Nepal: Is corruption a problem or a solution?

Narayan Manandha

Governance Expert, Nepal

Corruption is definitely a problem. Had it not been a problem, we would not have seen so many development agencies investing so much money in fighting corruption. There would never have been a global movement against corruption. And possibly we will not have seen the growth of literature on corruption and anti-corruption. However, what is astounding is that there are only few cases of success stories in fighting corruption. Saving few countries and in few instances, by and large, anti-corruption campaigns have turned out to be the stories of failures and miscarriages. If this is the norm then we need to ask a question: why we have failed to address the problems of corruption?

Inability to understand the basic problems of corruption is the fundamental flaw in launching anti-corruption campaigns. There exist too much generalisations and simplifications on corruption problem. The anti-corruption campaigns are launched without ever trying to understand the problem in the first place. Anti-corruption drives often start with an assumption that the problem is already known in advance and what is required is an active search for solutions. Even here, they assume that solutions too are already known in advance. What is required is effective implementation. Solutions often revolve around hard measures like drafting of stringent anti-corruption laws, strong code of conduct, draconian measures against corrupt people to soft measures like awareness generation, restoring religious/moral values, massive civic education and training programs. But I differ right from here and like to ask a question: Have we ever tried to understand the problem in the first place? Let us take some hypothetical cases involving corruption and bribery in traffic policing and see the complexities involved in understanding the problem.

Scenario One: A traffic policeman nabs a drunken driver. The driver bribes him Rs500 and frees himself from possible prosecutions involving, say, Rs1500 penalty and being enlisted as a bad driver. Both parties benefit from the criminal transaction, obviously, at the cost of the society at large. Corruption is a social problem. Here it is used for individual benefits. The dishonest policeman augments his day’s income by Rs500. The drunken driver saves possible fines; saves time and efforts visiting traffic police HQ collecting his driving license. In the absence of a third party reporting, the crime will never be reported. Lack of effective enforcement mechanism may breed future traffic violations. Having addicted to taking bribes, the traffic policeman may become a nuisance to innocent drivers. Similarly, the drunken driver effectively helped to spoil the integrity system of the society.

Scenario Two: Let us make the scenario bit complicated. A traffic policeman nabs a driver violating traffic rules. Using high-level connections, the traffic rules violating driver gets himself free from possible prosecutions. We may also have a perverse situation where, instead of the driver, the traffic policeman is punished for troubling our high-profile driver. There could also be a situation where the violating driver happens to be a powerful minister or a celebrity. As show of favour and gratitude, our traffic policeman may deliberately look other way round.

Scenario Three: Let us make the case still more difficult. A traffic policeman strategically positions himself at the exit end of the one way street and apprehends the in-coming drivers for violating one-way traffic rules. Had he positioned himself visibly at the entry-point, the drivers will never ever dare to violate traffic rules. Who is culpable here? Probably, both. Probably, the traffic policeman who prefers to hide away from the scene to catch offending drivers is more culpable here than the opportunistic offending drivers. Let us make a small note here. In the jargons of anti-corruption campaign, the traffic policeman hiding at the exit end is basically adopting curative strategy. Had he positioned himself at the entry point, he would be using preventive strategy. Therefore, a choice of an anti-corruption strategy can have far reaching consequences.

Scenario Four: Further imagine that a traffic policeman had bribed Rs200,000 to secure his current job. He is now misusing his position, extracting bribe money from the innocent drivers simply to recover his investment. Imagine this scenario with a medical doctor seeking to extract money from a patient?

Scenario Five: A traffic policeman has been ordered by his bosses in the high places to issue tickets to the drivers as a way to collect fund for the forthcoming “Beating the Retreat Celebration”. Tickets are issued to the offending drivers as a part of organized push sale activity.

Scenario Six: Collecting of bribes from the offending and not offending drivers may have been done in an organized manner. As for example, we often hear of hafta system in downtown Thamel, policemen engaged in collecting money from the cabin and dance restaurants or massage parlours. The money collected is systematically shared among different layers in police bureaucracy.

Scenario Seven: Because of strong unions of drivers and their connections with the political power, our policeman is helpless in enforcing traffic rules. The problem here is not with the policeman, I would say it is not even with the unions. It is with the political masters.

