Corruption's cost in the Arab world - and beyond

Under-the-table deals range from parking spots to military aircraft.
from the October 29, 2007 edition -  By John K. Cooley
ATHENS Do you need a local driver's license in, say, Lebanon, Egypt, or  
Cameroon? Well, weeks of paperwork and delays may be avoided if you  resort to 
the Mideastern practice of slipping baksheesh - a  traditional term for a bribe 
- to the right official. 

Want to park your car on a street in traffic-choked Cairo? Or in a  safe place 
in bomb-threatened Kabul? The friendly cop is likely to  look the other way - 
for a banknote or two. 

Petty corruption, virtually universal in much of the Middle East,  Africa, 
Asia, and parts of Latin America, is only the iceberg's tip.  Starting a 
business or angling for a government contract can call  for sometimes 
astronomical under-the-table outlays in cash or  kind. "Corruption and lack of 
transparency [in business and  government deals] still constitute a very 
important challenge for  the development of the [Mideast] region," reports 
Transparency  International (TI), a Berlin-based anticorruption organization, 
in  its latest annual report. 

Another private research group, Enterprise Surveys, found that  Bangladesh 
leads in this category. Nearly 86 percent of firms  working there needed to 
present tax inspectors with "gifts." Here in  the European Union, Greece led 
this category with a hefty 56 percent  of firms. 

In 2004, Arab experts recently surveyed development in their own  region for 
the UN Development Program's Arab Human Development  Report. Surveys in five 
main countries of the area showed that 90  percent of people believed that 
political and economic corruption  pervaded their societies. A main complaint: 
People in power  monopolize the main sectors of the economy, "either directly 
or  as 'partners' of successful businessmen." 

Transparency International's new index of perceptions of public  corruption in 
180 countries and territories scores them from zero to  10, with zero the 
maximum level of corruption and 10 the lowest. 

It's clear from this list that countries suffering from  dictatorships, 
authoritarian regimes, or conflict often display the  most corruption; 
democracies, the least. Burma and Somalia are at  rock bottom at 1.4 on the 
index; New Zealand, Finland, and Denmark  emerge with the least corrupt 
societies at 9.4 each. The US, by  comparison, ranks 20th at 7.2. 

In 2005 the United Nations Convention Against Corruption entered  into force. 
Jordan, Kuwait, Libya, Qatar (which ranks with Israel  about 6 on a scale of 10 
on the Enterprise Surveys list as the least  corrupt Mideast states), the 
United Arab Emirates, and Yemen all  ratified the UNCAC. 

Jordan has led Arab-area efforts to promote and implement legal  reforms 
required by the UNCAC. Kuwait's ratings drop this past year  jolted the wealthy 
oil state. In late-September a former Kuwait  Defense Ministry official was 
sentenced to life imprisonment and  fined $72 million for corruption. After 
Bahrain's crown prince  publicly warned that no minister accused of corruption 
could escape  justice, the government recently began to arrest allegedly 
corrupt  business executives. 

Present and past Western administrations haven't always blocked  corrupt 
practices by their firms. Former Prime Minister Tony Blair's  British 
government had to quash "on national security grounds" an  investigation of 
alleged huge under-the-table payments to high- ranking Saudis on a huge 
military aircraft deal dating back to the  1980s. Some US officials and 
congressmen would like to find out a  lot more about recent allegations in 
Vanity Fair magazine. The  article charges that some $9 billion in US bank 
notes flown to Iraq  from Federal Reserve funds in early months of the 2003 
invasion  completely vanished or were never properly accounted for. 

Clearly, Western governments who would claim the moral high ground and lead the 
hard slog against global baksheesh should scrutinize their own households. They 
might find that their glass houses may  not withstand stones thrown by others. 

John K. Cooley, a former Monitor correspondent, covered the Middle  East and 
North Africa for more than 40 years. His forthcoming book  is "Currency Wars." 

http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1029/p09s02-coop.html

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