Tag Archives: anti-corruption

Business Fights Corruption in Thailand

Posted on 4 March, 2013 by | Comments Off

 

Dr. Pakdee Pothisiri, Commissioner of Thailand's National Anti-Corruption Commission, at an IOD event in Bangkok. (Photo: CIPE)

Dr. Pakdee Pothisiri, Commissioner of Thailand’s National Anti-Corruption Commission, at an IOD event in Bangkok. (Photo: CIPE)

Corruption is one of the world’s most pervasive and vexing problems, costing the global economy hundreds of billions of dollars each year and stalling economic growth in many developing countries. Though most anti-corruption efforts focus on government-driven solutions in Thailand, the private sector, with CIPE’s assistance, has taken the lead in stamping out corrupt practices.

Writing in the Bangkok Post, CIPE Program Officer John Morrell describes how this unique program took shape, and why private companies have taken such an interest in what is usually regarded as a problem for the government.

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Business Shows Clear Commitment to Fighting Corruption in Thailand

Posted on 1 February, 2013 by | 1 Comment
thailand-iod-participants

Participants at the January IOD training included senior officers from some of the largest local and multinational companies in Thailand.

In late January, more than 30 senior officers from 17 major Thai and multinational corporations attended an intensive anti-corruption training program led by the Thai Institute of Directors (IOD). This pilot two-day training course is the latest groundbreaking step in the Collective Action against Corruption campaign, now in its third year, being led by CIPE and IOD.

With technical and financial assistance from CIPE, IOD has assembled a still-expanding coalition of companies and business associations committed to fighting corruption in Thailand. To join this coalition, a company signs IOD’s Collective Action against Corruption Declaration which lays out tangible and specific steps that a company must take to proactively reduce corruption-related risks on the part of its employees, managers, and vendors. But signing this document is no mere photo-op, because to remain a member of this coalition, a company must submit to an external evaluation to verify whether or not it is actually doing what it has promised to do.

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Private Sector Fight Against Corruption in Thailand Gains Momentum

Posted on 11 December, 2012 by | Comments Off

UK Foreign Secretary William Hague with IOD Chairwoman Khunying Jada in Bangkok

When the Thai military overthrew an elected government in 2006, and when the Supreme Court disbanded another elected government in 2008, corruption was the principal stated justification. Public perceptions and allegations of corruption can undermine government in Thailand to such an extent that democratically elected governments often lack public legitimacy in the eyes of competing (and color coordinated) segments of Thai society, who came out in droves to protest in red or yellow shirts depending on their political affiliation.

So the resounding victory of Yingluck Shinawatra in Thailand’s 2011 parliamentary elections – which marked just the second time since 1932 that a single party gained control of parliament – should not be perceived as a triumph of democracy in the country. Indeed, the only other time that a single party controlled parliament was in 2005 when Yingluck’s brother Thaksin Shinawatra won by an even larger electoral margin. Less than one year later, he was deposed in a military coup. Clearly, the situation in Thailand demonstrates that the consolidation of democratic principles and practices in a country requires more than just the ability to vote, and corruption is among the paramount obstacles to be overcome.

With the long-term goal of reducing corruption and promoting transparency in the Thai marketplace, CIPE launched a project in July 2010 with the Thai Institute of Directors (IOD) to cultivate private sector support for national anti-corruption initiatives. Since then, CIPE and IOD have designed a collective action strategy for reducing corruption in Thailand, assembled a still-expanding coalition of companies and business associations committed to that strategy, and developed a series of training programs and certification processes that ensure that coalition companies are actually doing what they pledge to do on anti-corruption.

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The Role of Youth in Anti-Corruption

Posted on 30 November, 2012 by | 2 Comments

This week’s  Economic Reform Feature Service articles highlight the final two winning essays from CIPE’s 2011 International Youth Essay Competition. Riska Mirzalina and Ruth Nyambura, the second and third place winners respectively in the Corruption category, discuss how youth in their countries can engage in anti-corruption movements and advocacy to change the status quo.

In Riska Mirzalina’s “The Cost of Corruptions: A Tale from Indonesia” she points out that:

  • While Indonesia is a land of abundant resources, corruption prevents the country as a whole from benefiting from them.
  • The change from a centralized government to a decentralized government has not had the desired affect and has actually provided more opportunities and alternate paths for people to participate in corruption.
  •  Entrepreneurs, businesses, and associations must unify in their effort against corruption and bribery. The cost of not doing so is increased poverty, human suffering, and underdevelopment.

In Ruth Nyambura’s “Generation Now,” she talks about how:

  • A large percentage of Kenya’s GDP is used to repay foreign aid. Much of the foreign aid is lost or misappropriated due to corruption.
  • “Kitu kidogo” is a Kiswahili euphemism for a bribe. Bribes are pervasive in all facets of Kenyan life. As a result many entrepreneurs are choosing to leave the country, which has a negative effect on Kenyan society as a whole.
  •  The new generation will bear the brunt of corruption. Therefore the youth should refuse any form of corrupt practices including cronyism, nepotism and tribalism. By utilizing technology and adopting social media platforms the youth can fight corruption.

Thank you for everyone who participated in the 2011 competition! We recently closed the 2012 CIPE Youth Essay Competition, and look forward to reading them and announcing the winners in spring of 2013!

