Best practices across our borders
While there has been a tremendous India focus in the past one year, the issue of corruption is not concentrated in this part of Asia alone. It is present in multiple forms across the globe and at differing magnitudes. Therefore, ipaidabribe.com takes a quick look at the various ways in which some of our neighbors maintain their checks and balances across our borders.
In Afghanistan,an NGO, Integrity Watch, Afghanistan (IWA) has conducted 3 annual surveys on corruption. The first survey was in 2006, covering 13 provinces. The second in 2009, covering 32 provinces. The third is ongoing, covering all 34 provinces in the country. 75% sample is from rural areas and 25% from urban areas. Women interviewers specifically focus on conducting interviews with women respondents. In the last survey, more than 6500 people were interviewed. Corruption was listed as the third most dominant problem in Afghanistan, following insecurity and unemployment. Surprisingly, access to water, electricity and political freedoms ranked as the least worrying! IWA also conducts Public Services Monitoring through regular surveys. Following user surveys, workshops are conducted for identifying recommendations. Then recommended reforms are documented in a report. Following which civil servants are trained and the implementation of the recommended reforms are monitored within the government. Constraints reported are the regular transfers of civil servants, resulting in discontinuity in implementation of reforms. Shades of India!
In Mongolia,the national anti-corruption law mandates that a regular survey shall be conducted to understand the extent, scope, forms of and causes of corruption. This also brings out the spatial and periodical changes in the prevalence of corruption. The country has developed the Mongolian Corruption Index (MCI) methodology, conducted surveys, and released its results in 2009.
The Index is a Summary of comprehensive qualitative and quantitative indicators as follows:
• Extent and scope of corruption and its social and economic consequences
• The forms of corruption
• Causes of corruption or influencing factors for corruption
Here are the components of the index:
Scope of corruption:
· Percentage of public who feel corruption is widespread
· Percentage of economic damage due to registered corruption crime in annual national budget expenditure(to measure the economic consequencesof corruption)
· The bribe percentage in the total cost of identified transactions
· Percentage of household incomethat is the bribe paid to public officials.
Forms of corruption:
· Percentage of corruption crime with multiple objects;
· Percentage of corruption crime with more than two recurrences;
· Percentage of organized corruption crimes;
· Indicator of classification of corruption crime;
· Percentage of corruption with motivation of greed;
The survey process takes many forms. The public perception survey comprises of interviews of citizens, public officials and entrepreneurs – a total of6001 respondents were interviewed for the 2009 survey. An ‘Experts’ Perception Survey’ covered 350 experts representing diverse sectors and public institutions are also requested to undertake self-assessment of corruption risk.
Apart from these interviews, implementation of anti-corruption law by public institutions is reviewed. In addition, evidence based study of corruption crime statistics and other related data is undertaken.
The quantitative indicators of corruption index are the arithmetic mean of the indicators of scope and form of corruption. The survey revealed a national average performance of 0.64(CI is measured between 0-1 values, with a higher value indicating less corruption). The least corrupt departments were perceived to be Defense (0.71) and Welfare and Labor (0.69). The most corrupt were Justice and Home Affairs and Health (both tied on 0.61) and Mineral and Energy Resources (0.47).
Some of the key findings on economic consequences of corruption were as follows:
• The total loss caused by registered corruption crimes equals 2.7% of the national budget.
• 13.3% of households paid an average bribe of 240.8 thousand MNT per household, which totaled to 21.7 billion MNT.
• 10.11% of the costs of the project and programmes implemented by the state are lost to corruption and bribery.10.45% of the total costs of contracts are spent for corruption and bribe. Thus, if an asphalted road was to be built for 1100.0 million MNT, 115.0 million is spent for bribery and corruption.
• 11.5% of the due amount to be paid as tax is spent as bribes for receiving tax deductions and exemptions.
Experts perceived that though Anti Corruption (AC) plans exist in departments, most do not know about them. They remain on paper and there is little commitment for implementation due to lack of advocacy, criteria for outcome evaluation, clear ownership of responsibility for implementation, failure to allocate budget and lack of employee participation. Other reasons for not implementation of AC strategies are the inclusion of unachievable objectives and deep conflict of interests among managers.
In Vietnam, the Public Administration Perception Index (PAPI – very interesting abbreviation)is concerned withthe experiences of users of governance and public administration. It covers six dimensions, namely, Participation, Transparency, Vertical Accountability, Anti-Corruption, Administrative Procedures and Public Services. It collects evidence and data at provincial level, which can be aggregated at national level. On the sub-dimension of Anti-Corruption, the following data is collected:
PAPI was piloted in 2009 in three provinces, following which its coverage was increased to 30 provinces in 2010 and 63 provinces from 2011.In the nationwide survey of 2011, 13,500 respondents were interviewed by three implementing agencies, namely, the Vietnam Fatherland Front (VFF), Center for Community Support Development Studies (CECODES) and UNDP. PAPI provides comparisons between provinces and across time. PAPI has a strong influence on the government due to two reasons. First, it is implemented by strong and credible implementing agencies. Second, it has a high profile national advisory board, chaired by a Former Vice Minister, Ministry of Home Affairs. The membership is drawn from political parties, civil society organisations, international organisations and academic institutions.
PAPI has been successful in influencing government because its scientific nature and robustness of implementation accurately reflects the experiences of citizens. By not taking an accusatory position, it becomes a reference for provinces, because it also reflects efforts made to improve the quality and availability of governance and public administration. Because provinces can see their strengths and weaknesses as well as causes, they can find practical solutions to improving the performance of the public administration system. PAPI provides objective information to support policy making, implementation and monitoring processes at national and provincial levels
PAPI has been so successful that there is an increasing demand from government agencies and provincial authorities for data, in order to make better policy decisions.It therefore produces several kinds of reports for users. Apart from the Full Report, which gives major findings and describes the detailed methodological approach, Policy Briefs are also available for easy understanding. Individual Provincial Profiles are prepared to support provincial level analysis and discussion and a Gender Disaggregated Analysis is also available.
For more information, visit www.papi.vn
While overcoming corruption may be an idealised goal, changes in processes and systems can only be accomplished through pressure from the people and the development of a larger political will. Cleaning up the system is an onerous task, but it is possible only if we have the buy in of our respective governments.