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Topic Discussion IV
Achieving Good Governance
Controlling Corruption, Improving
Administration
and Strengthening the Rule of Law
Room 1
(15 of 22 pages)
Chair: You've raised an important factor in addressing the issue of corruption
and that is an independent media as a watchdog. Through their investigative reporting they can uncover the abuses
of power and that's different than educating the public, that's informing the public. And I know in a number of
countries in Latin America, the media has become much more independent than it was even a decade ago, when the
governments controlled the print paper that came into the country and also because they owned the State companies,
they controlled the advertising in these papers and therefore had substantial control on the coverage of those
newspapers. I think that's an important issue that should be included in the report.
The other issue that you raised, which I also think is important, that is the right of the public to expect the
government to provide information on their dealings when it comes to spending the monies from the public treasury
and that way you can hold the officials accountable for their decisions.
Jarhalla Omar: The issue of corruption is a universal problem, if we want to discuss it on the level of
the emerging democracies and I think that we should divide it into two parts, internal corruption and international
corruption.
When it comes to international corruption, which is the characteristic of our countries, it is what I call the
corruption of the officials who don't have social security and don't have enough salaries, because unless the employee
has a suitable salary that is sufficient for his lifehood, he would seek other means and ways for living and sources
for money. So that's why we should find solutions for this problem, because the corruption, because of the bad
living conditions is to be found in democracy of the levels of all the authorities that would have commitment to
the economic development, because this corruption cannot be found in developed countries and this is the reason
why they are developed countries.
So in these countries, in the developed countries, I mean there is insurance and there is health insurance and
social security and other services, so you won't find such forms of corruption.
The second corruption I'm talking about is the international corruption, which I would call the welfare corruption.
In Morocco, for example, we have regional committees, but they do not act actively or properly. For example, there
is transferring the employees every four years from their places and from their offices and we've tried very hard
to find solutions to add criteria upon which we should depend in recruiting officials and employees in the government
offices. And the decision-makers in Morocco are the ones to make these decisions, so this welfare corruption has
to do mostly with the tendering system, especially with the big companies.
And in the last year there was a new law in France that would ban importing anything without having taxes on this
importation and this law prevented presenting any bribes regarding the tenders in importing such commodities and
products. So this law has to do with the real flow of money or where big money is and this interior corruption
is prevailing. And the best solution for this is to have democracy, especially on the national level. Thank you.
Chair: You articulate the difference between them as grand corruption and petty corruption, whereas petty
corruption is really dealing with civil servants at the lower levels, who wages aren't what we would call a living
wage and they do it for purposes of survival and at the grand corruption level, of course, it is motivated more
by greed.
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