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Saturday, January 15, 2011

Kicked back

Political corruption



Political corruption is the use of legislated powers by government officials for illegitimate private gain. Misuse of government power for other purposes, such as repression of political opponents and general police brutality, is not considered political corruption. Neither are illegal acts by private persons or corporations not directly involved with the government. An illegal act by an officeholder constitutes political corruption only if the act is directly related to their official duties.
Forms of corruption vary, but include bribery, extortion, cronyism, nepotism, patronage, graft, and embezzlement. While corruption may facilitate criminal enterprise such as drug trafficking, money laundering, and human trafficking, it is not restricted to these activities.
The activities that constitute illegal corruption differ depending on the country or jurisdiction. For instance, certain political funding practices that are legal in one place may be illegal in another. In some cases, government officials have broad or poorly defined powers, which make it difficult to distinguish between legal and illegal actions. Worldwide, bribery alone is estimated to involve over 1 trillion US dollars annually. A state of unrestrained political corruption is known as a kleptocracy, literally meaning "rule by thieves".
Political corruption

Concepts
Electoral fraud
Nepotism · Bribery
Cronyism · Slush fund
Measuring corruption
Corruption Perceptions Index
Economics of Corruption

Effects


Effects on politics, administration, and institutions


Detail from Corrupt Legislation (1896) by Elihu Vedder. Library of Congress Thomas Jefferson Building, Washington, D.C.
Corruption poses a serious development challenge. In the political realm, it undermines democracy and good governance by flouting or even subverting formal processes. Corruption in elections and in legislative bodies reduces accountability and distorts representation in policymaking; corruption in the judiciary compromises the rule of law; and corruption in public administration results in the inefficient provision of services. More generally, corruption erodes the institutional capacity of government as procedures are disregarded, resources are siphoned off, and public offices are bought and sold. At the same time, corruption undermines the legitimacy of government and such democratic values as trust and tolerance.

Economic effects
See also: Corporate crime
Corruption undermines economic development by generating considerable distortions and inefficiency. In the private sector, corruption increases the cost of business through the price of illicit payments themselves, the management cost of negotiating with officials, and the risk of breached agreements or detection. Although some claim corruption reduces costs by cutting red tape, the availability of bribes can also induce officials to contrive new rules and delays. Openly removing costly and lengthy regulations are better than covertly allowing them to be bypassed by using bribes. Where corruption inflates the cost of business, it also distorts the playing field, shielding firms with connections from competition and thereby sustaining inefficient firms.
Corruption also generates economic distortions in the public sector by diverting public investment into capital projects where bribes and kickbacks are more plentiful. Officials may increase the technical complexity of public sector projects to conceal or pave the way for such dealings, thus further distorting investment. Corruption also lowers compliance with construction, environmental, or other regulations, reduces the quality of government services and infrastructure, and increases budgetary pressures on government.
Economists argue that one of the factors behind the differing economic development in Africa and Asia is that in the former, corruption has primarily taken the form of rent extraction with the resulting financial capital moved overseas rather than invested at home (hence the stereotypical, but often accurate, image of African dictators having Swiss bank accounts). In Nigeria, for example, more than $400 billion was stolen from the treasury by Nigeria's leaders between 1960 and 1999. University of Massachusetts researchers estimated that from 1970 to 1996, capital flight from 30 sub-Saharan countries totaled $187bn, exceeding those nations' external debts. (The results, expressed in retarded or suppressed development, have been modeled in theory by economist Mancur Olson.) In the case of Africa, one of the factors for this behavior was political instability, and the fact that new governments often confiscated previous government's corruptly-obtained assets. This encouraged officials to stash their wealth abroad, out of reach of any future expropriation. In contrast, Asian administrations such as Suharto's New Order often took a cut on business transactions or provided conditions for development, through infrastructure investment, law and order, etc.

Environmental and social effects
Corruption facilitates environmental destruction. Corrupt countries may formally have legislation to protect the environment, it cannot be enforced if officials can easily be bribed. The same applies to social rights worker protection, unionization prevention, and child labor. Violation of these laws rights enables corrupt countries to gain illegitimate economic advantage in the international market.
The Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen has observed that "there is no such thing as an apolitical food problem." While drought and other naturally occurring events may trigger famine conditions, it is government action or inaction that determines its severity, and often even whether or not a famine will occur. Governments with strong tendencies towards kleptocracy can undermine food security even when harvests are good. Officials often steal state property. In Bihar, India, more than 80% of the subsidized food aid to poor is stolen by corrupt officials. Similarly, food aid is often robbed at gunpoint by governments, criminals, and warlords alike, and sold for a profit. The 20th century is full of many examples of governments undermining the food security of their own nations – sometimes intentionally.

Effects on Humanitarian Aid
The scale of humanitarian aid to the poor and unstable regions of the world grows, but it is highly vulnerable to corruption, with food aid, construction and other highly valued assistance as the most at risk. Food aid can be directly and physically diverted from its intended destination, or indirectly through the manipulation of assessments, targeting, registration and distributions to favour certain groups or individuals. Elsewhere, in construction and shelter, there are numerous opportunities for diversion and profit through substandard workmanship, kickbacks for contracts and favouritism in the provision of valuable shelter material. Thus while humanitarian aid agencies are usually most concerned about aid being diverted by including too many, recipients themselves are most concerned about exclusion.Access to aid may be limited to those with connections, to those who pay bribes or are forced to give sexual favours. Equally, those able to do so may manipulate statistics to inflate the number beneficiaries and syphon of the additional assistance.

