Fighting corruption in South Asia
Despite this impressive commitment to the Covenant, corruption remains an endemic problem that continues to blight governance and economic and political development in South Asia. This has been reflected yet again in Transparency International's latest Corruption Perceptions Index. Of the South Asian countries surveyed, Sri Lanka was viewed as the least corrupt, being ranked at number 78, while Bangladesh performed especially badly, coming in at 158 out of a potential 163. India ranked at 88 with Nepal at 117 and Pakistan at 144 respectively, indicating a consistently high level of corruption across the region.
The UN Convention against Corruption provides a single, overarching means for all countries in the region to fight and eventually remove the scourge of corruption. More specifically, chapter two of the Convention provides different measures that a country should implement in order to remove the fog of secrecy that often clouds government operations and decision-making processes.
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel. One means by which South Asian countries can go a long way towards implementing the measures set out in chapter two of the Convention is by adopting and implementing an effective right to information law. The right to information, or freedom of information as it is more commonly known, has long been recognised as a human right, ever since the UN General Assembly declared in 1946 that "freedom of information is a fundamental human right and a touchstone of all freedoms to which the United Nations is consecrated."
An effective right to information law puts an obligation on the government to regularly disclose as much information as possible about its policies and decisions to the public, and provide information to individuals when they request it. Disclosing information should be subject to an overriding principle that all information should be disclosed, unless the harm caused by disclosure is greater than the public interest in accessing the information. The information should be easily accessible in a quick and simple way and the government should be required to conduct ongoing training for government officials and educate the public on the right to information.
If a right to information law is introduced, then it can act as an important tool in fighting corruption -- it can effectively transform the strong and traditional culture of secrecy within government into one of transparency and openness. In South Asia, politicians and government officials have for too long taken advantage of this culture of secrecy -- how many times have we read or heard about the numerous ways in which officials have lined their own pockets with public funds? The adoption of a right to information law can shed light on the behaviour of government officials by empowering citizens with a tool to help scrutinise and monitor government decision-making and bring public officials and politicians to account.
Empowering citizens in this manner can also help strengthen democracy by making government directly accountable to its citizens on a day-to-day basis rather than just at election time. Even at election time, a right to information law ensures that voters have better access to information concerning the government's record in office, allowing them to make a more informed decision at the ballot box, instead of relying on often dubious political propaganda.
An effective right to information law also helps to ensure that governments formulate and implement development projects in a responsible, transparent and participatory manner. Development projects often significantly suffer as a result of funds being siphoned off, resulting in severe delay, and sometimes even a failure to complete projects. With a right to information law in place, governments would be obliged to share information on such projects with the public who can then monitor their development.
In fact, the right to information would give the public a voice in determining what local projects should take place in the first place and how these can be designed to more effectively improve their lives.
Given all of the benefits of the right to information, more countries in the region now need to recognise its impact and effectively implement a RTI law as soon as possible. Indeed, there have been positive signs that South Asian countries are beginning to understand the benefits of adopting a right to information law. Last year, India passed and started to implement the region's first RTI law, and the impact has almost been immediate, with an increasing number of citizens making information requests that have exposed a number of corrupt practices and even embarrassed the government into addressing such practices.
For example, the act has been used to expose massive fraud in the government's Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, designed to guarantee employment for rural-based families living below the poverty line, and has also been used to reveal discrepancies in the tendering process for the privatisation of Delhi's water authority. People have also used RTI as a tool to curb petty bribery in, for example, making applications for passports and ration cards and even in receiving pension payments. The adoption of RTI in India has now had the positive effect of encouraging civil society organisations in Nepal, Maldives, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Bangladesh to draft their own RTI bills and raise public and government awareness about the benefits of RTI, especially in terms of cracking down on corruption.
Overall, if governments in South Asia are serious about cracking down on corruption, cleaning up their governments and securing the long term democratic development and economic prosperity for their citizens, then there is no better time than now to sign up to and implement their commitments under the UN Convention against Corruption and prioritise the drafting and implementation of an effective right to information law.