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CONTROLLING CORRUPTION
Recently, there has been much discussion about corruption since the arrest of former Malaysian Prime Minister, Najib Razak, former South Africa President Jacob Zuma, the impeachment and imprisonment of Presidents Dilma Rousseff and Lula Da Silva of Brazil. Not to mention the recent arrest of a former Minister of Barbados in the United States on money laundering charges. In the U.S, several public officials—governors, mayors, senators and Congressmen are in prison for corruption. Corruption has always existed and while all countries are corrupt,they are not equally afflicted by the problem. In the developing countries, corruption is a problem on a whole different scale.
Corruption is minimal in countries that are relatively wealthy, where there is respect for the rule of law, and where the laws are applied in a generally fair and transparent manner across the board.There will always be people who are corrupt or are tempted by corruption. But in poor countries, a culture of systemic corruption exists. In countries such as Guyana, as well as those in the Caribbean, Africa and Latin America, is greater temptation to become corrupt because anti-corruption laws are nonexistent, unenforced, or enforced in an arbitrary manner. As a result, there is a low chance of being caught.
Political corruption, generally speaking, is the acceptance of money or other valuable goods or services in exchange for making a legislative, executive or bureaucratic decision on the basis of the payment received instead of on the basis of what the law requires or what is in the best interest of the public. Political corruption is the misuse by government officials for illegitimate private gain. In short, it is bribery.
It is much easier to condemn corruption than it is to overcome it. Corrupt nations tend to be intolerant and their citizens have to endure lower living standards and lower levels of happiness and life satisfaction. However, nations must first come to grips with the fact that corruption does not occur in a vacuum; it is a symptom of deeply rooted economic and social maladies that are closely associated with the overall level of economic development. The richer the country, the less corrupt it is.
In Guyana, there were alleged corrupt practices under the PPP government. However, following its success at the polls in May 2015, the APNU+AFC coalition has conducted several forensic audits to determine the level of corruption that took place under the PPP regime. It has mandated the State Asset Recovery Agency (SARA) and the existing Special Organized Crime Unit (SOCU) to recover stolen state assets and to prosecute former public officials found culpable of corruption. While the stolen state assets are being slowly recovered, in the coming weeks and months both SARA and SOCU will collate their evidence and prosecute those responsible for pillaging the nation’s assets.
While the PPP has complained about witch hunting, it is important to note that SARA was formally established in 2015 by this Government, but it was the PPP that created SOCU. Its main motive was to offer some assurance to the U.S and the western world that it was dealing with corruption. It was a sham. Today, it is the same SOCU, with the same people hired by the PPP, who are going after the people who have transgressed.
Controlling corruption effectively in Guyana should not be the work of only SARA and SOCU, or the Ombudsman’s office. Although Guyana’s tough anti-corruption legislation has diminished corruption, it is still thriving in many departments.
In order to get corruption under control in Guyana, it would require the combination captured in the Index of Public Integrity (IPI): more fiscal transparency and accountability combined with effective public scrutiny and collective action to sanction corrupt behaviour.
Overcoming or controlling corruption is impossible without the media, active citizen participation and independent judges. According to the current IPI ranking, the least corrupt countries are Denmark, New Zealand, Finland, Singapore, Norway and Canada, and the most corrupt are Venezuela, North Korea, Yemen, Somalia, Russia, Syria and Brazil.
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