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Pakistani Business Community Ready to Voice its Views on Corruption

Posted on 2 November, 2012 by | Comments Off

Moin Fudda, CIPE Country Director, Zafar Bkhtawari, President ICCI, Muhammad Ali, Chairman SECP, Andrew Wilson, CIPE Regional Director, and Olaf Kellerhoff, Resident Friedrich Naumann Stiftung (left to right) exchange views on the “Role of Private Sector in Combating Corruption”

In Pakistan, private sector leaders have traditionally been largely reluctant to discuss one of the foremost impediments to the country’s economic growth – corruption. In both the press and the popular perception, the problem has typically been discussed as a product of a too-cozy nexus between the political and business elites. Meanwhile, representatives of the business community have considered the topic taboo, and as a result, have rarely conveyed their view – that in fact, by and large, far from benefiting, most in Pakistan’s private sector suffer from the high level of corruption.

Since CIPE opened its Pakistan office in 2006 and began worked with the country’s chambers of commerce, it has gradually become more feasible to raise the issue of economic policy reform, and now for the first time, this has shifted to an open discussion of corruption. Business leaders now are willing to stand up and not only talk about the costs they face because of corruption, but to begin to think about how they can be part of the solution.

On October 25 in Islamabad, CIPE and the Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ICCI) organized a roundtable on “The Role of the Private Sector in Reducing Corruption,” the first meeting of its kind in Pakistan. The event featured a panel discussion among Mohammad Ali, Chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP); Zafar Bakhtawari, President of ICCI; Olaf Kellerhoff, Resident Representative of the Friedrich-Naumann Foundation; and top CIPE staff.

More than 75 representatives of the private sector, government agencies including the Competition Commission and the Economic Reform Unit of the Ministry of Finance, representatives of think tanks, the IFC and World Bank, and the board and staff of ICCI attended. The event also highlighted another new initiative in Pakistan – a corruption perceptions survey of young entrepreneurs called “Unpacking Corruption,” conducted by the Young Entrepreneurs’ Forum of ICCI.

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The “Other” Corruption

Posted on 5 October, 2012 by | 1 Comment

A still from the secret video that revealed corruption in Polish SOEs.

This post originally appeared on the TrustLaw blog.

It was a hot summer for Polish politics. Back in July, someone leaked a secretly recorded video, in which Władysław Serafin, chairman of the National Union of Farmers and Farmers’ Associations and a top member of the ruling coalition’s PSL party, talks with Władysław Łukasik, former head of the governmental Agriculture Market Agency (ARR). In the video, Łukasik lists a host of malpractices at the PSL-dominated ARR, ranging from nepotism to mismanagement of the state-owned enterprises (SOEs) that the agency oversees. The abuses included what the prosecutor’s office called “numerous financial irregularities” concerning payments made to members of the board of Elewarr, a grain company owned by ARR.

As a result of the scandal, Poland’s Minister of Agriculture resigned (albeit without admitting any guilt), the head of Elewarr was dismissed, and the investigation continues. However, one positive outcome of the “PSL tapes” has been an increased debate on the issue of nepotism and cronyism. Such practices are hard to detect because they often happen on the fringe of legality and because there is little public information available on the extent to which politicians or their relatives and friends are connected to SOEs.

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Thai Banks Join Anti-Corruption Effort

Posted on 29 March, 2012 by | Comments Off

IOD and Thai Banks Join Hands in the Fight Against Corruption (Photo: The Post Today).

On March 27, nine commercial banks jointly signed the Anti-Corruption Declaration of the Thai Institute of Directors (IOD). This Declaration lays out tangible and specific steps that a company must take to combat corruption on the part of its employees, managers and vendors, and is the unifying document of IOD’s Collective Action Against Corruption campaign.

With CIPE support and technical assistance, IOD has built a private sector coalition of Thailand’s largest businesses and most influential business associations united in their commitment to tackle the supply side of corruption. These nine banks are the latest to join this coalition, and they now take rank with Thai and multinational firms such as PTT, Thai Airways, Siam Cement, the Shin Corporation, Toshiba Thailand, Pfizer Thailand, and Siemens Thailand.

One of the business associations in IOD’s anti-corruption coalition is the Thai Bankers’ Association (TBA), and all nine of the banks that joined on Tuesday are TBA members. There are now 15 Thai banks in IOD’s coalition, representing the full membership of the TBA.

Speaking of the significance of this event, IOD President and CEO Bandid Nijathaworn said “this is a major step [in the fight against corruption] in that this is the first time that all of an association’s member companies are part of the coalition.” The Chairwoman of IOD, Khunying Jada Wattanasiritham, echoed these sentiments by explaining that this campaign is the paramount collective action initiative in Thailand today.

This event attracted considerable media attention, with the Nation – one of the country’s biggest English-language dailies – penning an article lauding the banks for their effort “to prevent and suppress graft.” But this was not a mere photo-op. To join IOD’s anti-corruption coalition, companies must make concrete promises, and concrete steps must be taken to fulfill these promises.

When a company or business association signs IOD’s Anti-Corruption Declaration, they pledge to implement strong anti-bribery policies and anti-corruption controls in their organization. They also pledge to send senior executives and compliance staff to IOD-led anti-corruption training programs. Perhaps most significantly, coalition members must submit to an external verification to certify whether or not they’re actually doing what they promise to do. If they aren’t, they will be removed from the coalition.

This private sector coalition, the members of which all voluntarily stepped forward to take part, is having a tremendous impact onThailand’s fight against corruption. Because corruption distorts markets, denies citizens and businesses the benefits of free competition, and retards economic development, reducing corruption is among Thailand’s paramount development goals.

Moreover, in a country in which rampant corruption has directly and repeatedly contributed to the destabilization of the political process, this anti-corruption initiative of the Thai Institute of Directors is making invaluable contributions to Thailand’s democratic development as well.

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