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Emmanuel Koro
The most effective way to end corruption, big and small around the world, involves punishing those who initiate these activities rather than only those who implement them, says an American public policy specialist, Mr Godfrey Harris, who is currently in South Africa delivering public policy talks.

People need to push governments to hold directors as well as executives of companies guilty of involvement in all forms of cheating. Owners and shareholders will rightly suffer in the wake of this change.

Mr Harris argues that if the generals went to jail for the corruption they encourage rather than the soldiers who carry out their wishes, corruption would end nearly overnight.

He defines corruption in government much more broadly than the common view that it involves some form of bribery. It is more, he says.

The corruption that infects so much of what government does in so many countries occurs when some individual or group secretly seeks to tilt the playing field in his or her favour. Corrupt practices are those that bend the intent of the established rules, substantially alter the beneficiaries of government programmes or lower the commonly accepted standards of conduct.

Paying someone in some way to engage in corrupt practices — bribery — is only part of the current problem. What is hurting all of us is the attitude that we can get away with some level of cheating — and besides everyone cheats anyway,” says Mr Harris.

In his view, any form of cheating or any level of unfairness is a form of corruption that should be punished and can give any society a real boost.

“Corruption exists everywhere — including the US and the UK,” said Mr Harris, a former US diplomat and university lecturer.

“Unfortunately, we are approaching the struggle against corruption the wrong way round by arresting the less powerful instead of jailing the most powerful perpetrators. We use military methods to try to stop corruption at the implementation level, not intelligence techniques to end it at the initiation level.”

To illustrate some of the examples of how insidious corruption is, Mr Harris uses the example of a customs office.

“In this scenario, Company A finds that the Customs Service of Country X is hopelessly backlogged — too many containers arriving for the number of people available to inspect them. One of the company executives hints to a Customs Inspector that a case of Scotch Whisky might find its way to his apartment if he were to make sure that the container with Company A’s merchandise were inspected first,” said Mr Harris.

“Nothing illegal about adjusting a work schedule, is there, and no cash needs to be exchanged. The liquor will disappear in a few weeks. No harm, no foul.”

Mr Harris continues, “And no one is breaking any law, just claiming to be operating more efficiently. But of course once a government official tastes the fruits of corrupt activities, it is hard to say no the next time something arrives or to any unusual items among the merchandise. Eventually, everybody in the chain learns to make individual adjustments in order to enjoy extra benefits.”

Mr Harris sadly observes that pretty soon, government sees no need to raise taxes to increase customs officers’ salaries or to hire more officers because there is no pressure on the politicians to change anything. Their “friends” and those “harmless” gifts that keep on coming are improving the life of everyone on the inside of the cheat. But of course it is hurting everyone else on the outside.”

Corruption at United Nations level

The same type of corruption is seen within the UN Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Fauna and Floral (CITES). There, animal rights’ groups continue to literally buy votes by paying for the representatives of member countries to attend CITES meetings. The implication of such “generosity” is that if a country does not support a particular wildlife policy, notably ivory and rhino horn bans — the trips and their extra delights would stop.

The CEO of the South Africa-based True Green Alliance, Mr Ron Thomson, has confirmed this little-known corruption of vote-buying within the CITES decision-making framework.

He said that it involves a well-known animal rights organisation and dates back to the 1987 CITES Conference held in Ottawa, Canada.

Mr Thomson reported this vote-buying activity to the Geneva-based CITES Secretariat, but CITES sadly refused to take corrective action against it or even investigate it. It clearly suggests that the Secretariat is in on the cheat itself.

The result is bad wildlife management decision-making. Policies are adopted without scientific justification in such matters such as the CITES continued ban in international trade in ivory and rhino horn that does not benefit elephant and rhino conservation.

The Harris anti-corruption model of arresting and severely punishing the big guys in order to make quick progress to end the cycle of corrupt activities is worth considering.

Moreover, buying votes at CITES decision-making conferences could come to an end if CITES were to introduce a code of responsibility for every organisation participating in its deliberations.

Mr Harris said that the vote-buying issue could be discussed at the 2019 CITES Conference in Colombo, Sri Lanka.

Emmanuel Koro is a Johannesburg-based international award-winning environmental journalist who has written extensively on environment and development issues in Africa.