Other areas: health, public safety, education, trade unions, etc.
See also: Police corruption
Corruption is not specific to poor, developing, or transition countries. In western European countries, there have been cases of bribery and other forms of corruption in all possible fields: under-the-table payments made to reputed surgeons by patients willing to be on top of the list of forthcoming surgeries, bribes paid by suppliers to the automotive industry in order to sell poor quality connectors used for instance in safety equipment such as airbags, bribes paid by suppliers to manufacturers of defibrillators (to sell poor quality capacitors), contributions paid by wealthy parents to the "social and culture fund" of a prestigious university in exchange for it to accept their children, bribes paid to obtain diplomas, financial and other advantages granted to unionists by members of the executive board of a car manufacturer in exchange for employer-friendly positions and votes, etc. Examples are endless. These various manifestations of corruption can ultimately present a danger for the public health; they can discredit certain essential institutions or social relationships.
Corruption can also affect the various components of sports activities (referees, players, medical and laboratory staff involved in anti-doping controls, members of national sport federation and international committees deciding about the allocation of contracts and competition places).
There have also been cases against (members of) various types of non-profit and non-government organisations, as well as religious organisations.
Ultimately, the distinction between public and private sector corruption sometimes appears rather artificial and national anti-corruption initiatives may need to avoid legal and other loopholes in the coverage of the instruments.

Types
Bribery
Main article: Bribery
A bribe is a payment given personally to a government official in exchange of his use of official powers. Bribery requires two participants: one to give the bribe, and one to take it. Either may initiate the corrupt offering; for example, a customs official may demand bribes to let through allowed (or disallowed) goods, or a smuggler might offer bribes to gain passage. In some countries the culture of corruption extends to every aspect of public life, making it extremely difficult for individuals to stay in business without resorting to bribes. Bribes may be demanded in order for an official to do something he is already paid to do. They may also be demanded in order to bypass laws and regulations. In addition to using bribery for private financial gain, they are also used to intentionally and maliciously cause harm to another (i.e. no financial incentive). In some developing nations, up to half of the population has paid bribes during the past 12 months.
In recent years, efforts have been made by the international community to encourage countries to dissociate and incriminate as separate offences, active and passive bribery. Active bribery can be defined for instance as the promising, offering or giving by any person, directly or indirectly, of any undue advantage [to any public official], for himself or herself or for anyone else, for him or her to act or refrain from acting in the exercise of his or her functions. (article 2 of the Criminal Law Convention on Corruption (ETS 173) of the Council of Europe). Passive bribery can be defined as the request or receipt [by any public official], directly or indirectly, of any undue advantage, for himself or herself or for anyone else, or the acceptance of an offer or a promise of such an advantage, to act or refrain from acting in the exercise of his or her functions (article 3 of the Criminal Law Convention on Corruption (ETS 173)). The reason for this dissociation is to make the early steps (offering, promising, requesting an advantage) of a corrupt deal already an offence and, thus, to give a clear signal (from a criminal policy point of view) that bribery is not acceptable. Besides, such a dissociation makes the prosecution of bribery offences easier since it can be very difficult to prove that two parties (the bribe-giver and the bribe-taker) have formally agreed upon a corrupt deal. Besides, there is often no such formal deal but only a mutual understanding, for instance when it is common knowledge in a municipality that to obtain a building permit one has to pay a "fee" to the decision maker to obtain a favourable decision. A working definition of corruption is also provided as follows in article 3 of the Civil Law Convention on Corruption (ETS 174): For the purpose of this Convention, "corruption" means requesting, offering, giving or accepting, directly or indirectly, a bribe or any other undue advantage or prospect thereof, which distorts the proper performance of any duty or behaviour required of the recipient of the bribe, the undue advantage or the prospect thereof.

Trading in influence
Trading in influence, or influence peddling in certain countries, refers to the situation where a person is selling his/her influence over the decision process involving a third party (person or institution). The difference with bribery is that this is a tri-lateral relation. From a legal point of view, the role of the third party (who is the target of the influence) does not really matter although he/she can be an accessory in some instances. It can be difficult to make a distinction between this form of corruption and certain forms of extreme and poorly regulated lobbying where for instance law- or decision-makers can freely "sell" their vote, decision power or influence to those lobbyists who offer the highest retribution, including where for instance the latter act on behalf of powerful clients such as industrial groups who want to avoid the passing of certain environmental, social, or other regulations perceived as too stringent, etc. Where lobbying is (sufficiently) regulated, it becomes possible to provide for a distinctive criteria and to consider that trading in influence involves the use of "improper influence", as in article 12 of the Criminal Law Convention on Corruption (ETS 173) of the Council of Europe.

Patronage
Main article: Patronage
Patronage refers to favoring supporters, for example with government employment. This may be legitimate, as when a newly elected government changes the top officials in the administration in order to effectively implement its policy. It can be seen as corruption if this means that incompetent persons, as a payment for supporting the regime, are selected before more able ones. In nondemocracies many government officials are often selected for loyalty rather than ability. They may be almost exclusively selected from a particular group (for example, Sunni Arabs in Saddam Hussein's Iraq, the nomenklatura in the Soviet Union, or the Junkers in Imperial Germany) that support the regime in return for such favors. A similar problem can also be seen in Eastern Europe, for example in Romania, where the government is often accused of patronage (when a new government comes to power, in a few months time it changed most of the officials in the public sector).

