PARIS - As bribery scandal after bribery scandal has rocked governments around the world – not just in places like Africa where people have come to expect them, but in the United Kingdom, where the government admitted a Saudi prince had received hundreds of millions of dollars in kickbacks in return for a British defence contract, to France, and even one of the anti-corruption capitals of the world, Sweden, the world is fast losing ground to win the fight, according to a report from Transparency International (TI,) which monitors efforts around the world and said there is a lack of political will to stop it.
In a two-day meeting at the Organisation for Economic Development and Co-Operation, the group presented its report, even while its leaders expressed dismay and barely-controlled frustration that governments who 12 years ago signed pledges to fight corruption and stop bribery in international contracts have now all but abandoned those ideals to make money for their national companies and in what they term “national interest,” which has come to be a code phrase for quashing investigations into embarrassing revelations that even European governments condone the practice.
 TI evaluated 36 countries and said enforcement of anti-bribery laws has been uneven, with only four countries - Germany, Norway, Switzerland and the United States — actively using the OECD’s anti-bribery convention, which they have all signed. The United Kingdom signed the pledge but ignored it and squashed an investigation into the Saudi bribery even though admitting it had happened, overriding national prosecutors.
“Whether through antiquated bribery laws, outright political obstruction of investigations, lack of adequate funding for prosecutors or curtailing the powers of investigative magistrates the OECD convention is facing grave challenges,” the group said.
The anti-bribery convention was signed in 1997 and entered into force in 1999. It represents a collective commitment to ban foreign bribery by the leading industrialised countries, which account for the majority of global exports and foreign investment.
It has been adopted by 38 countries and has helped bring changes in national legislation. For example, until a few years ago, many European governments let companies deduct “commissions” paid to win foreign contracts from their taxes. France outlawed such practices in 2000 and Germany followed suit in 2003, but companies in both countries have been flouting the law, and the German company Siemens is involved in a number of bribery charges around the world.
Countries have been getting around the convention by declaring some bribery cases to be in their national interests, such as in Britain where government ordered the Serious Fraud Office to drop an investigation into BAE’s Al-Yamamah contract with Saudi Arabia. Britain’s highest court of appeal upheld that decision based on national security grounds. “It needs to be said there is an area where we are really struggling, fighting, and that’s in my view the defense industry,” said Mark Pieth, chairman of the OECD working group on bribery.
The situation in Britain has improved, as it has concluded four foreign bribery cases in the past year, and about 20 investigations are under way, Transparency International said. Britain was identified along with 10 other countries, including France, Japan, South Korea, Spain and Sweden, as “moderately” enforcing the pledges. The report said 21 countries had little or no enforcement, including Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Ireland, Israel, Poland, South Africa and Turkey.
Cobus da Swardt, the managing director of the Managing Director of Transparency International, was interviewed by New Europe at the meeting in Paris, where he outlined his frustrations and feelings in the fight against international bribery.

You’re fighting an uphill battle, this is more pandemic than the swine flu. How are you going to make any progress when the bottom-line of all this is that countries want money, companies want money, and money is the overarching factor?
Well even if everything that you say is true, you still have to make money in a sustainable way and if there’s one thing that we know over the last 15 years in fighting corruption is that corruption is the most unsustainable business strategy to have. For that, the natural imperatives for business is that we need to control corruption much more effectively to create a level playing field for businesses to flourish in the long run.

Doesn’t seem to hurt Siemens. They’ve been cited … shamed, and they’re doing better than ever.
-Well I would disagree with that. I also think that the uphill battle for Siemens is not over yet and surely if you were to look at Siemens management two years ago and now, they’re not many people left over

Do you think it has corrected some of the deficiencies in putting people into place that are not going to condone this?
-If it was that easy, then I wouldn’t be standing here anymore, but surely this case as many others has pointed out the difficulties we face in the world. We have challenges that if we do not overcome them, that we will not only not be able to have sustainable business and will end up with issues such as the current financial crisis with one of its root causes the lack of accountability and transparency, but also that the fundamental fiber of society, mainly that we have to tackle issues of global poverty, we have to tackle issues of climate change and none of these can be in the long run successfully challenged if we have high levels of corruption.

