Excellent study material for all civil services aspirants - being learning - Kar ke dikhayenge!
SHARE:
Probity in governance - Part 1
1.0 INTRODUCTION
The India we see today is very different from the India of 1980s. We have successfully overcome the stressful situations preceding the 1991 reforms, consolidated on the initiatives taken post the unfolding of the reform agenda and indeed withstood the shock in which the so called Asian Tigers nearly folded up. The country even managed to survive the initial setbacks of the financial meltdown which commenced with the toxic assets originating from the USA. However, since practically all major developed and emerging economies are now globally networked through trade and financial institutions' operations, the subsequent economic impacts created difficulties for India.
The theories of the silent majority and the apathetic India citizen have been seriously challenged in the past couple of years with the agitation against corruption, led vocally by Anna Hazare. The year 2012 indeed will go down in the history of the Indian democracy as a defining year. There has been a maturing of democracy in the nation which threatens to upset the existing establishment; the political class and the administration. It is clear that citizens seek a dialogue - a dialogue in which they can participate in governance and will be calling the government to account. This is indeed the old order changing, yielding place to the new. The era of a new discerning and very demanding class of citizen, has come to stay.
An aware, informed and demanding youth will keep holding government and its institutions to account in all its actions. It was this cross-section of the urban middle class who seems to have awakened and see a major role for themselves in building this Nation.
2.0 EVOLUTION OF ETHICAL CONCERNS IN GOVERNANCE
Public service refers to services provided by the Government like electricity, healthcare, maintenance of law and order and rural and urban infrastructure. Delivery of public services would mean offering these goods and services to the people by the Government. Availaibility, affordability and accessibility of services are the key to successful delivery. Citizen-administration interface is a crucial aspect of this. Public servants refer to all the functionaries who are involved in the delivery of these services to the people.
Ethical concerns of governance have been addresses by various philosophical schools across various civilisations. In Indian scriptures references to governance and probity can be found in the Ramayana and Mahabharata. In Ancient India, Kautilya's Arthashastra was composed. It is considered as the world's first treatise on governance. Chinese philosophers Lao Tse, Confucius and Mencius also provided maxims on ethical governance. In Western philosophy there are three major schools ethics; Aritstotlean, Kantian and Utilitarian. The Aristotlean school holds that virtues such as justice, charity and generosity are dispositions to act in ways that benefit the persons who possess these virtues as well as the society in general of which he is a part. According to Immanuel Kant, the concept of duty is central to morality. As humans are rational beings, they are bound by their knowledge of duty to follow the categorical imperative and respect other rational human beings they interact with. The guiding principle of utilitarian conduct is the greatest happiness of the greatest number. All these philosophies agree that the welfare of the ruler lies in welfare of the subjects.
The philosophical bass of administrative ethics is that public administrators are guardians of the state. Hence, they are expected to honour public trust and not violate it. Public servants hold positions of power. Hence, they need to be guarded against their tendency to misconceive public interest, promote self-interest, indulge in corruption and cause subversion of national interest. External institutions such as the judiciary and the legislature are needed to supervise the behaviour of Public servants and ensure their accountability. These concerns can be found in the writings of almost all the philosophers from Plato and Aristotle to J.S. Mill and Edmund Burke.
Public Administration as system of study places a lot of emphasis on the values of humanism, equity, justice, human rights, gender equality and compassion. Whereas the New Public Management movement in Public Administration focuses on administrative effectiveness, the New Public Administration movement focuses on administrative ethics in its broader manifestation. John.F.Kennedy , the American President had emphasises that "No responsibility of the Government is more fundamental than the responsibility of maintain the higher standards of ethical behaviour." The World Bank in 1992 initiated the movement of Good Governance which emphasised on ethical and moral conduct of the administrators.
Max Weber highlighted the ethical imperative of administrative behaviour. He observed that members of the administrative staff should be completely distinct from the owners of assets. He also emphasised that there should be a complete separation of the organisation's property from the individual's property.