Nepotism and cronyism
Main articles: Nepotism and Cronyism
Favoring relatives (nepotism) or personal friends (cronyism) of an official is a form of illegitimate private gain. This may be combined with bribery, for example demanding that a business should employ a relative of an official controlling regulations affecting the business. The most extreme example is when the entire state is inherited, as in North Korea or Syria. A milder form of cronyism is an "old boy network", in which appointees to official positions are selected only from a closed and exclusive social network – such as the alumni of particular universities – instead of appointing the most competent candidate.
Seeking to harm enemies becomes corruption when official powers are illegitimately used as means to this end. For example, trumped-up charges are often brought up against journalists or writers who bring up politically sensitive issues, such as a politician's acceptance of bribes.
In the Indian political system, leadership of national and regional parties are passed from generation to generation creating a system in which a family holds the center of power, some examples are most of the dravidian parties of south India and also the largest party in India - Congress.

Electoral fraud
Main article: Electoral fraud
Electoral fraud is illegal interference with the process of an election. Acts of fraud affect vote counts to bring about an election result, whether by increasing the vote share of the favored candidate, depressing the vote share of the rival candidates, or both. Also called voter fraud, the mechanisms involved include illegal voter registration, intimidation at polls, and improper vote counting.

Embezzlement
Main article: Embezzlement
Embezzlement is outright theft of entrusted funds. It is a misappropriation of property.
Another common type of embezzlement is that of entrusted government resources; for example, when a director of a public enterprise employs company workers to build or renovate his own house.

Kickbacks
A kickback is an official's share of misappropriated funds allocated from his or her organization to an organization involved in corrupt bidding. For example, suppose that a politician is in charge of choosing how to spend some public funds. He can give a contract to a company that is not the best bidder, or allocate more than they deserve. In this case, the company benefits, and in exchange for betraying the public, the official receives a kickback payment, which is a portion of the sum the company received. This sum itself may be all or a portion of the difference between the actual (inflated) payment to the company and the (lower) market-based price that would have been paid had the bidding been competitive. Kickbacks are not limited to government officials; any situation in which people are entrusted to spend funds that do not belong to them are susceptible to this kind of corruption. Kickbacks are also common in the pharmaceutical industry, as many doctors and physicians receive pay in return for added promotion and prescription of the drug these pharmaceutical companies are marketing. 

Anti-competitive practices, Bid rigging.

Unholy alliance
An unholy alliance is a coalition among seemingly antagonistic groups, especially if one is religious, for ad hoc or hidden gain. Like patronage, unholy alliances are not necessarily illegal, but unlike patronage, by its deceptive nature and often great financial resources, an unholy alliance can be much more dangerous to the public interest. An early, well-known use of the term was by Theodore Roosevelt (TR):
"To destroy this invisible Government, to dissolve the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of the day." – 1912 Progressive Party Platform, attributed to TR and quoted again in his autobiography where he connects trusts and monopolies (sugar interests, Standard Oil, etc.) to Woodrow Wilson, Howard Taft, and consequently both major political parties.

Involvement in organized crime
An illustrative example of official involvement in organized crime can be found from 1920s and 1930s Shanghai, where Huang Jinrong was a police chief in the French concession, while simultaneously being a gang boss and co-operating with Du Yuesheng, the local gang ringleader. The relationship kept the flow of profits from the gang's gambling dens, prostitution, and protection rackets undisturbed.
The United States accused Manuel Noriega's government in Panama of being a "narcokleptocracy", a corrupt government profiting on illegal drug trade. Later the U.S. invaded Panama and captured Noriega.

Conditions favorable for corruption

It is argued that the following conditions are favorable for corruption:
Information deficits
Lacking freedom of information legislation. The Indian Right to Information Act 2005 has "already engendered mass movements in the country that is bringing the lethargic, often corrupt bureaucracy to its knees and changing power equations completely."
Lack of investigative reporting in the local media.
Contempt for or negligence of exercising freedom of speech and freedom of the press.For instance a new current case of online puplisher Wikileaks and a editor or founder of Julian Assange.So the many nations,international companys and important personage or political,business etc.figures around the world which was suddenly became very angry and obsessive campaigning to stop publishing of the many important documents and the new ones to come.But particularly the governments and government organisations or the institutions defending itselves which under the "National Protection Law" or "Top Secret" (Secrecy!) of the files as a very aggressive way against him and the Wikileaks.
Weak accounting practices, including lack of timely financial management.
Lack of measurement of corruption. For example, using regular surveys of households and businesses in order to quantify the degree of perception of corruption in different parts of a nation or in different government institutions may increase awareness of corruption and create pressure to combat it. This will also enable an evaluation of the officials who are fighting corruption and the methods used.
Tax havens which tax their own citizens and companies but not those from other nations and refuse to disclose information necessary for foreign taxation. This enables large scale political corruption in the foreign nations.
Lacking control of the government.
Lacking civic society and non-governmental organizations which monitor the government.
An individual voter may have a rational ignorance regarding politics, especially in nationwide elections, since each vote has little weight.
Weak civil service, and slow pace of reform.
Weak rule of law.
Weak legal profession.
Weak judicial independence.
Lacking protection of whistleblowers.
Lack of benchmarking, that is continual detailed evaluation of procedures and comparison to others who do similar things, in the same government or others, in particular comparison to those who do the best work. The Peruvian organization Ciudadanos al Dia has started to measure and compare transparency, costs, and efficiency in different government departments in Peru. It annually awards the best practices which has received widespread media attention. This has created competition among government agencies in order to improve.
Opportunities and incentives
Individual officials routinely handle cash, instead of handling payments by giro or on a separate cash desk—illegitimate withdrawals from supervised bank accounts are much more difficult to conceal.
Public funds are centralized rather than distributed. For example, if $1,000 is embezzled from a local agency that has $2,000 funds, it is easier to notice than from a national agency with $2,000,000 funds. See the principle of subsidiarity.
Large, unsupervised public investments.
Sale of state-owned property and privatization.
Poorly-paid government officials.
Government licenses needed to conduct business, e.g., import licenses, encourage bribing and kickbacks.
Long-time work in the same position may create relationships inside and outside the government which encourage and help conceal corruption and favoritism. Rotating government officials to different positions and geographic areas may help prevent this; for instance certain high rank officials in French government services (e.g. treasurer-paymasters general) must rotate every few years.
Costly political campaigns, with expenses exceeding normal sources of political funding, especially when funded with taxpayer money.
Less interaction with officials reduces the opportunities for corruption. For example, using the Internet for sending in required information, like applications and tax forms, and then processing this with automated computer systems. This may also speed up the processing and reduce unintentional human errors. See e-Government.
A windfall from exporting abundant natural resources may encourage corruption. (See Resource curse)
War and other forms of conflict correlate with a breakdown of public security.
Social conditions
Self-interested closed cliques and "old boy networks".
Family-, and clan-centered social structure, with a tradition of nepotism/favouritism being acceptable.
A gift economy, such as the Chinese guanxi or the Soviet blat system, emerges in a Communist centrally planned economy.
In societies where personal integrity is rated as less important than other characteristics (by contrast, in societies such as 18th and 19th century England, 20th century Japan, and post-war western Germany, where society showed almost obsessive regard for "honor" and personal integrity, corruption was less frequently seen)
Lacking literacy and education among the population.
Frequent discrimination and bullying among the population.
Tribal solidarity, giving benefits to certain ethnic groups