You mentioned the primary reason is the lack of political will. Isn’t that the polite way of saying that governments don’t care what you think as long as their companies benefit and they can cite national interest or political interest or political patriotism or national patriotism?
I think there are two points. Firstly, if there’s one thing that the last decade reminded us of is that national interests don’t always get you over the line. We live in a global world; we have to cooperate together. We need at this stage much better international cooperation and the same is true in the fight against the supply side of corruption. If governments all over don’t cooperate then their companies will suffer. So it is in their long term and national self-interest to create a level playing field for business to walk over.

Are you discouraged that the BAE scandal in the UK showed that when push comes to shove the government might cite national interest in not only allowing corruption, but also condoning it and perpetuating it?
Of course we are very disappointed about that. That particular action has indeed undermined the credibility of the convention. On the other hand it is also worthwhile to note that many governments have stood up and said this is wrong. We are hopeful that in the next coming days, we will see a renewed commitment not only to the convention but also to article V that outlaws that excuse so for other governments to actually say “No, we do not accept that.”

That is a major example, but there are many minor ones, Greece, Bulgaria, countries like that. You can’t walk into any social service without paying a bribe or paying money to expedite whatever you want done. Isn’t that as much of a problem as a huge scandal?
Of course. If you look across the world, 15 years ago when our organisation was born and reset corruption as a major issue around the world people said we were mad. Today you are telling me it is a major issue; the question is what can we do about it. We believe that we have made some progress but clearly not enough and that is to go back to the issue of political will where the political will of governments say that we will actually as politicians live to a much higher standard of integrity. We’ve seen recently what happens when a politician failed to do that as in the UK, the general public no longer says we tolerate this behavior. The bar of what is acceptable behavior and standards of integrity we believe have increased over the last decade and that is a very positive sign. Furthermore if you think back, elections whether in Latin America, the Middle East, Eastern Europe in the last couple of years, many governments now fall because of corruption issues. That’s unthinkable 15 years ago. The world has changed not only because we have conventions and organisations such as transparency international, but because ordinary citizens are saying we’ve had enough of this.

Isn’t it discouraging when, for example, the OECD doesn’t hold its members to certain standards?  Bulgaria is chastised by the European commission, but the Mafia runs Italy. Why don’t you go after them?
I think that one has to commend the OECD as well. The OECD working group has issued vary stellar reports on the countries that you have mentioned and they have also done it on very powerful countries - on the UK, on Japan - so yes, it’s not all doom and gloom. At the same time, one has to accept, when you deal with corruption you deal with vested interest. There is a powerful vested interest and for that reason one should not think that this is a fight that will be over by Thursday morning when we hopefully will see a strong ministerial declaration.

Why are there not more people that have the political and personal will to fight what’s wrong?
-Many people are put in situations. In my own personal case, I did not start to fight apartheid because it was a conscious decision I made one morning. You get more and more involved by saying this cannot be right. And I believe that the world we live in today is a very different world than 50 years ago. There are truly millions of people that seek a greater sense of social justice in the world and that is the reason why we see the changes. If you just look up to the screen behind us I can see images coming from I presume Iran from the BBC. Ordinary citizens standing up and saying we want change because we seek social justice. These are issues that are universal, and they are not because there are special people around the world. Human beings inherently seek social justice. When I bring up my children, it’s interesting, the first word they say is “No,” the second is “It’s not fair.” Human beings inherently have a quest for fairness, and that truly is what our organisation tries to tap into that in our quest to create a world of greater social justice.

Cobus da Swardt Managing Director of Transparency International and a former anti-apartheid fighter in South Africa