By Artur Victoria
In one case Spanish anti-corruption public prosecutors began the investigation last March into the allegedly fraudulent sale of the Spanish telephone installation company Sintel to the Cuban entrepreneur Jorge Mas Canosa. The action was taken after unions alleged the former management of the company had plundered millions of pesetas from the sale of the company.
A separate problem, particularly in Germany and Austria, is that some commercial banks are still owned, if only in part, by the state. Some critics feel these hybrid banks tend to fall between the best practices in either private or public sectors. Campaigners complain these banks lack transparency and suspicions of corrupt practices linger.
In a number of countries, commentators have expressed continuing concern about persistent 'petty' corruption, often of a municipal nature, over permissions for planning, parking, food hygiene and even medical treatment and a wide range of activities that effect ordinary people trying to go about their everyday lives. In the United States the stream of allegations against the Los Angeles Police Department has become so serious it is a national rather than local issue.
In Greece TI conducted a revealing survey that indicated that 45% of Greeks had been obliged, at some point, to cash bribes to various public sector services to get their cases dealt with. Healthcare and Planning and building permissions were particularly problematic. 95% of those surveyed were convinced that Greek public life was corruption ridden and 53% said the situation was getting worse.
In the last year the source of many allegations of major corruption in Western Europe and North America has centered round political donations. France, Germany, UK, Spain, and U.S. have been among those countries which have been affected. Most of these scandals date back originally to the 1980s and 90s and often predate legislation to reduce the potential for corrupt political donations. But that does not diminish their significance. Neither does it seem that political donation scandals are in decline. On the contrary the evidence suggests that powerful forces are in play that will keep the issue of political donations in the headlines for the foreseeable future. Political parties need more money than ever before to fight an election successfully with the high cost of access to the media. Elf Aquitaine has been the most prominent of these scandals and according to analysts in France, the system there worsened in the 1980s under President Mitterrand. "There was an Americanization of political campaigning, which required vast sums of money," says political scientist Dominique Moisi.
Concerns have been expressed in a number of countries that privatization and public private finance initiatives may be a source of corruption. More than 10,000 state owned companies were privatized between 1988 and 2008. Large profits have been made in the transfer of utility and other businesses to the private sector. In some cases these sales have not been completed in an open and transparent manner.
Parties seek more money from the taxpayer but there will always be tight constraints on this source of funding. The obvious source of big money is rich donors and corporations. But such donors are not usually motivated by generosity. They want to see a return. Political parties in a number of countries now accept large donations on the condition that the donor can be identified. Some have also banned donations from abroad. For officials who are tempted to evade rules on party funding the current punishments hardly act as disincentive.
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Source:www.isnare.com |
