In the up-coming elections, the political parties have given a special accord to the agenda of good governance and anti-corruption (GGAC). This is because GGAC has become a sexy topic post Gen-Z movement. Basically, the movement was for two demands - abolishing government ban on social media and good governance and anti-corruption. On the eve of the movement, the government relaxed its ban. What is left is the demand for GGAC.
Past GGAC agenda
Having spent nearly two decades in the field of good governance and anti-corruption, I cannot keep myself off from GGAC agenda of the political parties. In fact, I have been watching since first CA elections in 2008.
In 2008, I carried a small desk study, carefully reading anti-corruption sections in the election manifestos of major political parties. These findings were published in The Kathmandu Post, dated 22 March 2008. In the 2022 elections, I took similar but more elaborate exercise covering eleven political parties. The findings were published in the CIAA Souvenir 2023.
Comparing 2008 to 2022, the political parties have matured, at least, in terms of contents and coverage of GGAC agenda, if not, in outputs and results. Some interesting findings included: Nearly, all of the surveyed political parties have included GGAC agenda. However, the difference is in their approach: The smaller and newer political parties were more vocal in prescribing harsher AC policies compared to larger and older political parties which took softer approach. However, the parties lack innovative approaches. They concentratedon same old-fashioned tools like strengthening anti-corruption agencies, drafting of AC laws and launching awareness generating campaigns.
Not installing corruption prevention measure is also a crime under new British law.
Before going into the GGAC agenda in the upcoming elections, let us first take a note of one significant change that this scribe found in the British law related to corruption, I suppose, introduced in 2012. Corruption is a crime punishable by law. This is everywhere in the world. There is normal way of treating the issue. However, they have gone a step ahead, that is, a company or an institution must install adequate measures to prevent corruption, failing to do so is a crime, entailing legal sanctions and punishments. Juxtaposing this new provisions in British law with what is currently happening with political parties in Nepal, gives an impression of total a naivety.
Excessive focus on punitive approach
Read the political manifestos, you end up with each party competing with the other, to lure voters, with a harsher “punitive measures” like (1) investigations into illicit enrichment by public officials, (2) confiscation or nationalization of their properties, (3) life-time banning convicts from joining public service, (4) formation of a high power anti-corruption commission or institution, (5) zero-tolerance against corruption. etc.
Distinct features of AC policies
Earlier, I have written some specific features of anti-corruption drive (What is an alternative to the CIAA? 5 January). These included: (1) Anti-corruption is easier said than done, (2) there are no quick fix solutions to the problems of corruption; it might take ages to clean the Augean Stable, (3) there is no point fighting corruption for the sake of fighting, (4) similar to poverty, corruption can only be reduced, not eliminated, therefore, “zero-tolerance against corruption” or a “corruption-free society” is a joke.
Do you blame sick person or the sickness?
Focusing on punitive measures is like addressing the sick person rather than sickness. Corruption is a disease, corrupt person a sick person. A medical doctor don’t get angry with the sick person. He gets angry with the disease. The retroactive, punitive approaches, besides deterrence effect, shifts attention from corruption as a disease to corrupt person as a sick person.
With Gen-Z movement, there is a direct or an indirect way comparing our situation with that of Bangladesh. Let me remind readers that Anti-Corruption Commission in Bangladesh (similar to our Akhtiyar) has failed to control corruption, one reason being is that it is bogged down by something like 70,000+ past corruption cases. Digging into past corruption is like digging the graveyards where one ends up finding skeletons then recovering hidden treasure. Successful anti-corruption program must be futuristic, preventing future leakages, not digging into the past. If punitive measures alone were enough to control corruption, Vietnam and China should be the cleanest countries of the world because they have issue death sentences for corruption crimes.
Silverlinings in a dark cloud
Let me start with a positive note. This time parties are even better, than in the past, churning out GGAC agenda. Some good points, I will say, is with digitalisation or e-governance where citizens do not have to interact face-to-face with public officials. I suppose, a party even speaks of cash less transactions, paperless, brokerless (bichaulia, dalal) time-bound, hassle-free bureaucracy. These are key points for petty corruptions. Given the country’s literacy and digital infrastructure, it is doubtful how these policies be implemented.
The UNP has mentioned citizen’s right to report on corruption be taken as a Constitutional right. In fact, GGAC has become an indispensable part of human rights; every citizen has an in alienable right to have good governance, be free from the evils of corruption and a right to know how his or her tax money is being spent. South Korea has merged together its anti-corruption commission and human rights commission into one.
There is also a gradual realization within political parties that without improving governance it is near impossible to control corruption. Earlier, some parties are confused between good governance and anti-corruption as chicken-egg problem. I have read elsewhere, some prescribing corruption control to establish good governance. The political parties have also focused on e-procurement, reviewing electoral laws and political party financing. The political parties have been the HQs of corruption in Nepal. A political party standing on anti-corruption agenda and, whose leader himself is badly embroidered in several corruption scandals, intends to improve Nepal’s Corruption Perception Index “dramatically” without referring any target scores. The political parties have also promised to take out Nepal from the gray list of FTAF money laundering and organized crime.
Investigation into illicit enrichment
As I mentioned above, the problem with the political parties rests with their punitive approach. Investigating past illicit enrichment seems like a cross-cutting theme; each competing against the other, in terms of threshold point, duration and consequence of such investigations. They refer to earlier Lamsal Commission on property investigation, without first taking a note on how commission report fed into as raw material for politically motivated CIAA actions during King Gyanendra’s regression.
Policy level corruption
It is one thing to speak out loud about investigating into “policy level corruptions” or state-captures but a different thing in implementation. How would you investigate into policy decisions taken by an elected government? There is a thin line of demarcation between corruption and politics, as soon as you move on to the top of the policy decisions.
Performance based financing
Though some parties have mentioned nationalization of illicit enrichment, one approach they have not noticed is using anti-corruption strategy as development resource mobilization strategy. Instead of lump sum grant to the CIAA, its funding can be tied up with allocating certain percentage, say, 20%, of financial penalty passed on by the court to the corruption convicts. This will, at least, guarantee performance based reward system to the CIAA. The CIAA will be impelled to focus on high value grand corruption cases, leaving petty corruptions in the realm of the National Vigilance Center.
Narayan Manandhar