‘This Vigilance Week, let’s break chain of corruption’

Commemorating his probity, the ‘Vigilance Awareness Week’ is observed in India every year during the week in which the birthday of Sardar Patel (31st October) falls. This year, the Central Vigilance Commission has decided to observe the Vigilance Awareness Week from October 27 to November 2 with the theme ‘Vigilant India, Prosperous India’. Going by the theme, let us check out how corruption impacts the prosperity of a nation and how combating corruption can enhance the prosperity of a country.

Corruption has a tremendous impact on prosperity, and its sustainability. When the level of corruption increases, the level of prosperity and sustainable development of a nation dramatically diminishes. Corruption Perception Index (CPI) is the most widely used indicator of corruption worldwide. CPI ranks and scores countries based on the perception of the country’s public sector through various assessments. India has been ranked 80th corrupt nation out of 180 countries, according to the 2019 CPI reported by Transparency International. CPI has ranked Denmark, Finland, New Zealand, Sweden, Singapore and Switzerland as the top five least corrupt nations in the world.

India too can become more prosperous by learning from developed economies or from extraordinary anti-corruption reform success stories of countries like Georgia, Rwanda and Liberia which were able to combat corruption in an endemic corrupt society akin to ours. India need not languish at the 80th place on Transparency International’s index; it too can like Georgia, Liberia and Rwanda through the implementation of crucial and swift reforms, script its own success story to emerge as one of the top corruption-free nations in the world. Rwanda, for example, in 2008, was 102 on the CPI list; they attained 89th place in 2009, 66th in 2010 and 49th in 2011. Similarly, CPI in 2003 ranked Georgia 124th, but by 2012, they had obtained a ranking of 51st place.

If corruption levels in India could be decreased to levels in advanced economies such as Singapore or the United Kingdom, India’s GDP growth rate could increase at a considerable rate annually. Corruption imposes high-cost. The World Economic Forum estimates that corruption costs the world at least five per cent of its GDP. Professor Bibek Debroy and Laveesh Bhandari in their book ‘Corruption in India’, claim that public officials in India may be hogging as much as ₹921 billion (US$13 billion), or five per cent of the GDP through corruption. Estimates reveal that corruption can reduce the GDP of a country by as much as 25 per cent, but nations that fight corruption could improve their GDP by 400 per cent. UNODC reports that corruption, bribery, theft and tax evasion causes losses of up to the US$1.26 trillion for developing countries per year. Collection of taxes in strongly governed nations is 4.5 per cent of GDP more than relatively more corrupt ones. Georgia, by reducing corruption, was able to double its tax revenues and increase its GDP by 13 percentage points between 2003 and 2008. Similarly, Rwanda’s reforms to fight corruption bore fruit, and tax revenues increased by six percentage points of GDP in the mid-1990s.

We can measure the cost of corruption not just in the billions of rupees of squandered or stolen government resources, but most poignantly in the absence of the hospitals, schools, clean water, roads and bridges that we could have built with that money inevitably transforming the fortunes offamilies and communities. Bribery tends to diminish the effectiveness of government services due to poor compliance with government regulations. Besides, corrupt countries tend to be more polluted than countries that are strongly governed, and the IMF has documented thatinfant mortality and school dropout rates are high in corrupt nations. CK Prahalad has evaluated that the lost opportunity caused by corruption in terms of investment, growth and jobs for India is over US$50 billion a year.

Corruption has to be tackled on a war footing as it perverts the rule of law and attacks the foundations of democracy. Poor men and women wanting to access even essential services get forced to pay bribes, and economic development of the nation gets impeded as foreign investments get discouraged. Small businesses are not able to take off as they are unable to pay bribes to get the required licences. Corruption hurts everyone by eroding the trust of the people in the public sector by the diversion of taxpayers’ money from earmarked and essential projects to non-essentials resulting in poor quality services or infrastructures.

Corruption can be tackled at the governmental level by initiating reforms, by learning from advanced countries that are least corrupt like Norway and Finland and from success stories of developing nations like Georgia, Liberia and Rwanda that have accomplished incredible progress in the fight against corruption over the last few years. After the 2003 Rose Revolution, Georgia mostly was successful in eliminating petty corruption in a very short period through several high-profile anti-corruption campaigns, by deregulation and by the liberalisation of the business environment as well as public sector reform, through prosecution of corrupt senior officials, and police reform. In Liberia, President Johnson-Sirleaf supported the donor-driven anti-corruption programme and eradicated corruption to a large extent by ensuring the independence of the General Auditing Commission, by establishing the Liberia Anti-Corruption Commission, and by transparent financial management and budget processes. In Rwanda, the anti-corruption efforts were concentrated on bolstering the legal and institutional framework,enhancing government effectiveness, reforming finance and by developing a strong and competent public service.

Corruption may have got deeply entrenched in our society, but at the individual level, we as citizens should never accept it as a way of life. The society will benefit if we all stand up and say ”No More” to this crime. If we refuse to allow corruption into our lives, there will be no opportunity for the corrupt to carry out their illegal deeds. We have to break the chain of corruption by refusing to pay or accept bribes, fees or gifts. We can send a strong message, not only to those who attempt to solicit favours but also to those working with them by rejecting forbidden rewards for work done or to be done by them. We must teach our children the value of integrity and promote justice by reporting incidences of corruption promptly without fear of the authorities. Whatever walk of life we may belong to, we must act against corruption. The benefits are better education, improved healthcare, an active justice system, bolstered development, healthy democracy, and enhanced prosperity for our country.