Relation to economic freedom
According to a study of the conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation, lack of economic freedom explains 71% of corruption: the poorer the Index of Economic Freedom, the more corruption there is in a country. Below is a list of examples of governmental activities that limit economic freedom, create opportunities for corruption (incentives for individuals and/or companies to buy privileges or favors worth of money, from politicians or officials), and have in recent economic history also led to corruption:
Licenses, permits, etc.
Foreign trade restrictions. Officials may then, e.g., sell import or export permits.
Credit bailouts.
State ownership of utilities and natural resources. 'In analyzing India's state-run irrigation system, professor Shyam Kamath - - wrote: Public-sector irrigation systems everywhere are typically plagued with cost and time overruns, endemic inefficiency, chronic excess demands, and widespread corruption and rent seeking.'
Access to loans at below-market rates. In Chile, '$4.6 billion was awarded to government banks in direct subsidies through "soft" loans' between 1940 and 1973.

Size of public sector
It is a controversial issue whether the size of the public sector per se results in corruption. As mentioned above, low degree of economic freedom explains 71% of corruption. The actual share may be even greater, as also past regulation affects the current level of corruption due to the slowing of cultural changes (e.g., it takes time for corrupted officials to adjust to changes in economic freedom). The size of the public sector in terms of taxation is only one component of economic un-freedom, so the empirical studies on economic freedom do not directly answer this question.
Extensive and diverse public spending is, in itself, inherently at risk of cronyism, kickbacks, and embezzlement. Complicated regulations and arbitrary, unsupervised official conduct exacerbate the problem. This is one argument for privatization and deregulation. Opponents of privatization see the argument as ideological. The argument that corruption necessarily follows from the opportunity is weakened by the existence of countries with low to non-existent corruption but large public sectors, like the Nordic countries. However, these countries score high on the Ease of Doing Business Index, due to good and often simple regulations, and have rule of law firmly established. Therefore, due to their lack of corruption in the first place, they can run large public sectors without inducing political corruption.
Like other governmental economic activities, also privatization, such as in the sale of government-owned property, is particularly at the risk of cronyism. Privatizations in Russia, Latin America, and East Germany were accompanied by large scale corruption during the sale of the state owned companies. Those with political connections unfairly gained large wealth, which has discredited privatization in these regions. While media have reported widely the grand corruption that accompanied the sales, studies have argued that in addition to increased operating efficiency, daily petty corruption is, or would be, larger without privatization, and that corruption is more prevalent in non-privatized sectors. Furthermore, there is evidence to suggest that extralegal and unofficial activities are more prevalent in countries that privatized less.
There is the counter point, however, that oligarchy industries can be quite corrupt ( "competition" like collusive price-fixing, pressuring dependent businesses, etc. ), and only by having a portion of the market owned by someone other than that oligarchy, i.e. public sector, can keep them in line ( if the public sector gas company is making money & selling gas for 1/2 of the price of the private sector companies... the private sector companies won't be able to simultaneously gouge to that degree & keep their customers: the competition keeps them in line ). Private sector corruption can increase the poverty/helplessness of the population, so it can affect government corruption, in the long-term.
In the European Union, the principle of subsidiarity is applied: a government service should be provided by the lowest, most local authority that can competently provide it. An effect is that distribution of funds into multiple instances discourages embezzlement, because even small sums missing will be noticed. In contrast, in a centralized authority, even minute proportions of public funds can be large sums of money.

