Mr. Stephen Covey: The lower the GDP, the higher the corruption index and India’s low GDP matches its high corruption.
Meaning of corruption
‘Cor’ means ‘Serious’ ‘Rupt’ means ‘Ruptured’. ‘Corrupt’ means ‘Seriously Ruptured’. When the system is seriously ruptured, that is ‘CORRUPTION’
Meghnad Desai (A prominent economist and Labour peer) writes: Corruption is not a microeconomic behaviour or a two player’s game but microeconomic structural distortion which connects several parts of the political economy.
Dilip Bobb, Group Editor, special projects and features of the Indian Express opines: The five sectors in which bribery and other corrupt practices are most persuasive include government and public sector; infrastructure and real estate; metals and mining; aerospace and defence; power and utilities.
The question is, does good governance translate into controlling corruption in developing economies? A recent World Bank report looked at various aspects to do with governance. One was whether good governance and anti corruption are the same thing. Governance is defined as traditions and institutions by which authority in a country is exercised for common good.
He writes “The truth is that, like death and taxes, corruption is almost a given in the Indian context and has been for many decades regardless of which government was in power.
Citizens hope that the new decisive government that India now has will contain corruption substantially if not eliminate it completely.
The latest 2014 survey commissioned by FICCI among corporates in India identifies corruption, bribery and corporate frauds as the most important risks, ahead of industrial disputes and unrest as well as political instability. Corruption was listed at the fourth place in similar survey FICCI did last year. India suffered losses of `36,400 crore due to corruption in the 12 months to September, 2013, says a survey by EY (Ernst and Young) and FICCI, excluding large corruption scandals – 2G, CWG etc.
The World Bank and IMF have some suggestions on how to tackle the menace of corruption:
a. Publicly black listing firms that have been shown to bribe in public procurement and “publish – what – you – pay” by multinationals competing for major contracts
b. E ffective implementation of freedom of information laws, (RTI in India) with easy access for all to government information
c. Disclosure of actual ownership structure and financial status of companies, media houses and domestic banks
d. Transparent (Web based) competitive procurement procedures
e. Country governance and anti corruption diagnostics and public expenditure tracking surveys
Sumant Sinha wrote in the Economic Times some time before:
The time has come for us to take our country back. Take it back from those who are either incompetent or corrupt and frequently both, from those who think nothing of exploiting others, from those who have either narrow sectarian or casteist views, from those who only think about furthering their own vested interest, from those who believe that spending time in jail on corruption charges is an act of valour to be redeemed once out on bail, from those who hobnob with such people and still state that their personal integrity is untarnished, from those who do not understand what it means to lead this great nation with its great culture and people, from the corrupt bureaucrats who have submitted themselves willingly to corruption around them, from the corruption inducing businessmen in India for whom making money at the expense of everything else is the only mantra, from the petty civil servant who has long back lost the concept of civil service and so on.
Citizens believe that the time has now come for India to redeem itself.
A recent study in Financial Times shows that relatives galore of Chinese politicians have become millionaires. The “princelings”, as children of top Chinese politicians are called, have riches that dwarf comparable Indian princelings.
Chetan Bhagat in the Times of India of 16.05.2014 listed the five areas towards which the new Government’s effort should be focused. One of them is:
Go after corruption. It bothers Indians and needs to be fixed. However at present, it also churns the wheels of our economic system.
Draconian measures or finger pointing will solve nothing. It might bring the country to a halt. You don’t solve a blood contamination disease by cutting of the arteries of the heart. You make the blood pure again, one small transfusion at a time.
You don’t want all the IAS officers or cops to stop working. You don’t want them to be corrupt either. Hence incentive structures, laws, and mind sets and empowerment all need to be looked at. Indians don’t want corruption to be solved in one week; they just want a leader with genuine intent to solve it. You have your time, but fix it.
The recently announced election results will bring this state of reality
A statement of Barack Obama :
We need to keep up the fight against corruption, which stifles innovation and is one of the biggest barriers to job creation and economic growth around the world.