Probity in administrative behaviour is an indicator ethics in particular processes. The term probity is an amalgamation of integrity, uprightness and honesty. For public servants, probity goes beyond avoiding corrupt practices and dishonest conduct. Values such as impartiality, accountability and transparency need to be upheld. Another interpretation of probity is to be incorruptible. A strict adherence to a code of ethics based in unwavering honesty is the key to probity. Personal and societal values are important determinants of probity. Every public official is bound to keep public interest at the top of his mind and adopt processes which promote the same. According to the 2nd ARC report, " Apart from the traditional civil service values of efficiency, integrity, accountability and patriotism, it is necessary for civil servants to inculcate and adopt ethical and moral values including probity in public life, respect for human rights and compassion for the downtrodden and commitment to their welfare." Probity in governance in considered to be an essential requirement for effective and efficient system of governance and socio-economic development. Effective laws, rules and regulations governing every aspect of public life and effective and fair implementation of these laws are important requirements to create probity.
3.0 Necessity of Probity
Probity in governance is an essential and vital requirement for an efficient and effective system of governance and for socio-economic development. An important requisite for ensuring probity in governance is absence of corruption. The other requirements are effective laws, rules and regulations governing every aspect of public life and, more important, an effective and fair implementation of those laws. Indeed, a proper, fair and effective enforcement of law is a facet of discipline. Unfortunately for India, discipline is disappearing fast from public life and without discipline, as the Scandinavian economist-sociologist, Gunnyar Myrdal pointed out, no real progress is possible. Discipline implies inter alia public and private morality and a sense of honesty.
One main difference that can be observed between the West and the East is that in the West, a man who rises to positions of higher authority develops greater respect for law, while the opposite is true in our country. Here, the mark of a person holding high position is the ease with which he can ignore the laws and regulations. We are being swamped by a culture of indiscipline and untruth; morality, both public and private, is at a premium. It is true that instilling a sense of discipline among the citizens is more the function of the society, its leaders, political parties and public figures and less a matter which can be legislated upon. The situation in India has assumed alarming proportions. It is in this contex that minor but visible incidents like actor Chiranjeevi’s lack of respect for the queue at the polling booth during 2014 elections make headlines. The queue is a symbolic representation of rule of law, and jumping it is the brazenness that has come to define Indian politicians disregard for law.
4.0 PROBITY PRINCIPLES
There are several generally accepted probity principles that serve to maintain the integrity of a process. These are:
Accountability: is the obligation to be able to explain or account for the way duties have been performed. Government should have appropriate mechanisms in place to show that they are accountable for their practices and decisions.
Transparency: It is important that the process is transparent to the maximum extent possible so that all stakeholders can have confidence in the outcomes. Transparent, open processes also minimise the opportunity for, and the risk of, fraud and corruption.
Confidentiality: As a condition of employment, all public servants are under a general obligation of confidentiality to their employer. Accordingly, it is not necessary for members of the Government Project Team who are public servants to execute a confidentiality undertaking in relation to the project. All Government advisors, members and any other third party that is privy to commercially sensitive information must provide a formal undertaking to Government that they will keep this information confidential.
Management of Conflicts of Interest: Proponents have an expectation that Government representatives will perform their duties in a fair and unbiased manner and that decisions they make will not be affected by self-interest or personal gain. A conflict of interest arises where an individual associated with the process is, through their particular associations or circumstances, influenced, or perceived to be influenced, to obtain an unfair advantage for him or herself or another party. Conflicts of interest are often unavoidable. However, provided they are identified early and dealt with effectively, they need not prejudice the process. It is important to ensure that individuals associated with the process are aware of how a conflict of interest arises and their responsibilities to report conflicts, ensure conflicts are adequately addressed, and ensure the manner in which they have been addressed is adequately documented. Policies to deal with potential conflicts of interest should be established at the outset, rather than attempting to manage such issues on an ad-hoc basis as they arise. (the image given illustrates the application of these principles to Sports governance)
5.0 THE PROBLEM OF CORRUPTION IN INDIA
After India gained independence in 1947, the new regime implemented heavy economic regulations intended to develop domestic markets; the 1951 Industries Act, for instance, required all new industrial operations to obtain a license from the central government. The policy limited foreign investment and stifled competition, and bribery became part and parcel to doing business. The period up to 1991 was dubbed the "License Raj" as a result of the government's excessive oversight of the economy. The poor often suffered most from the widespread corruption, which diverted large public revenue intended for public works, aid, and social welfare programs.
