The two most corrupt countries in the world according to transparency international are Somalia and Afghanistan, while the two least corrupt countries in the world are New Zealand and Denmark. The countries of Somalia and Afghanistan receive billions of dollars annually from international support. According to the recent annual Corruption perception index released by Transparency international, the war-ravaged Somalia remains the most corrupt country in the world followed closely by Afghanistan.
As far as the latest report from the Berlin based organization, New Zealand is the least corrupt country followed by Denmark (Andvig, 1990) these two countries enjoy a consistent political stability, long-established conflict of interest regulations and strong functioning institutions of the public. This is not the case with counties like Somalia and Afghanistan where no political stability exist and they are war-torn.
Trends in corruption in most corrupt countries
In the most corrupt countries like Somalia, corruption is intense such that you have to bribe just to be alive. These most corrupt countries view corruption as inevitable and, as an everyday part of the government. And there is no doubt that the citizens of these countries experience corruption in almost all aspects of their lives. The functioning institutions of the government that are supposed to offer services to people have been extinguished by the rampant wars.
Local businessmen who afford to fly abroad usually experience hard times in the airports when they come back to their war-torn countries. The airport security takes these men in private rooms and interrogates them on offences they dont understand and threatens to arrest them if they didnt pay US1,000. All this is due to corruption that is so intense.
If one refuses to give this amount, heshe is taken to secret prison within the capital city where heshe will be held in private confinement for not less than one month and prohibited to speak to any one. What will follow after that is repetitive interrogation by the ant-terrorism squads after which heshe will only be released after the relatives pay a bribe of not less than US2,000. This money is usually paid out of the convicts consent because the relatives fear that the captives might never get any justice. Due to this, people have to bribe to be alive (Rose-Ackerman, 1999).
When it comes at the seaports, the businessmen importing goods into these most corrupt countries claim that even after they pay regular tax, which they say is prohibitively too much, those who export and import are asked by officials of the port to pay facilitation fee. This implies they have to pay bribes for them to get permission to take their imported commodities from the port or experience indefinite delays that comprise unjustified inspection of explosives, illegal weapons or drugs.
One businessman in Mogadishu said that they have to cooperate, failure of which they lose all they have in the stores of the containers or the ports. If an importer dares to report the matter to higher officials they would wind up fighting for their lives.
According to Blanchard (1996), motorists, mainly bus drivers on Mogadishus potholed roads, face daily demands on their meager incomes from government police, military forces, as well as clan militias. Bus drivers frequently have to pay a sum of money any time they use the few drivable roads in the city. The money from the streets is typically referred to as leejo an Italian corruption term that means legal. But according to authorities, the action is no where near legal. They deny knowing that money of this kind is being acquired from drivers of buses. They claim to have discipline forces that do not obtain money by force from residents.
Trends in corruption in least corrupt countries
The least corrupt country like New Zealand and Denmark does not comprise one single agency assigned to fight corruption. Contrary to many other corrupt countries, these countries have not seen the need to come up with independent commissions to fight corruption. Instead they have many agencies that focus on the various aspects in the war against corruption.
A number of these agencies primarily focus on the more positive task of reinforcing values to certify that these countries maintains an environment that is free from corruption others put emphasis on the laws and rules enforcement. The two main agencies responsible for law enforcement and anti-corruption prosecutions and investigations in New Zealand are New Zealand Fraud Office and New Zealand police.
The New Zealand Fraud Office
It came into being in the year 1990. It mainly focuses on fraud that is complex. The authority governing the New Zealand fraud office does not try to describe complex fraud beyond claiming that it comprises a sequence of connected fraud incidents which if taken together accumulates to complex fraud. Instead, the act avails direction to the director as to the aspects that the director should regard in determining the cases to investigate. These factors include
The alleged nature and penalties of the fraud
The alleged level of the fraud
The legal, evidential and factual complexity of any matter
Any relevant considerations of the interest of the public
Many cases of corruption, bribery and furtive commissions would come under the descriptive section. As Blanchard (1996) puts it, The New Zealand Fraud Office is specifically strategically placed to conduct or help with any investigation which needs financial transactions analysis. Cases of corruption or bribery will frequently be only established after a critical analysis of transactions of finance and flows of money.
All investigations performed by The New Zealand Fraud Office are carried out by a multidisciplinary team consisting of a veteran investigator, a forensic accountant as well as a prosecutor. That team is monitored by a powerful senior investigator or an accountant.
Crime of economy or corruption is at all times clandestine and usually effectively planned. The individuals involved are usually well-educated and may hold relatively higher positions within the community. The only proof may be a complicated set of arrangements that are only understood by those who participate in the scheme. It was against that background that the parliament of Denmark authorized special powers for the Denmark Fraud Office.
Possible ways of reducing corruption
Several ways exist to assist measure corruption and define the problem. These ways include corruption perception surveys, qualitative collection of data and expenditure surveys. A review of these aspects begins by identifying areas with high possibility of corruption, and then evaluates the existence of safeguards of best practice. The policy makers should be presented by a framework to guide them in evaluating corruption and come up with probable ways to intervene and increase transparency and accountability among the citizens. Any one suspected of corruption should face immediate prosecution (Eliot, 1997).
According to the report produced by transparency international, my country is not that corrupt, this is it is much better than the two most corrupt countries, but something needs to be done so that one day we can be like New Zealand or Denmark.
Corruption is the worst enemy of any economic development. From the paper we can clearly see that those countries that have least corruption have stable economies as compared to those that are most corrupt. We can also note that political stability and culture of a nation plays a very important role in cubing corruption. Therefore more research needs to be done to come up with more effective ways of dealing with corruption for the benefit of the citizens.
Categories:
0 comments:
Post a Comment