Scenario Eight: Let us have a final case. A local Nepali journalist deliberately violates traffic regulations. When apprehended for his crime, offers bribe to a corrupt policeman. The policeman accepts the bribe; however, the journalist manages to capture the scene of bribery in his hidden camera. The journalist later uses video recordings to blackmail the traffic policeman. There is a kind of double crossing here by the journalist. One kind of corruption (blackmailing of traffic police by the journalist) is being used here to counter another kind of corruption (taking of bribe money by the policeman).

We can build on many hypothetical cases like these. But we will stop here to look at some of the implications. The mini-cases reflect a range of issues from involving a simple, one-shot individual aberration of petty bribery, nepotism, negligence to a complicated, large-scale organized crime taking place in traffic police department. There can also be of corruption cases where there may not involve actual transfer of cash from one hand to the other. There can be cases of misuse of influence, nepotism and favour seeking. Also the deeper underlying causes and consequences of corruption may not be visible to a naked eye.

It will be a gross mistake to lump all of the above cases into as a single case of corruption and to seek a generalized simple, single solution. A different category of corruption problems demand different measures. What is more important here is the analysis and understanding of the problem than search for a solution. Let us take Scenario One as an illustration. This is a simplified case of individual aberrations between a drunken drive and a bad traffic police. Both parties are violating traffic norms. Unless a third party detects and reports the crime, nothing can be done. Even when a third party is a witness to the crime, why would he/she risk reporting the case? However, a simple solution like installing a CCTV in the roads, built-in incentives for the parties to report the crime, or requiring traffic policeman to take lie detection test during his employment or even installing sophisticated equipment inside the car that stops drunk driving can solve the problem. However, the solutions prescribed for Scenario One will be useless when it comes to countering other complicated cases as mentioned in Scenario Four, Five or Six. These are the cases of organized crime. No matter how strong our anti-corruption laws may be, it will be difficult to solve this problem. Corruption is no more an individual problem here. Corruption is no more a violation of norms. Instead, corruption is a norm here, meaning it is the part of the system. And, in order to survive, everyone has to follow this corrupt norm. Corruption no more becomes a problem; it becomes a solution to every day problem. Possibly we are into an absurd situation where fighting against corruption or anti-corruption campaigns becomes a problem. When corruption becomes an established norm, a system in itself, only solution is to change the system itself. If corruption problem had been a case of individual aberration, plucking of bad apples will very easily save the system from total collapse. However, when the whole system survives and thrives on corruption, when the whole system is (corruptly) designed to solve other problems, corruption becomes a solution than a problem. In such a situation, it is very difficult to fight corruption. What is the point in plucking rotten apples if the whole crate designed to hold apples itself is corrupted in the first place? To drive our point home, let us take institutionalized corruption recently reported by the Maoist Party. They are accused of siphoning off billions of rupees allocated as salaries and allowances of 2500+ PLA fighters now reported to be missing from the cantonments. No matter the extent of public outcry or a degree of serious investigations by the parliamentary committees, I do not think the state will be able to recover the money and held anybody accountable for the embezzlement. The honourable PM has already warned not to raise this issue otherwise it may derail the peace and constitution writing process. The billions of money disappeared may be taken as a price we are asked to pay for the ongoing peace process. This has been deliberately designed to keep political parties happy. Imagine when political parties engage in open, transparent, broad-day light robbery of this scale, what moral ground you think the government will have in fighting corruption at a lesser scale or at the lower level? In such a situation, anti-corruption campaigns only become a tool, a corrupted tool, to gag and discipline one’s opponents. There is a saying that charity begins at home. The political will to fight corruption is no where clearly expressed than one’s willingness, first, to clean one’s own home than trying to clean others. Fighting corruption in Nepal has come as a big joke.

Post your Comment here

TERMS OF USE:The views, opinions and comments posted are your, and are not endorsed by this website. You shall be solely responsible for the comment posted here. The website reserves the right to delete, reject, or otherwise remove any views, opinions and comments posted or part thereof. You shall ensure that the comment is not inflammatory, abusive, derogatory, defamatory &/or obscene, or contain pornographic matter and/or does not constitute hate mail, or violate privacy of any persons) or breach confidentiality or otherwise is illegal, immoral or contrary to public policy. Nor should it contain anything infringing copyright &/or intellectual property rights of any person(s).