Corruption and Good Governance
Sushmita Sapkota (JUNU)
Every day we are used to hearing the news about the road accidents, government schools being closed, a farmer failed on growing the duplicate seeds imported from abroad, tens of hundreds of Nepali children dying due to malnutrition, people facing the death just because of curable diseases like fever and diarrhea and a common Nepali not able to teach their children in schools. On the other hand, government is spending millions of billions Nepali rupees announced for yearly economic budget and these budgets are mainly targeted in the areas like agriculture, education, health, infrastructures and poverty alleviation. But we are not being able to see the results of these investments. The common answer we can get now and then is “corruption”.
Corruption: an illegal immoral act where persons are discarded by their honesty, norms and values and they misuses their power of their post and resources for their personal benefits. Governance is the governing system of a country or any other organization whereas good governance is the governing system with rule of law, people participation, transparency, free and fair judiciary, clean public management, responsibility and accountability, efficiency of the administration and corruption control. No power is superior to the law and persons who are in the power should abide the law and work according to it that is the true essence of good governance. Corruption occurs in government, non-government, economic, social and political as well as private sectors. If there is a good governing system then this disease will be cured. Moreover corruption is not a new phenomenon. It has been prevalent in the society since the unification of Nepal by King Prithvi Narayan shah, where he himself had suggests a strong opinion against the corruption in his book Divya Upadesh.
CAUSES OF CORRUPTION
Corruption is witnessed all over the world whether be it in developing or in developed country in different forms. What can be the main reasons of recent years of increment in corruption rate? In my opinion corruption is increasing because of the commercialization of education, health facilities and the salary of service men not meeting the level of living standard. Every year the food, education, health are getting expensive. Corruption may take place because of politician who believe in interest oriented programs rather than nation developing programs and tolerance of public towards corruption. Our vast size of population is illiterate and if they need help from any government offices to get service delivery like Passport, Land Certificate etc., they cannot not understand the complex rule and procedure which let the opportunity to the civil service men to misuse their powers. In Nepal we can observed corruption in policy level, regulatory administration, collection of revenue, public procurement, service delivery and development activity like construction of roads, irrigation, electricity and selection and design of projects. Among it policy corruption is most dangerous have a big volume of transaction. In the whole year we see our roads in the same condition as the annual budget is at the end of year we see different roads being constructed and drinking pipes being repaired. Due to weak implementation of plans and policies the corruption is increasing.
SOLUTION TO CONTROL CORRUPTION
According to Transparency international Nepal ranks on 139th position out of 174 countries in corruptions perception index (CPI). Education, health facilities play vital role to live a sound life, government should provide easy access to these thing. Commercialization on this sector should be minimized. Nowadays many people involved in corruptions are exposed to public and they are suspended or outraged from their post. Exposition of these corrupt persons has somehow discourages the confidence of other person but is this a permanent solution to overcome from corruption? In my point of view this is not the permanent solution. The root cause of the problem is our bad governing system. In absence of good governance these events are taking place. Corruptions can be controlled by the effectiveness of good governance for this there should be political stability and consensus among the political parties, because rule of law always depends upon the ethic and discipline of the political parties. Police, civil servants, lawyers and civil society should be kept free from political interventions for fair law and justice. Judiciary is the pillar for rule of law so its independence, fairness and efficient working procedure is always crucial for justice and equality. For effective and result oriented service delivery, strong and sustainable development works like infrastructure development , social welfare promotion there must be transparent working procedure, citizen charter, public hearing and audit, consumer committee in the rural areas and civil society could play vital role. Such system could promote people participation and ownership of the developmental activities. The money spend by the government should be result oriented, productive and use with economic way by clean hands. All the development projects to be designed as per the need and will of the local people in a systematic way. There should be bottom up approach to handle all the developmental activities. Authorities of the central government should have perfect devolution and decentralization to local government. Political leaders, government officials and whole the civil servants should be responsible with their tax payers and relation should be like principal and their agents. All the working procedure should be simplified and officials should be accountable for their responsibility and function to the people, if they fail to perform their duty they should be penalized and customer should get compensation. To control policy level corruption prime minister, ministers and high ranking officials should have high morals, discipline and code of conduct. They must be patriotic person, honest, loyal and dedicated to the country and people. Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA), National Vigilance Centre (NVC) must be proactive. However, CIAA has no authority to take action to control the policy corruption done by cabinet and regarding military personnel and judiciary these limitations has narrow down the jurisdiction of CIAA. So, capacity of CIAA and NVC should be enhanced.NGOs and media should come forward to create awareness against corruption in society and educate people to combat this evil. To control corruption whole the state has to perform various counter activities with a team spirit because single authority or agency cannot control it.
RELATION BETWEEN CORRUPTION AND GOOD GOVERNANCE
Corruption means the misuse of power and not being abided by rule whereas Good Governance means authority and its institutions are accountable, effective and efficient, participatory, transparent, responsive and equitable. Corruption and good governance are inversely related term, in presence of one another is absent. Good governance and anti-corruption are seemingly related term. Good governing activity means those functions which can reduce, discourage anomalies and bribes and guides society to the right path, transparency, simplified working procedures, dedicated staffs, result oriented working pattern, reward and punishment system which is equivalently related to anti-corruption. Good governance and corruption control are the two side of same coin. From local government to central government public and private enterprises commonly based organization to International Non-Government Organization (INGOs), everyone must have some effort regarding the eradication of corruption.
CONCLUSION
In order to cure any disease it is necessary to know the type and cause of disease and before our immune system become helpless, we need to take medicine, likely, to control corruption prevention and treatment are two remedies .For the eradication of corruption we need to diagnose the reason behind it and start prevention and cure activity .Only government is not enough we all citizens should act like an antibodies for curing this disease. Mahatma Gandhi had said “I will not let anyone walk through my mind with dirty feet” we all have to fight from this whether it be a leader or a common citizens. This is not only the problem of our country facing; it is a problem for other countries too. So there should also be joint effort with international organization. We should work jointly to break the nexus of crime, smuggling, trafficking, terrorism and corruption internally and internationally .There must be international cooperation between UN member country, Interpol, Anti Money Laundering Task Force, Transparency International etc. In Nepali context awareness creation by media and publicity, cooperation of civil society and pressure group, government employee, political leader, minister, parliamentarian, private entrepreneurs, academicians and all stake holders should work for prevention and action to control corruption. From local government the fight against the corruption starts, for this every Nepali whether living in Jumla or in Kathmandu should be aware about this dark play. At last I would like to say If we corrupt then that benefit will remain for some time with us but remember the big stained we have left in country name will stay forever. Its right time to display higher sacrifice to build new Nepal where we can create equality, justice and freedom for our future and guarantee the economic development, prosperity, peace and happiness to our coming generation by controlling evils and promoting Good Governance.
