CPI and the Anti-corruption MovementIftekhar Zaman, Statement

I take the floor with mixed feelings. It’s a privilege and pleasure to join this enormously important event in the yearly calendar of global anti-corruption movement. However, coming from Bangladesh which has been for the fifth successive time ranked at the bottom of the list, it is extremely disappointing for me that rampant corruption of those in positions of power has brought this dubious distinction to my country. I should add that corruption prevails in every country of the world. What is striking about Bangladesh is that in the absence of strong and effective deterrence it has become so pervasive that even the common citizens are affected by it whether it is because of political corruption, or that in the public service delivery sectors such as health, education, police, local government, land administration, etc.

I have mixed feelings as an Asian too. While at least 8 Asia-pacific countries are among the top 50 in the list scoring 5 points or more, 13 have scored 3 points or less. All South Asian countries (Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Nepal and Sri Lanka) except Sri Lanka have scored less than 3 points.

One of the early lessons we learnt in TI Bangladesh is that when political will is absent or not strong enough at the highest level to fight corruption without fear or favour; when the key institutions like the parliament, the executive, the law enforcement agencies, the judiciary and the anti-corruption commission are not independent and effective enough; and when people are denied access to information; the ultimate source of strength in anti-corruption movement is the awareness and participation of the people at large. In our effort to engage citizens, especially the young generation, one of the key challenging questions I always face is: do the vast majority of the people of the country who have nothing to do with corruption and who are indeed the victims of corruption, really deserve the national embarrassment?

The answer I try to give them is my first point here today – CPI is a measure of perceptions about the level of corruption – it does not and cannot, brand a country or nation as corrupt. Corruption has been perceived to be highest in Bangladesh, which does not, however, justify that Bangladesh or for that matter any other country at the bottom end of the list is a “most corrupt country” or “most corrupt nation”. While corruption is indeed the most formidable challenge against governance, development and poverty reduction in Bangladesh as well as most other developing countries, abuse of power by a limited number of corrupt people and failure of leaderships and institutions to control and prevent corruption cannot justify that the country or nation or the people are most corrupt.

Having said this, let me add that thanks to CPI and TI-Bangladesh’s social movement against corruption, the term corruption is no longer a taboo, as it used to be few years back. Transparency, accountability and good governance have now become most commonly raised demands in public discourse.

Second, corruption has also become a key political issue. All major political parties have anti-corruption issues on top of agenda in their election manifesto, whether or not they actually deliver. CPI even shaped the national election results in 2001, when by using CPI ranking against the incumbent government the opposition party succeeded to come to power.

Third, development partners, multilateral and bilateral funding organizations have taken up the issue of corruption more aggressively as a tool in their negotiations with government.

Fourth, the Government is increasingly under pressure to introduce institutional and policy reforms even though often without the necessary commitment.

Finally, TI and TI-Bangladesh have become familiar names – hardly any other international organization is as widely known to the people of Bangladesh as TI and TIB.

Let me also highlight a risk in connection with CPI for the future of global anticorruption movement. Because CPI is commonly taken as branding of countries as corrupt, and because most of those at the bottom of the list are poor, there is a tendency in the rich and powerful nations to project corruption as a monopoly of the poor and weak, often threatening withdrawal or reduction of trade, aid and investment relationships. By doing so, far from addressing the real problem, all they can do is actually punish the vast majority of the people who are only victims of corruption.

CPI can also become a convenient tool to divert attention from the failures of the wealthier countries. Behind most of the biggest corporate scandals in the developing countries are companies from the wealthiest nations. In one such recent example in Bangladesh the Government of the OECD country which ranks high in terms of CPI, and from where the company comes, has not shown any enthusiasm to investigate.

None of the big players who are known for dictating terms on the developing countries is within the top 10 of the CPI list. The highest score among them is 8.6, which in real terms - if the strengths and traditions of the key institutions of the national integrity system are taken into consideration - would not be too different from those at the lowest level, where those institutions are at best in a very nascent stage. This is not to suggest that one failure justifies another, but that the wealthier countries have very little moral justification to impose anti-corruption conditionality upon the poorer nations when they are also failing to meet expectations. Corruption is a universal problem, as big a challenge for the developed as for the developing countries.

Thank you