Many rich world corporations and wealthy individuals make use of
off-shore havens or "special purpose entities" to launder money,
make illicit payments, avoid or evade taxes, and conceal assets or
liabilities. According to Swiss authorities, more than $40 billion
are held by Russians in its banking system alone. The figure may be
5 to 10 times higher in the tax havens of the United Kingdom.
In a survey it conducted last month of 82 companies in which it
invests, "Friends, Ivory, and Sime" found that only a quarter had
clear anti-corruption management and accountability systems in
place.
Tellingly only 35 countries signed the 1997 OECD "Convention on
Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International
Business Transactions" - including four non-OECD members: Chile,
Argentina, Bulgaria, and Brazil. The convention has been in force
since February 1999 and is only one of many OECD anti-corruption
drives, among which are SIGMA (Support for Improvement in Governance
and Management in Central and Eastern European countries), ACN
(Anti-Corruption Network for Transition Economies in Europe), and
FATF (the Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering).
Moreover, The moral authority of those who preach against corruption
in poor countries - the officials of the IMF, the World Bank, the
EU, the OECD - is strained by their ostentatious lifestyle,
conspicuous consumption, and "pragmatic" morality.
II. What to do? What is Being Done?
Two years ago, I proposed a taxonomy of corruption, venality, and
graft. I suggested this cumulative definition:
(a) The withholding of a service, information, or goods that, by
law, and by right, should have been provided or divulged.
(b) The provision of a service, information, or goods that, by law,
and by right, should not have been provided or divulged.
(c) That the withholding or the provision of said service,
information, or goods are in the power of the withholder or the
provider to withhold or to provide AND That the withholding or the
provision of said service, information, or goods constitute an
integral and substantial part of the authority or the function of
the withholder or the provider.
(d) That the service, information, or goods that are provided or
divulged are provided or divulged against a benefit or the promise
of a benefit from the recipient and as a result of the receipt of
this specific benefit or the promise to receive such benefit.
(e) That the service, information, or goods that are withheld are
withheld because no benefit was provided or promised by the
recipient.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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