World tackles corruption in Doha

DUBAI – The United Nations is able to put a price tag on political corruption – estimating that up to US$1,6 trillion in public assets move across borders each year through networks such as money laundering or into secret holdings.

The much harder question is how to reclaim the black funds and monitor nations to make sure public money stays in the treasuries.This is the challenge for hundreds of envoys from the United Nations, World Bank and government watchdog groups in meetings which began yesterday in Qatar’s capital, Doha.The five-day gathering is the latest attempt to give some enforcement authority to a four-year-old UN anti-corruption pact backed by 141 nations, from the United States and many Western nations to countries with deep-rooted corruption such as Afghanistan and Zimbabwe.On the top of the agenda: seeking measures to hunt down diverted public funds and develop a monitoring system to check the level of financial transparency in each nation, particularly in the developing world.But hopes for far-reaching accords appear muted. Two similar meetings in past years have failed to expand the powers under the UN’s anti-corruption convention, which is the world body’s most ambitious attempt to target fiscal misdeeds by political leaders and officials.Some nations, including China and Iran, resist having independent monitors pore through their books. Meanwhile, creating a system to follow the money trail and bring back the looted funds faces the same hurdles that sidetrack auditors and police: secretive bank laws in tax haven countries and political cultures – including the Gulf states – with no traditions of public accountability.’We hope to have a commitment to action,’ said Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, a former Nigerian finance minister who is now managing director of the World Bank. ‘We’ve had a lot of talk. Now we’d like to see some action.’One of the key roadblocks is working out international accords that give UN and World Bank teams the ability to track and return stolen public assets.The quarry can be huge. The joint initiative estimates that some regimes have gutted their nation of up to 4,5 per cent of gross domestic product, including Haiti’s Jean-Claude Duvalier and Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines.But Okonjo-Iweala told The Associated Press that confronting corrupt government also can have an important ‘humanitarian aspect’ by re-channelling funds to programs such as better sanitation, Aids prevention and child health care.A UN report estimated every US$100 million recovered could fund full immunisations for 4 million children or provide water connections for some 250 000 households.’We have to think in these terms,’ she said from Doha. ‘This is not just fighting corruption, but bringing the money back to improve the lives of the people.’Yet even trying to work out a monitoring system for governments remains at an impasse.Watchdog groups, such as Transparency International, are pressing for a wide-ranging review process that would allow academics, civil society leaders, journalists and others to assist UN officials in examining a country’s fiscal openness.Such calls, however, have met with resistance from nations such as Pakistan, China, Iran and Russia, activists said.’Public officials need to be held fully accountable to the public they serve,’ said Huguette Labelle, chairwoman of Transparency International, who is attending the conference. ‘When all the public money is on the table in a full and independent review, then it will be much harder for anyone to shift funds to some fiscal haven somewhere.’Robert Palmer, a campaigner for the London-based anti-corruption group Global Witness, said the independent and public reviews are the key to making the UN pact more than just a well-meaning document.’Without it, the (UN anti-corruption convention) will end up toothless,’ he said. – Nampa-AP