The Great Wall of Corruption
Posted on June 16, 2011
Read more about the ipaidabribe concept taking off to fight new corruption battles on Chinese soil!
A few days ago, leading newspapers in India all went to town with the discovery of three Chinese anti-corruption websites that were launched along lines extremely similar to ipaidabribe.com. While these three sites - “Wo Xinghui le”, “Wo Xinghui la”, “Wo huilu le”, did not show up easily on search engines, it was recorded that they still managed to clock in a fairly impressive number of hits with a report in the Shanghai-based newspaper Dongfang Daily stating that www.woxinghuile.info had around 50,000 visitors on the second day of creation. The Beijing News (Xinjingbao) also reported over 500,000 hits from independent IP addresses on www.ibribery.com, apparently causing three of the new-born web sites to crash.
Such numbers are surprising in a China which ranks below India on the corruption scale (China ranks 78 out of the 178 regions counted, while India comes in at 87). Reports in the news stated that other postings on these sites included ` stories of kickbacks for permission to sell medicine, underhand sell-offs of state-owned mines to cronies, payments of money and cigarettes to pass driving school, and “red envelopes” of cash to doctors to ensure expectant mothers were well treated ‘. The biggest concern was that these reports should not be seen as personal vendetta tools that could create the potential for a witch hunt not unlike that seen during the Cultural Revolution. Inevitable government censorship was also a fear.
Since imitation is usually the best form of flattery, ipaidabribe finds this turn of events interesting, with the intention of the site and its bribe reporting structures assuming global popularity. Ever since the news broke, ipaidabribe spokesperson, ex-bureaucrat TR Raghunandan and the team have been flooded with discussions and queries coming in not just from China, but also nationally on ipaidabribe and it’s goals. Here, is an excerpt from one such conversation with the Xinhua News Agency, China.
Q. How has IPAB helped change the system of corruption? Please give us some examples?
A. IPaidABribe.com is an initiative to tackle corruption by tapping into the collective energy of citizens, to tackle corruption. It primarily operates as a website, which is a citizen driven mechanism for tracking bribe payment activity, as also instances of when people resisted bribe payments or did not have to pay bribes because of good government systems or good people within the government systems. Citizens’ reports on the nature, number, pattern, types, locations and frequency of actual corrupt acts and values of bribes will add up to a valuable knowledge bank that will contribute to a reduction in bribe payments. By providing a place for citizens to report, as well as by analyzing the information, ipaidabribe.com helps to: • Heighten citizen awareness about the nature and spread of bribe-related exchanges and promote a purposive public debate that pressurises public officials to reduce and eventually eliminate corruption, • Help citizens to recognize, avoid and tackle bribe paying situations, • Identify and analyse the workflows within corruption prone public services, which results in suggestions on systemic reform directed at entrenching simpler and more transparent processes, more consistent standards of law enforcement and better vigilance and regulation.
Providing space to people to speak about corruption is only one facet of the service provided. The larger aim is to use the data to make detailed recommendations on how government can eliminate the avenues of corruption. Based upon our growing data bank of citizens’ reports, we have commenced reporting on trends, patterns and techniques of corruption. We have already begun to report aggregated findings.
By putting such reports in the public domain also, we have begun to create pressure from citizens also on the government to pressurize them to change procedures. We are also willing to work hand in hand with the government, in order to design systems, write new regulations and help design similar such reforms. So far, the Government has been favourable to these reports and are willing to take action to make the necessary process changes and keep citizens informed about the progress made by the government.
We help victims of corruption in many ways. In a column ‘Ask Raghu’, we offer advice to citizens how to go about avoiding bribe paying situations. We have a wide range of FAQs and service related fora in which citizens can obtain critical information on the right way to obtain various services. Based on an analysis of cases of citizens having successfully resisted corruption, we came out with the ‘10 commandments of resisting bribery’, on 9 Dec, International Anti-corruption Day. This document can also be downloaded from the website.
2. Why are names of individuals that have perpetrated the bribe not disclosed on the site? How do you confirm whether people's stories are true or false?
We do not to give names of people, for the following reasons: (a) It distracts us from the main task of putting pressure on the government for systemic improvement (b) We are not a prosecuting agency on behalf of citizens. They can also directly go to regulatory and vigilance authorities (c) We do not want to open the floodgates of claims and counterclaims. We want the website to retain its focus on being a positive mover in the larger endeavour of eliminating corruption, rather than a combative place where people trade personal complaints. (d) elimination of corruption is better achieving by simplification of systems, transparency and other similar reforms. By targeting corrupt people without tackling such changes, we cannot achieve much. By not allowing names to be published, we have eliminated any incentive for any individual to make a false or malicious complaint. As nobody will gain anything by reporting a false complaint on our site because we do not act on complaints, we expect that all reports are true.
2. What's is the Indian government's attitude toward "I Paid a Bribe"? Did you feel any pressure?
No we have not felt any pressure. On the other hand, the government has been positive. We have been invited by the Central Vigilance Commission to make presentations in their official functions. Departments such as the Transport Department in Karnataka State have provided us the platform to address their officials too. Moreover, all the complaints and stories on the website are in the public domain. They are there for everyone to see. Any positive minded government servant or politician can see these reports and surely, if they are motivated enough, they can make positive changes happen. In addition, we are also using the data for further analysis, so that everybody sees the dimension of the problem in totality. Our stand is that we want to engage positively with any arm of the government to improve services and reduce the possibility of corruption. We are willing to work hand in hand with the government, in order to design systems, write new regulations and help design similar such reforms. Since the Government has many good people working within it, the reaction that we have received has been positive.
3. The IPAB story attracted huge attention from Chinese media and readers, some people even set up several copycat websites. Do you have any suggestions for those who want to run a similar website?
We feel proud that we have been considered a role model by people in China, who have set up similar websites that have been inspired by our example. We believe that the basic idea behind our website, of getting people involved in a citizens’ effort to reduce corruption, can be used elsewhere too. The key to success is to provide a basket of services to both the people and the government, and to constantly evolve new strategies to use communication services optimally for creating a swarm like resistance to corruption. We also believe that it is not only important to provide a space to citizens, but we must also educate them on the techniques of resisting corruption.
It is also important to work with the government, because there will always be good people within the government who are willing to take one’s support to tackle corruption effectively by getting rid of red tape and simplifying procedures.
- AR
Stay connected here for the discussion with the Guangzhou Daily, China to follow in our next post.