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By Amber Poroznuk
“Bureaucracy is the most profitable business in Russia, and a growth in bureaucrats is usually followed by a growth in corruption,” said Kirill Kabanov, chairman of the National Anti-Corruption Committee, a think tank.…The average monthly salary of a medium-level federal bureaucrat is about US $700, but many take home up to US $1 million per year, Kabanov said.
The Moscow Times, 13 April 2006
“Corruption is bleeding Africa to death and the cost is borne by the poor. Some estimates put money corruptly leaving the continent at greater than that arriving as aid. Much of the money is banked in Britain or our overseas territories and dependencies and sometimes British citizens or companies are involved in corrupt deals. We want our government to get tough on corruption.”
Hugh Bayley MP, Chair of the United Kingdom’s House of Commons Africa All Party Parliamentary Group, 29 March 2006
In the final years of Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship, he earned more than US $1.8 billion in kickbacks as a result of the United Nations’ oil for food programme. He brought in billions more by smuggling oil out to Jordan and Syria. Across the country, graft was a precondition of doing business.
The New Yorker, 24 April 2006
Highly paid consultants are draining up to AUD$ 600,000 a year from Australia's foreign aid contributions in some countries, according to a World Vision report.
The Advertiser, 18 April 2006
“We calculate that 30 percent to 40 percent of all the [tsunami relief] aid funds, Indonesian and international, have been tainted by graft,” said Akhiruddin Mahjuddin, an accountant who investigates aid spending for the Aceh Anti-Corruption Movement.
The Sunday Times, 16 April 2006
Under Nigerian law, oil revenues go to the federal government, which then passes on a percentage to the states. In 2004, for instance, the 36 Nigerian states received [US] $6.2 billion. Supposedly, about one-third of that went to the four major oil-producing states. But thanks to theft, corruption and mismanagement, on both the federal and state levels, very little of that money reached the local communities.
New York Times, 16 April 2006
The Parliamentary Committee in Philippines calculated that in 2002, corruption cost the government US$ 1.9 billion annually - twice the size of the national education budget.
The Statesman, 11 April 2006