- Bribe Hotline
- 13 years ago
- 1497 views
I have visited India each year for the past 6 years and have heard a number of examples of corruption. I am intrigued by your website, which I learned about today. I was a corruption prosecutor in the
As far as I know, there is no site similar to ours in the UK or US. Coming to your second question, The Lokpal bill proposes to establish a powerful institution of the Lokpal, but its scope is limited to acts of corruption committed by public servants. We in ipaidabribe.com feel that while the Lokpal bill will be a significant and important step forward, but unless we enlarge the definition of what constitutes ‘corruption’ under Indian law, many corrupt practices will slip under the radar. Concentrating on cleansing the public sector alone, without controlling the corruption rampant in the private sector, will have a limited effect, because the private sector will continue to contaminate the private sector. Kickbacks among employees of private companies is intertwined with public sector corruption. Another weakness in India is that we do not have an asset recovery law; therefore earnings of the corrupt are not compulsorily forfeited to the government. India needs to align itself with an internationally accepted and stricter standard of defining corruption. In international practice, corruption amounts to much more than bribery of public servants. The UN Convention Against Corruption (2005) recognises 12 circumstances that amount to acts of corruption. Some of those, which are not considered crimes in India are (i) Bribery in the private sector, (ii) Bribing a foreign national in another country (iii) concealment of wealth, (iv) exercising undue influence and (v) obstruction of justice. In order to build an effective anti-corruption regime, one of the far reaching steps that India needs to take, in tandem with enacting a strong Lokpal bill, is to ratify the UNCAC 2005. India was one of the last to sign the convention and now, India is one of the 17 countries that remain to ratify the convention. Even after signing the convention, India will have to enact national legislation to implement the provisions of the treaty.