In U.S the fight against governmental corruption/waste is raged by two independent constitutional institutions: The Office of federal/state/city comptroller and corresponding Attorney Generals' office. While comptroller has the expertise to oversee the quality of government services and identify fraud within government, Attorney general has the complete teeth to enforce law against culprits. It is this partnership between these two agencies that keep U.S relatively corrupt free.
In India, We have CAG but this office needed to be further decentralized to at least corporation/city level. Furthermore, all 7 suggestions that our honorable president recently put forth to improve government auditor's effectiveness should be implemented. Also, proactive participation from accounting professionals within the country is a must to formulate modern internal control systems for the functioning of all levels of govt.
Evenstill, India lacks a powerful law enforcement institution like Attorney general's office in US. In U.S, attorney general is directly elected by the people in the state and local level while in the federal level this position is filled by a president's nominee subject to senate approval. (Comptrollers are sourced in a similar way as well but federal comptroller has a 15 yr fixed term.) An
attorney general has the power to use the resources of the entire law enforcement agencies under his jurisdiction while prosecuting/investigating criminal acts. Sadly in India, attorney generals are just legal advisers of the government. This ought to change if we want to win the fight against corruption and lawlessness in our country.
The key to fighting corruption is the strength and organizational set up of anti corruption institutions. In India only a few cares about our institutions. I feel some foreign development banks put more efforts in strengthening our institutions, than ourselves. Not the media, not even the NGOs nor activists in the field, focus on the root causes behind our country's problems..their focus is only on symptoms. Remember the famous quote " power corrupts and absolutes power corrupt absolutely", this is true for at least 95% of the peopleWe need to be really cynical when we talk about corruption. ( Even myself, who talk about all these bad things about corruption can't guarantee that i won't take/give bribe one day) The mindset that blames all our failure on our netas doesn't help either. politicians are people too.. Our politicians fails us because our systems fails us in the first place.
Formation of Lokayukthas, implementation of Right to Information Act and various E-Governance initiatives (even with its limitations and lapses) are very positive steps from the government/us and an indication that the government can still
reform itselves. The upcoming deliberations from the second Administrative Reform Commission promises to pump even more positive energy to our government institutions. We shall focus our energy on pushing for more similar institutional changes so that one day our naturally corrupt politicians/babus/citizens will have to think twice before involving in any corrupt practices. For that, we need to hang a
sharp sword above their head, at all times. That sword will be our
anti corruption institutions and its our duty now to sharpen it!
Thanks for reading,
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PS: Good book to read in this subject: Public Institutions in India, Performance and design.
Relevant websites to check out:
www.Loksatta.org
www.skdubeyfoundation.org
http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=187832
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/eGovINDIA/
Friday, February 10, 2006
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