Governmental corruption

If the highest echelons of the governments also take advantage from corruption or embezzlement from the state's treasury, it is sometimes referred with the neologism kleptocracy. Members of the government can take advantage of the natural resources (e.g., diamonds and oil in a few prominent cases) or state-owned productive industries. A number of corrupt governments have enriched themselves via foreign aid, which is often spent on showy buildings and armaments.
A corrupt dictatorship typically results in many years of general hardship and suffering for the vast majority of citizens as civil society and the rule of law disintegrate. In addition, corrupt dictators routinely ignore economic and social problems in their quest to amass ever more wealth and power.
The classic case of a corrupt, exploitive dictator often given is the regime of Marshal Mobutu Sese Seko, who ruled the Democratic Republic of the Congo (which he renamed Zaire) from 1965 to 1997. It is said that usage of the term kleptocracy gained popularity largely in response to a need to accurately describe Mobutu's regime. Another classic case is Nigeria, especially under the rule of General Sani Abacha who was de facto president of Nigeria from 1993 until his death in 1998. He is reputed to have stolen some US$3–4 billion. He and his relatives are often mentioned in Nigerian 419 letter scams claiming to offer vast fortunes for "help" in laundering his stolen "fortunes", which in reality turn out not to exist.More than $400 billion was stolen from the treasury by Nigeria's leaders between 1960 and 1999.
More recently, articles in various financial periodicals, most notably Forbes magazine, have pointed to Fidel Castro, General Secretary of the Republic of Cuba since 1959, of likely being the beneficiary of up to $900 million, based on "his control" of state-owned companies. Opponents of his regime claim that he has used money amassed through weapons sales, narcotics, international loans, and confiscation of private property to enrich himself and his political cronies who hold his dictatorship together, and that the $900 million published by Forbes is merely a portion of his assets, although that needs to be proven.

Fighting corruption

Mobile telecommunications and radio broadcasting help to fight corruption, especially in developing regions like Africa, where other forms of communications are limited.
In the 1990s, initiatives were taken at an international level (in particular by the European Community, the Council of Europe, the OECD) to put a ban on corruption: in 1996, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, for instance, adopted a comprehensive Programme of Action against Corruption and, subsequently, issued a series of anti-corruption standard-setting instruments:
the Criminal Law Convention on Corruption (ETS 173);
the Civil Law Convention on Corruption (ETS 174);
the Additional Protocol to the Criminal Law Convention on Corruption (ETS 191);
the Twenty Guiding Principles for the Fight against Corruption (Resolution (97) 24);
the Recommendation on Codes of Conduct for Public Officials (Recommendation No. R (2000) 10); and
the Recommendation on Common Rules against Corruption in the Funding of Political Parties and Electoral Campaigns (Rec(2003)4)
The purpose of these instruments was to address the various forms of corruption (involving the public sector, the private sector, the financing of political activities, etc.) whether they had a strictly domestic or also a transnational dimension. To monitor the implementation at national level of the requirements and principles provided in those texts, a monitoring mechanism - the Group of States Against Corruption (also known as GRECO) was created.
Further conventions were adopted at the regional level under the aegis of the Organization of American States (OAS or OEA), the African Union, and in 2003, at the universal level under that of the United Nations.

Whistleblowers

Main article: Whistleblower
Campaign contributions

In the political arena, it is difficult to prove corruption. For this reason, there are often unproven rumors about many politicians, sometimes part of a smear campaign.
Politicians are placed in apparently compromising positions because of their need to solicit financial contributions for their campaign finance. If they then appear to be acting in the interests of those parties that funded them, it could be considered corruption. Though donations may be coincidental, the question asked is, why are they funding politicians at all, if they get nothing for their money.
Laws regulating campaign finance in the United States require that all contributions and their use should be publicly disclosed. Many companies, especially larger ones, fund both the Democratic and Republican parties. Certain countries, such as France, ban altogether the corporate funding of political parties. Because of the possible circumvention of this ban with respect to the funding of political campaigns, France also imposes maximum spending caps on campaigning; candidates that have exceeded those limits, or that have handed in misleading accounting reports, risk having their candidacy ruled invalid, or even being prevented from running in future elections. In addition, the government funds political parties according to their successes in elections.
In some countries, political parties are run solely off subscriptions (membership fees).
Even legal measures such as these have been argued to be legalized corruption, in that they often favor the political status quo. Minor parties and independents often argue that efforts to rein in the influence of contributions do little more than protect the major parties with guaranteed public funding while constraining the possibility of private funding by outsiders. In these instances, officials are legally taking money from the public coffers for their election campaigns to guarantee that they will continue to hold their influential and often well-paid positions.
As indicated above, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe recognised in 1996 the importance of links between corruption and political financing. It adopted in 2003 the Recommendation on Common Rules against Corruption in the Funding of Political Parties and Electoral Campaigns (Rec(2003)4). This text is quite unique at international levels as it aims i.a. at increasing transparency in the funding of political parties and election campaigns (these two areas are difficult to dissociate since parties are also involved in campaigning and in many countries, parties do not have the monopoly over the presentation of candidates for elections), ensuring a certain level of control over the funding and spending connected with political activities, and making sure infringements are subject to effective, proportionate, and dissuasive sanctions. In the context of its monitoring activities, the Group of States Against Corruption has identified a great variety of possible improvements in those areas (see the country reports adopted under the Third Evaluation Round).

