Ending Corruption: Towards a collaborative strategy Prof. Syed Ahsanul Alam* E-mail: goodgovernancebd@gmail.com Corruption in its all shades and color is the illegal tool of accumulating illegal wealth depriving a person which creates inequality and social injustice. Corruption destroys social order, rule of law and all good governance efforts. Corruption and the corrupts are the enemies of the people and the society in any country. That is why fighting corruption and installing honesty is a pre condition for good governance for ensuring human rights, human dignity, equality and social justice and better business environment. Holding the first position in Corruption Perception Index (CPI) for 5 consecutive years has tarnished the image of Ending Corruption: Naming and shaming strategy Naming and shaming can be a very effective tactic to eradicate corruption in any country. Even in developing countries, where corruption is accepted as a necessary evil, naming and shaming tactic has been effective in recent years. In Ending Corruption: Creating awareness strategy among the Stakeholders Everyday policy makers, professionals, business leaders, sociologist, economists and others independently generate amazing number of ideas and thoughts. The reasons that these ideas don't come to fruition is because like-minded reformers do seldom collaborate to bring changes. There are a lot of international and domestic organizations, NGOs, government agencies, opinion leaders and others – that are all individually working on tackling corruption in a piece-meal fashion. A more comprehensive approach to address corruption will be more fruitful. Corruption can be marginalized if not eliminated if all stakeholders work together in a coordinated manner against corruption. Ideas and thoughts are ineffective if not put to actions. Unless what is thought is acted upon, such thought has no value. What is important is the commitment of all the citizens – leaders of respective fields– to take on the challenge of ending corruption and to do one's own part to address it in a collaborative manner. Corruption, as in all affairs in society may be viewed from the two sides: a demand side and a supply side. The demand side can only be curbed by reforms of institutions, strengthened enforcement of law by a transparent judiciary. As the owner of the country all citizens are affected by corruption everyday, and as such they should insist reforms of the legislative, executive and judicial organ of the country. The stake holders of a corruption free society should get united to raise voice against corruption to curve the supply side. Thus the citizens will have to participate in the battle against corruption and only moral support to the Anti Corruption Commission (ACC) is not enough to eliminate corruption. Ending Corruption: Creating awareness among the Civil Society Citizens face potential corruption practically at every level and every sector of life. It could be the local police, T.N.T, electricity and water authority, Municipal Corporation or the tax department. Government alone cannot succeed in combating corruption without the active participation of civil society and citizen action groups. Civil society is in the best position to articulate the grievances of the citizen and highlight priorities of action on corruption to governments. Civil society can serve many important roles–as observer, critic, analyst, campaigner, or protestor. It can create public awareness against corruption and mobilize citizens to fight against corruption in ways that governments cannot. Civil society can also play a strong role to organize campaigns against corruption. Center For Good Governance is working with many civic organizations for capacity building of such organization. Ending Corruption: Creating awareness among Chambers and Trade Bodies As Civil society organizations, Citizens' action groups, NGOs, media, and Chambers–can play the largest role in improving governance both in the public and private sector. Similarly Chambers can be more active by organizing seminars, workshops, round tables to generate awareness against corruption and unethical business practice. Chambers can establish anti corruption cell headed by a vice president with adequate funds to establish liaison with media, anti corruption commission (ACC) and other government agencies to combat corruption and protect its members from extortion and corrupt claims. Mega chambers should formulate code of conduct for their members and put pressure on the members for compliance. Awareness regarding code of conduct for members of chambers would have trickle down effect on smaller business enterprises and so on. Ending Corruption: Creating awareness among Private Sector The private sector can play a more active role in rooting out the supply side of corruption. It is painful that most businessman and citizens looks at corrupt practice as a system. According to unofficial estimates many business house just account for it on their books – as much as 10% – adding to the cost of doing business. Business leaders as well as the government should take initiatives so that local and foreign investors can set up business enterprise and function in For eradicating corruptions the private sector must emphasize on internal controls and auditing mechanisms. Corporate bodies and business houses needs to set clear and enforceable policies against corrupt or unethical business practices. Business house need to periodically train middle and senior management on business ethics to ensure that standards are institutionalized throughout the organization. Business houses should change their mind-set to prefer managers having comprehensive business education with emphasis on ethics. Any business managers can not afford to be unaware of global ethical standards for doing business in Conclusion In a developing country for good governance the fight against corruption is not easy. No body will deny that, in ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Author Syed Ahsanul Alam is an Associate Professor of marketing at the University of Chittagong, Bangladesh and Chairman, Center for Good Governance. His recent administrative post includes vice rector IIBT ( E-mail: goodgovernancebd@gmail.com Web-site: www.goodgovernancebd.org --- On Fri, 4/4/08, mahathir of bd <wouldbemahathirofbd@yahoo.com> wrote: From: mahathir of bd <wouldbemahathirofbd@yahoo.com> |
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