"Historically, the roots of India's corruption came from the proliferation of licenses," says CFR Senior Fellow for International Economics Jagdish Bhagwati. "The idea was to ensure economical use of resources, so you would not waste foreign exchanges. To this day, this is what Indians have been very aware of: that the institution of licenses and permits was responsible for creating corruption on a massive scale."
The first major law to combat government malfeasance was the Prevention of Corruption Act (PCA) of 1947, enacted to prevent officials from cashing in on post-war reconstruction funding. Parliament also established the Anticorruption Bureau in 1961 to investigate violations of the PCA, which has since been amended twice (last in 1988). The latest revision was a direct response to the late-1980s Bofors scandal, in which then prime minister Rajiv Gandhi and other politicians were accused of receiving large kickbacks in a weapons bid from Swedish arms company Bofors. Many observers considered the scandal to be a main reason the Gandhi-led Congress Party was voted out of power in 1989.
Under the PCA, bribery is punishable by a fine and up to five years imprisonment. But many analysts believe India's sprawling bureaucracy and weak institutions-the police and judiciary were ranked as the second and third most corrupt institutions in India, respectively, after political parties-have thwarted convictions, and arguably increased incentives for bribery. In recent years, graft pervaded society from small-scale "harassment bribes" (payments for essential social services) to scandals on a national level. At least 42 percent of young Indians have paid a bribe, according to a 2012 Hindustan survey.
A 2011 report from KPMG stated that 68 percent of India's total illicit capital loss happened after the country's economic liberalization in 1991, indicating that the reform and rise of India's economy has contributed to the transfer of "black money" abroad.
5.1 The dimensions of the problem
"The recent scandals are just qualitatively and quantitatively bigger than anything we've seen. And a big reason for that is India's growth." Milan Vaishnav
In 2013, India ranked ninety-fourth out of 176 countries in Transparency International's Corruption Perception Index, alongside Mongolia and Colombia and below neighbors like China and Sri Lanka. The country has steadily slipped since ranking seventy-second of 179 in 2007, when the report debuted. Several recent high-profile scandals have underscored the extent of the problem.
Since 2010, a surfit of corruptions scandals have eroded the credibility of the government. In 2010 allegations emerged surrounding the gross misallocation of funds at the Commonwealth Games, which cost almost eighteen times its budget estimate. Reports surfaced of shoddy infrastructure and financial irregularities regarding contracts, and the scandal led to the resignation of two senior Congress Party members and other government officials. The Central Vigilance Commission cited the total misappropriation of funds to be around $1.8 billion.
Soon after, controversy mired the government again when an auditor's report uncovered a massive telecom scam estimated to have cost the government some $39 billion, making it one of the largest cases of state corruption in Indian history. Telecom minister Andimuthu Raja, accused of orchestrating the sale of licenses below market value, resigned in 2010. (He was arrested in 2011, and was out on bail as of late 2013.) During the affair, outraged opposition parties shut down parliament for three weeks and prompted massive protests in Delhi.
Public anger escalated when the 2012 "Coalgate" scandal, in which an estimated $34 billion was lost, implicated the prime minister himself. The breadth of corruption has even touched the U.S. government, as cables released in 2011 by Wikileaks revealed that a Congress Party aide allegedly showed a U.S. diplomat chests of cash intended as a payoff to secure Parliament's endorsement of a controversial 2008 U.S.-India nuclear deal.
5.2 The fallout of corruption
Anna Hazare, a renowned social activist emerged as a prominent organizer of the anticorruption movement, vowing a "fast unto death" unless the government established a new anticorruption agency (Lokpal) to review complaints at the highest level. Thousands of citizens took to his cause, and the United Progressive Alliance (UPA)-led government announced in August that it would form a committee to draft the law. After stalling for months in Parliament, India's lower house finally passed the bill in mid-December 2013 with both Congress and BJP's support, ending Hazare's nine-day hunger strike in a rare show of unity.
