CORRUPTION AS A WORLDWIDE PLAGUE ( Afro-Asian Peoples' Solidarity Organization's-AAPSO- contribution to the Session of the Ad Hoc Committee for the Negotiation of the United Nations Convention against Corruption)
One of the major factors which lead to the destruction of the social fabrics including economic and cultural environment of a given country is rightly attributed to corruption. As its motivation consists of maximization of profit-gain in many specific circumstances, the results have huge, direct or indirect impact on the economic and development behavior of that country. Consequently, the dimension attained by
acts of corruption on the level of the daily life of populations remains either unnoticed or belatedly revealed to the public opinion.
At the present day, the levels of acts of corruption range from the basic stratas of populations up to highly organized groupings, like mafias, transnational corporations or criminal organisations, all involving different categories of persons, high-ranking or subaltern officials and non officials, or simple citizens.
There are no corrupt persons without corrupters. This is widely recognized and the act of corruption is two-way traffic: either the initiative comes from the corrupt, or it comes from the corrupter. It involves both public and private sectors of the society. It is a fact that private citizens and business persons offer inducements, for example to public officials for the purpose of receiving favours usually in violation of procedures, laws or regulations in force in a country.
Corruption occurs when business people move from one country to another corrupting governments as they seek investment opportunities through underhand deals. Corrupt deals take the form of bribes. Bribes are usually demanded and paid in exchange for the processing of business operational permits, licenses or tax exemptions ( for example, the wellknown 10% commission !). Bribes are also used at the low level transactions between simple citizens and officers in the administrative work. Several forms of payment also are used in corrupt deals, covertly or openly ( sexual favors, exploitation of social relationships, friendship, marriage, electoral campaigns by fraud or vote buying, or rigging of results, etc..)
The complexity of the phenomenon revealed its contradictory nature when it comes to macro-economic development of one given country. In fact, one may wonder what attitude to adopt when such a country has actually benefited from corruption which contributed to its development?
Many observers argue, and this is evident by facts, that international financial institutions, donor countries and to some extent transnational corporations open the door to many kinds of corruption among local officials. Moreover, what is more frustrating, even more warring is the fact that these international institutions widely and rightly accused of being sources of corruption, directly or indirectly, "impose" by discourses and statements anti- corruption programmes on the development planning of many developing countries. Such hypocrisy and paradoxical behavior have been many times denounced as having counter-productive effects, thus boosting the spread of this plague. The same applies to some members of society as the pretext to combat corruption is used to benefit themselves from this practice.
This may explain the reluctance or the opposition of the officials to debate openly, be it publicly or before media, the issues related to corruption. It was also observed that contradiction exists between anti-corruption strategies set by developed countries, donor countries in the North and their practice on the ground in the poor South.
Local and cross-border corruption is a loss-making item for any country where this practice is current. Not only countries suffer from this plague on the national level. Corrupt leaders also have looted monies to be deposited in foreign banks abroad.
To the extend that corruption generally seeks to defeat such cardinal elements as transparency, accountability and integrity, and
taking all these corrupt manifestations into consideration, it is necessary for the international community to develop strategies and best practices that would diminish the area for illicit behaviour for the purpose of fighting corruption. Political will, public denounciation of corrupts and corrupters using informations from the grassroots level, via the media, to the high technology information services for prevention, investigation of corruptive acts at all levels of the society, are needed to be initiated and implemented.
Fight against corruption appears in the agendas of many governments or newly elected leaders, national, regional and international organisations. Naturally, the implementation of these agendas may differ from one country to another, but in what extent they bear fruit beneficial to the whole society remains to be seen. Experience showed that implementation itself encountered fierce opposition expressed with subtlety and discretion from different range of officials seeking to keep acquired advantages and privileges.
By virtue of globalisation, the task to combat corruption is not easy. Appropriate and effective measures should be taken globally. Serious efforts should be deployed to counter such phenomena like using diplomatic or political pressure, commercial pressure, tied aid, favours or gifts, tied defense or arms deals, tied scholarships, etc..
Corruption is a crime and must be treated as such. To this end, mechanisms for applying successfully preventive strategies against corruption, as well as viable criminal justice system to deal with this scourge be promoted and set up.
The Afro-Asian Peoples' Solidarity Organisation considers the time is ripe to organize a International Forum, including all relevant NGOs, to thoroughly discuss and debate the issue of corruption. It denounces and condemns the practice of corruption as detrimental to the conscience of people as well as to the development and progress of nations, mainly the developing countries which already suffer from backwardness and increasing poverty and marginalization.