Measuring corruption

Measuring corruption statistically is difficult if not impossible due to the illicit nature of the transaction and imprecise definitions of corruption. While "corruption" indices first appeared in 1995 with the Corruption Perceptions Index, all of these metrics address different proxies for corruption, such as public perceptions of the extent of the problem.
Transparency International, an anti-corruption NGO, pioneered this field with the Corruption Perceptions Index, first released in 1995. This work is often credited with breaking a taboo and forcing the issue of corruption into high level development policy discourse. Transparency International currently publishes three measures, updated annually: a Corruption Perceptions Index (based on aggregating third-party polling of public perceptions of how corrupt different countries are); a Global Corruption Barometer (based on a survey of general public attitudes toward and experience of corruption); and a Bribe Payers Index, looking at the willingness of foreign firms to pay bribes. The Corruption Perceptions Index is the best known of these metrics, though it has drawn much criticism and may be declining in influence.
The World Bank collects a range of data on corruption, including survey responses from over 100,000 firms worldwide and a set of indicators of governance and institutional quality. Moreover, one of the six dimensions of governance measured by the Worldwide Governance Indicators is Control of Corruption, which is defined as "the extent to which power is exercised for private gain, including both petty and grand forms of corruption, as well as 'capture' of the state by elites and private interests." While the definition itself is fairly precise, the data aggregated into the Worldwide Governance Indicators is based on any available polling: questions range from "is corruption a serious problem?" to measures of public access to information, and not consistent across countries. Despite these weaknesses, the global coverage of these datasets has led to their widespread adoption, most notably by the Millennium Challenge Corporation.
In part in response to these criticisms, a second wave of corruption metrics has been created by Global Integrity, the International Budget Partnership, and many lesser known local groups, starting with the Global Integrity Index, first published in 2004. These second wave projects aim not to create awareness, but to create policy change via targeting resources more effectively and creating checklists toward incremental reform. Global Integrity and the International Budget Partnership each dispense with public surveys and instead uses in-country experts to evaluate "the opposite of corruption" – which Global Integrity defines as the public policies that prevent, discourage, or expose corruption. These approaches compliment the first wave, awareness-raising tools by giving governments facing public outcry a checklist which measures concrete steps toward improved governance.
Typical second wave corruption metrics do not offer the worldwide coverage found in first wave projects, and instead focus on localizing information gathered to specific problems and creating deep, "unpackable" content that matches quantitative and qualitative data. Meanwhile, alternative approaches such as the British aid agency's Drivers of Change research skips numbers entirely and favors understanding corruption via political economy analysis of who controls power in a given society.


(source:wikipedia)

Whistleblower

A whistleblower is a person who raises a concern about alleged wrongdoing occurring in an organization or body of people. Usually this person would be from that same organization. The alleged misconduct may be classified in many ways; for example, a violation of a law, rule, regulation and/or a direct threat to public interest, such as fraud, health/safety violations, and corruption. Whistleblowers may make their allegations internally (for example, to other people within the accused organization) or externally (to regulators, law enforcement agencies, to the media or to groups concerned with the issues).
Whistleblowers frequently face reprisal, sometimes at the hands of the organization or group which they have accused, sometimes from related organizations, and sometimes under law.

Overview

Origin of term
The term whistleblower derives from the practice of British police officers, who would blow their whistles when they noticed the commission of a crime. The whistle would alert other law enforcement officers and the general public of danger.

Definition
Most whistleblowers are internal whistleblowers, who report misconduct on a fellow employee or superior within their company. One of the most interesting questions with respect to internal whistleblowers is why and under what circumstances people will either act on the spot to stop illegal and otherwise unacceptable behavior or report it. There is some reason to believe that people are more likely to take action with respect to unacceptable behavior, within an organization, if there are complaint systems that offer not just options dictated by the planning and control organization, but a choice of options for individuals, including an option that offers near absolute confidentiality.
External whistleblowers, however, report misconduct on outside persons or entities. In these cases, depending on the information's severity and nature, whistleblowers may report the misconduct to lawyers, the media, law enforcement or watchdog agencies, or other local, state, or federal agencies. In some cases, external whistleblowing is encouraged by offering monetary reward.
Under most U.S. federal whistleblower statutes, in order to be considered a whistleblower, the federal employee must have reason to believe his or her employer has violated some law, rule or regulation; testify or commence a legal proceeding on the legally protected matter; or refuse to violate the law.
In cases where whistleblowing on a specified topic is protected by statute, U.S. courts have generally held that such whistleblowers are protected from retaliation.However, a closely divided U.S. Supreme Court decision, Garcetti v. Ceballos (2006) held that the First Amendment free speech guarantees for government employees do not protect disclosures made within the scope of the employees' duties.

Common reactions
Ideas about whistleblowing vary widely. Whistleblowers are commonly seen as selfless martyrs for public interest and organizational accountability; others view them as 'tattle tales' or 'snitches', solely pursuing personal glory and fame. Some academics (such as Thomas Alured Faunce) feel that whistleblowers should at least be entitled to a rebuttable presumption that they are attempting to apply ethical principles in the face of obstacles and that whistleblowing would be more respected in governance systems if it had a firmer academic basis in virtue ethics.
It is probable that many people do not even consider blowing the whistle, not only because of fear of retaliation, but also because of fear of losing their relationships at work and outside work.
Because the majority of cases are very low-profile and receive little or no media attention and because whistleblowers who do report significant misconduct are usually put in some form of danger or persecution, the idea of seeking fame and glory may be less commonly believed.
Persecution of whistleblowers has become a serious issue in many parts of the world. Although whistleblowers are often protected under law from employer retaliation, there have been many cases where punishment for whistleblowing has occurred, such as termination, suspension, demotion, wage garnishment, and/or harsh mistreatment by other employees. For example, in the United States, most whistleblower protection laws provide for limited "make whole" remedies or damages for employment losses if whistleblower retaliation is proven. However, many whistleblowers report there exists a widespread "shoot the messenger" mentality by corporations or government agencies accused of misconduct and in some cases whistleblowers have been subjected to criminal prosecution in reprisal for reporting wrongdoing.
As a reaction to this many private organizations have formed whistleblower legal defense funds or support groups to assist whistleblowers; two such examples are the National Whistleblowers Center in the US and Public Concern at Work in the UK. Depending on the circumstances, it is not uncommon for whistleblowers to be ostracized by their co-workers, discriminated against by future potential employers, or even fired from their organization. This campaign directed at whistleblowers with the goal of eliminating them from the organization is referred to as mobbing. It is an extreme form of workplace bullying wherein the group is set against the targeted individual.

