop it, which leaves only active and conscious members of civil society.

“There is a need for collective resistance and action by civil society,” said Arora.

Having the best or multiple laws are useless unless you implement them, said Neringa Mickeviciute, a project leader at Transparency International, Lithuania. “If you don’t know what you’re asking for, then you’ll probably get what you won’t like,” she said.

She shared the example of the recent elections in Lithuania where people cheered politicians on the day of elections but called them thieves the next day. Mickeviciute said that although politicians admit that corruption exists in their field, they manage to get away with it because there is little talk about it in civil society or people bring it up too late.

A lack of transparency and accountability are the main problems, said the panelists, adding that people should be ruled by the law instead of government officials. They asked for the existing laws to be implemented and simplified instead of new ones being created.

“Increasing salaries isn’t everything; make people proud of their professions,” concluded Wijayanto. “People don’t have the patience to wait for 1,000 years - corruption just seems to be the easy shortcut.”

Published in The Express Tribune, October 23^rd, 2012.