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By Odysseas Michaelides
Corruption is a devious plague that has a very wide range of corrosive effects on society. It undermines democracy, distorts policymaking and the rule of law, leading to human rights violations.
It can also have severe economic consequences as it can cause damages to public finances, distort markets, generate problems in the implementation of government policies leading to a dysfunctional state.
A dysfunctional state will then have more bureaucratic issues while having to deal with time-consuming procedures such as court cases surrounding tender offers.
In general, corruption at a state level will lead to an erosion of the quality of citizens lives, while facilitating the growth of organised crime, in some cases even harbouring terrorism and other threats for human security.
Tackling corruption is far from being an easy task. Theoretically, if we were able to mould a world into one of beauty, morally and angelically fashioned, as Greek poet Dionysios Solomos describes, corruption would automatically disappear.
But even in the case, we were living in a world quite the opposite to the one Solomos referred to in his famous poem, that is a diabolically crafted one, corruption could, in theory, be abolished if there were strong mechanisms of control, detection and deterrent punishments are imposed.
In practice, however, there are no ideal situations. Neither angelically fashioned societies nor societies in which the state could know what goes on behind every single closed door.
Nevertheless, there are measures that can lead to a drastic reduction in corruption, starting with protecting Whistleblowers, that is the people coming forward to report cases of corruption in the public interest.
Worldwide, protecting whistleblowers is seen as one of the many, but essential, measures in combating corruption.
So, we need a framework which is to protect and encourage whistleblowers. As I said previously, corruption can have devastating consequences for society at all levels.
A society with corruption issues will be doomed to see every attempt to grow financially, fail. As a result of corruption in the state apparatus, public resources are wasted.
Think of a road which costs EUR 100 mln but because of corruption within the relevant departments, the state will end up paying EUR 120 mln.
This EUR 20 mln which has found its way into the pockets of a contractor and corrupt public servants, could have been used for the construction of a school which would have seen 250 workers being employed for 2 years.
The workers would in turn channel part of their income to the market, the well-known multiplier of development projects.
Enough said about the public sector.
Moving on to the private sector, I do not believe that any foreign company will invest in a country if it knows that in order to realise a multimillion-euro investment it would have to identify corrupt public servants and then "grease" them.
First of all, no serious company would consider doing such a thing as it would be in contravention of their code of business conduct it has to apply.
But even if they decide to do so, this would entail hidden costs and taking on a big risk putting their reputation on the line.
What is the conclusion? Corruption stifles growth. As we have seen, legislation protecting witnesses coming forward in the public interest is a key component in the fight against corruption.
Of course, Cyprus would need to take other measures to further combat corruption. Taking into consideration the main factors encouraging corruption at the moment, one can get a clear picture of what more needs to be done.
Measures need to be taken to limit broad discretionary powers of institutions which do not have clear boundaries.
In some cases, some institutions or departments have unclear and overlapping mandates.
There are a number of bureaucratic obstacles while there is a lack of mechanisms performing preemptive checks.
The justice system is slow and in some cases the remedies or punishments foreseen by the country’s laws are insufficient.
And of course, there is the all-time absence of transparency, the inefficient rule of law and disciplinary and criminal impunity due to a lack of will or the ineffectiveness of law enforcement or other competent authorities.
The writer is Auditor General of the Republic of Cyprus
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