Legal protection

Legal protection for whistleblowing varies from country to country and may depend on any of the country of the original activity, where and how secrets were revealed, and how they eventually became published or publicized. For purposes of the English Wikipedia, this section emphasizes the English-speaking world and covers other regimes only insofar as they represent exceptionally greater or lesser protections.

USA
In the United States, legal protections vary according to the subject matter of the whistleblowing, and sometimes the state in which the case arises. In passing the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley Act, the Senate Judiciary Committee found that whistleblower protections were dependent on the "patchwork and vagaries" of varying state statutes. Still, a wide variety of federal and state laws protect employees who call attention to violations, help with enforcement proceedings, or refuse to obey unlawful directions.
The first U.S. law adopted specifically to protect whistleblowers was the Lloyd-La Follette Act of 1912. It guaranteed the right of federal employees to furnish information to the United States Congress. The first U.S. environmental law to include an employee protection was the Water Pollution Control Act of 1972, also called the Clean Water Act. Similar protections were included in subsequent federal environmental laws including the Safe Drinking Water Act (1974), Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (also called the Solid Waste Disposal Act) (1976), Toxic Substances Control Act (1976), Energy Reorganization Act of 1974 (through 1978 amendment to protect nuclear whistleblowers), Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA, or the Superfund Law) (1980), and the Clean Air Act (1990). Similar employee protections enforced through OSHA are included in the Surface Transportation Assistance Act (1982) to protect truck drivers, the Pipeline Safety Improvement Act (PSIA) of 2002, the Wendell H. Ford Aviation Investment and Reform Act for the 21st Century ("AIR 21"), and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, enacted on July 30, 2002 (for corporate fraud whistleblowers).
Investigation of retaliation against whistleblowers under 20 federal statutes falls under the jurisdiction of the Office of the Whistleblower Protection Program of the United States Department of Labor'sOccupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). New whistleblower statutes enacted by Congress which are to be enforced by the Secretary of Labor are generally delegated by a Secretary's Order to OSHA's Office of the Whistleblower Protection Program (OWPP).
The patchwork of laws means that victims of retaliation need to be alert to the laws at issue to determine the deadlines and means for making proper complaints. Some deadlines are as short as 10 days (for Arizona State Employees to file a "Prohibited Personnel Practice" Complaint before the Arizona State Personnel Board; and Ohio public employees to file appeals with the State Personnel Board of Review). It is 30 days for environmental whistleblowers to make a written complaint to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration [OSHA]. Federal employees complaining of discrimination, retaliation or other violations of the civil rights laws have 45 days to make a written complaint to their agency's equal employment opportunity (EEO) officer. Airline workers and corporate fraud whistleblowers have 90 days to make their complaint to OSHA. Nuclear whistleblowers and truck drivers have 180 days to make complaints to OSHA. Victims of retaliation against union organizing and other concerted activities to improve working conditions have six months to make complaints to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). Private sector employees have either 180 or 300 days to make complaints to the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) (depending on whether their state has a "deferral" agency) for discrimination claims on the basis of race, gender, age, national origin or religion. Those who face retaliation for seeking minimum wages or overtime have either two or three years to file a civil lawsuit, depending on whether the court finds the violation was "willful."
Those who report a false claim against the federal government, and suffer adverse employment actions as a result, may have up to six years (depending on state law) to file a civil suit for remedies under the U.S. False Claims Act (FCA). Under a qui tam provision, the "original source" for the report may be entitled to a percentage of what the government recovers from the offenders. However, the "original source" must also be the first to file a federal civil complaint for recovery of the federal funds fraudulently obtained, and must avoid publicizing the claim of fraud until the U.S. Justice Department decides whether to prosecute the claim itself. Such qui tam lawsuits must be filed under seal, using special procedures to keep the claim from becoming public until the federal government makes its decision on direct prosecution.
Federal employees could benefit from the Whistleblower Protection Act, and the No FEAR Act (which made individual agencies directly responsible for the economic sanctions of unlawful retaliation). Federal protections are enhanced in those few cases were the Office of Special Counsel will uphold the whistleblower's case.

Wall Street
Securities whistleblowers are provided incentives and protection by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (2010).

US military
The Military Whistleblower Protection Act protects the right of members of the armed services to communicate with any member of Congress (even if copies of the communication are sent to others).

UK
 In the United Kingdom, the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998 provides a framework of legal protection for individuals who disclose information so as to expose malpractice and matters of similar concern. In the vernacular, it protects whistleblowers from victimisation and dismissal.

Canada
Canadian protection for whistle-blowers is notoriously poor by English-speaking countries' standards. Until recently there was no formal protection for those who spoke up from a position of knowledge inside government, with even senior civil servants (Shiv Chopra being one notable case) fired or constructively dismissed for speaking up about internal abuses.
In the private sector, the situation was even worse as Canada retained the unreformed common law of libel without the exceptions for public issues or public interest that were added in all other English-speaking countries. This made political libel cases unfortunately common, with one infamous case even filed by the Prime Minister himself versus Official Opposition for alleging that the Prime Minister, when in Opposition, had bribed MP Chuck Cadman.
Historically, many Canadian private sector business scandals had come to light only through the intervention of the US SEC or other regulators (Garth Drabinsky, Conrad Black, Steven Bingham being three notable examples), due in part to the lack of whistle-blower protections, plaintiff-friendly libel laws and a lack of investigative journalism due to these.