"In the end, the corruption in India is of a form that undermines growth in our institutions. It's a very expensive way to be corrupt." Jagdish Bhagwati
Mounting graft has stirred not only domestic worries, but has also tarnished the country's image among international investors. Since 1947, India has lost hundreds of billions in illegal capital flows (tax evasion, corruption, bribery, kickbacks, etc.), and was ranked 134th of 189 countries in the World Bank's 2014 Doing Business Report. At Davos in 2013, NGOs warned that the hefty investment needed for India's infrastructure development could breed more corruption.
Some experts note that while there isn't necessarily a direct correlation between corruption levels and India's economic health, the nature of the graft has been corrosive to its growth. "The way corruption has been practiced in India has been particularly harmful," says Bhagwati, who contrasts India's rent-creating corruption, which carves out monopolies for cronies, with China's profit-sharing system, which takes an interest in growth. "In the end, the corruption in India is of a form that undermines growth in our institutions. It's a very expensive way to be corrupt."
5.3 Campaigning for Reform
As India's economy slows, successive revelations of graft have exacerbated public outrage at the inability of the Congress-led government to mitigate corruption. In turn, the country has seen an uptick of anticorruption rhetoric as it approaches important state elections in November and December 2013. The Aam Aadmi Party, led by activist Arvin Kejriwal, emerged as a new political party that got its start on an anticorruption platform, while the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has also taken on the issue of good governance.
The party has championed the clean track record of its leader Narendra Modi, whose reform efforts as ex-chief minister of Gujarat made his home state, as per claims, a key driver of national economic growth. Meanwhile, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, who leads one of India's poorest states, Bihar, has also won accolades for his success in emphasizing good governance.
"What is new and politically relevant has been, in response to citizen outrage, the rise of parties explicitly focusing on governance," says CFR's Alyssa Ayres. "And most importantly, the transformation of campaigning from a mode that focused on a language of empowerment with an appeal to caste, to one focusing on good governance and delivering services to citizens."
Many efforts are been made to tackle corruption in public office. In 2012, criminal cases were pending against 31 percent of members of parliament and the legislative assembly. Campaign spending limits are low, driving expenditure underground and fostering reliance on "black money." Many experts also point to Indian voters' complex relationship with corruption; research from a wide range of states finds that political candidates often promote their criminality as an indication of their ability to defend the interests of their communities. However, all the efforts seem to lack a strong political will.
So while the scandals have put corruption on the public agenda, experts say it won't be enough to shape Congress's fate in state elections. "Corruption is an interesting subject because there's a feeling on the part of the Indian voter that everyone is corrupt: as an issue, it's not necessarily a defining feature in this election," says Vaishnav, who adds that of the surveys he's seen, the top issues have been growth, jobs, and India's inflation woes.
5.4 Prospects for progress
India's government has made a few attempts at the federal level to combat corruption. The 2005 Right to Information Act allows citizens to request access to any public record and, if approved, receive it within thirty days. The law, which can penalize noncompliance and requires authorities to digitize records, has been hailed as a pivotal achievement in the fight against corruption. The government is also considering moves to strengthen the national antigraft law, potentially introducing changes that would punish corporate failure to prevent bribery.
"What is new and politically relevant has been, in response to citizen outrage, the rise of parties explicitly focusing on governance." - Alyssa Ayres.
An increasingly activist judiciary has also taken a stronger stance against corruption; in early 2011, the Supreme Court asked all trial courts in the country to fast-track corruption cases. The next year, it limited the amount of time the government had to decide whether or not to prosecute a public official for corruption. And in July 2013, the top court ruled that it was illegal for politicians convicted of crimes to continue holding office, although, in a highly controversial move, Singh's cabinet withdrew the decree in October.
Technology has also helped. Some states like Gujarat have implemented online systems for state contract bids, allowing for greater transparency. Others have also put land records and death certificates online, while websites like IPaidaBribe.com expose graft associated with common public services. The government is also devising an electronic ID system, which would allow poor citizens to avoid intermediaries and receive aid directly through a bank account.
But technology can only do so much, says Jennifer Bussell, assistant professor of public policy at the University of Califonia Berkeley. Bussell notes that technology's most important contribution has been granting citizens greater access to information. "Some combination of administrative reforms and local-level technology initiatives to help bring corruption to light-in addition to efforts by organizations like the Comptroller and Auditor General, which is exposing corruption at the highest levels of government-would help. You need all of these things."
COMMENTS