En su idioma

Eduardo del Buey
Foto: thesun.co.uk
La Jornada Maya

On May 12th, British Prime Minister David Cameron hosted the first Anti-Corruption Summit in London. Forty national governments attended, as did the heads of several international organizations (The United Nations, The Commonwealth, the International Monetary Fund) along with a slew of non-governmental organizations (NGO’s).

Yet this Summit received very little coverage in Merida’s main media outlets. This is unfortunate, since corruption plays an increasingly insidious role in global development efforts and affects us all wherever we may be.

Last year bribes alone accounted for US $2 trillion lost worldwide to development investment and poverty eradication. This accounts for 2 per cent of global gross domestic production – some US $285 for every man, woman, and child on the planet. And that’s just from bribery. Factor in nepotism, embezzlement, favoritism, and corrupt contracting practices, and the amount rises substantially.

British Member of Parliament Matt Hancock commented that a mere reduction of 10 per cent in global corruption would free up some US $380 billion for global development. The results of global corruption include human trafficking, poor education and environmental standards, and terrorism.

For developed countries, the proceeds of corruption are laundered and often invested in real estate in major cities such as London have made housing in those cities unaffordable for their own citizens. International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Christine Legarde calls this “pollution” – contaminating lives not only in the developing world deprived of much needed funding for development, but also in the developed world, where, as an example, citizens are being priced out of the housing market.

Transparency International (TI) reports that in Afghanistan millions of dollars that should have gone to reconstruction have been reportedly wasted or stolen, seriously undermining efforts to sustain peace.

It should be noted that having a clean public sector at home doesn’t guarantee a clean operation abroad. For example, TI reports that while it comes third in the index, the Swedish-Finnish firm TeliaSonera – 37 per cent owned by the Swedish state – is facing allegations that it paid millions of dollars in bribes to secure business in Uzbekistan, which comes in at 153rd in the index.

As we can see, corruption is a two way street. While many who accept bribes are in developing countries, many who pay bribes are in developed economies. This affects everyone, yet few are held responsible given current land title laws that allow numbered companies to hide the identities of their owners. This is how many illegal funds are laundered and reinvested worldwide.

But this too is likely to change.

According to The Economist, “offshore shell companies and other foreign entities that buy or already own British property will have to declare their owners in the new register. So too will those bidding on government contracts. Foreign firms own more than 44,000 properties in London alone. A good proportion is assumed to have been bought with the proceeds of corruption”.

It goes on to note that “Public procurement isn’t sexy, but it matters: it accounts for 30 per cent of government spending—or nearly US $10 trillion a year—and a good chunk of this is lost to corruption. An estimated 60 per cent of the world’s bribes come from public contracts, points out Martin Tisné, a transparency expert with the Omidyar Network, a foundation. The participants signed up to making such contracting open by default; from now on, governments that keep the details hidden will have to explain why”.

Can you afford this? Many leaders think not, and have decided that the time has come to deal a major blow to these practices both nationally and internationally.

The final communiqué calls for corruption to be exposed, ensuring there is nowhere to hide, pursuing and punishing those responsible and supporting those who have suffered from corruption, and driving out corruption by ensuring that transparency and governance are key in sectors such as the extractive industries, sports, and the security sectors.

Six countries (including the United Kingdom) will establish public registers of true company ownership while six more will explore doing so. These registers will force shell companies to disclose the names of the individuals who control their assets, leading to greater transparency in financial reporting and allowing governments to ascertain which properties have been purchased with the proceeds of corruption. Provisions are being made for the proceeds of corruption to be recovered and restored to their rightful owners, and the corrupt parties punished.

But as the British say, the proof of the pudding is in the eating.

These new tools to fight the scourge of corruption sound promising, but time will tell if words are matched with deeds, and governments translate intentions into real actions.

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