Canadian government
Canada's parliament has instituted the Public Sector Integrity Office (Canada), a parliamentary office for the protection for whistle-blowers who speak up against abuses in government. However, that office was itself cast into some doubt when the first Integrity Commissioner, Christiane Ouimet, was heavily criticized in the federal auditor general's report in December 2010 . Cabinet minister Stockwell Day defended the office  but independent groups urged the re-opening of already closed files .

Legal acts

Ceballos case and the Whistleblower Protection Act of 2007
The U.S. Supreme Court dealt what many considered a major blow to government whistleblowers when, in the case of Garcetti v. Ceballos, 04-5, 547 US 410, it ruled that government employees did not have protection from retaliation in performance evaluations by their employers under the First Amendment of the Constitution if the alleged speech was produced as part of his/her duties. Ceballos did not dispute that his memo was made as part of his official duties. Whistleblowers who want to pursue a federal case under the First Amendment must now always claim the memos and writings made are part not only of the official duty but of a citizen's opinion and discourse of public relevance. This can be done by alleging that the cause for retaliation is not the text of the memo but the ideas surrounding it. In the case of Ceballos he could have argued that his protected speech was his concept of strict adherence to the rule of law.
The free speech protections of the First Amendment have long been used to shield whistleblowers from retaliation by whistleblower attorneys. In response to the Supreme Court decision, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 985, the Whistleblower Protection Act of 2007. President George W. Bush, citing national security concerns, promised to veto the bill should it be enacted into law by Congress. The Senate's version of the Whistleblower Protection Act (S. 274), which has significant bipartisan support, was approved by the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs on June 13, 2007. However, it has yet to reach a vote by Senate as a hold has been placed on the bill by Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK). According to the National Whistleblower Center, Coburn's hold on S. 274 has been done to further President Bush's agenda.
In December 2010 the Senate passed enhanced protections for government employees and contractors who report cases of waste, fraud and abuse.

California False Claims Act
The California False Claims Act protects whistleblowers from retaliation from their employer under a section entitled: "Section 12653. Employer interference with employee disclosures." Under this section, employers may not make rules that prevent an employee from disclosing information to the government in furtherance of a false claims action, an employer may not discharge, demote, suspend, threaten, harass, deny promotion to, or in any other manner discriminate against, an employee in the terms and conditions of employment because he or she has disclosed information to the government.

Conscientious Employee Protection Act (CEPA)
CEPA, New Jersey's whistleblower law, prohibits an employer from taking any retaliatory action against an employee because the employee does any of the following:
Discloses, or threatens to disclose, to a supervisor or to a public body an activity, policy, or practice of the employer or another employer, with whom there is a business relationship, that the employee reasonably believes is in violation of a law, or a rule or regulation issued under the law, or, in the case of an employee who is a licensed or certified health care professional, reasonably believes constitutes improper quality of patient care;
Provides information to, or testifies before, any public body conducting an investigation, hearing or inquiry into any violation of law, or a rule or regulation issued under the law by the employer or another employer, with whom there is a business relationship, or, in the case of an employee who is a licensed or certified health care professional, provides information to, or testifies before, any public body conducting an investigation, hearing or inquiry into quality of patient care; or
Objects to, or refuses to participate in, any activity, policy or practice which the employee reasonably believes: is in violation of a law, or a rule or regulation issued under the law, or, if the employee is a licensed or certified health care professional, constitutes improper quality of patient care; is fraudulent or criminal; or is incompatible with a clear mandate of public policy concerning the public health, safety or welfare or protection of the environment.

"Concerning protection for health care workers who report patient safety information" in Colorado
"Patient safety is of paramount importance in the delivery of health care to Colorado citizens. A patient is at his or her safest when a health care worker has the right to speak out on the patient's behalf without fear of reprisal or retaliation. Health care providers recognize that, in order to deliver the highest quality health care, it is imperative that all health care workers have the right to report patient safety concerns and to advocate for a patient's well being without the risk of disciplinary action or loss of employment."
See also
Political corruption kicked-back


(source:wikipedia)

Agosta scandal rocks French presidency

Pakistan president Asif Ali Zardari got his nickname "Mr. Ten Percent" in the 1994 purchase of Agosta submarines for Pakistan military, worth 800 million Euros. The commission was fixed 80 million Euros, but Zardari allegedly got only 68 million Euros of that. The rest totalling $33 million got stuck as a result of French presidential politics.

Pakistan army and intelligence officials had other means to settle the score -- they allegedly killed 11 engineers working on those submarines in Karachi and put the blame on Islamic fundamentalists.

The scandal now threatens French president Nicolas Sarkozy as he was the budget minister when the shady transaction took place.

Pakistan has said it is open to investigate the killing of 11 engineers that appered to be the work of intelligence officials linked with the country's military.

Interestingly it was a deal of the Agosta submarines that gave Pakistan president Asif Ali Zardari his now famous title of "Mr. Ten Percent."

Farahnaz Ispahani, spokesperson for Mr. Zardari and spouse of Pakistan ambassador to the US Hussain Haqqani, denied the allegations.

Source: mustikhan.newsvine.com

Corruption in Pakistan is endemic, but with barely 25 percent actual literacy rate these largely go unnoticed or ignored by the masses, but France is a different story and the victims' families are now demanding an answer from Sarkozy.

Documents seized by French police allege that part of these "commissions" – legal under French law at the time – were illegally "kicked back" to help finance the 1995 presidential campaign of the then prime minister, Edouard Balladur. When Jacques Chirac won the election the following spring, it is alleged that he punished his old friend and acolyte for running against him by cancelling the remaining payments to senior Pakistani figures.


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