By Marcela Valente
BUENOS AIRES, Mar 28 1997 (IPS)

Economic globalization and liberal trade practices have led to an increase in corruption throughout the world and a concerted effort is needed to halt the trend, a meeting of experts on white-collar crime heard here.

Latin american representatives at the meeting, organzied by the United Nations, discussed plans to create a global action programme for fighting corruption which will be presented to the U.N. Commission for the Prevention of Crime later this year.

The Organization of American States (OAS) approved a similar initiative in 1995 when the Inter-American Agreement on Combatting Corruption obliged members to adopt legal measures against corruption. These included the elimination of secretive banking and heavy penalties for those functionaries guilty of accepting bribes. The OAS accord calls for member states to share information on suspect individuals and dubious enterprises.

The agreement was signed by 23 American countries but, until now, has been ratified only by Argentina, Bolivia and Paraguay. The Argentine government, however, has still not supplied crucial information to the OAS, a move which is necessary if the agreement is to carry binding weight.

Argentine official Carlos Manfroni, who helped edit the Inter-American Agreement, declared at the Buenos Aires meeting that only when corruption became a distorting factor in free trade did a effort begin to prevent it reaching deep into the marketplace.

According to the Central Intelligence Agency, the United States business community has lost 100 million dollars in foreign trade over the last three years due to marketplace corruption.

Manfroni, the president of the Argentine Foundation for Public Ethics, said that “corruption always has been a problem. However, when offences against moral obligations are endorsed by economic interests, it is easier for them to take root.”

The Inter-American Agreement came at the urging of the United States after an hemispheric conference in Miami in December, 1994. A previous meeting that year in Italy spawned the United Nation’s Action Plan to combat organized global crime.

The battle against corruption was also incorporated into the agendas of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the Organization for Cooperation and Economic Development and recently, the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank joined forces.

A document arising from the Buenos Aires meeting was drawn up with input from Dick Thornburgh, a former Justice Department Minister from the United States; Laurence Giovacchini, Chief Consultant to France’s crime prevention services; and official representatives from Argentina, Russia, the Philippines and other nations.

According to the document, delegates believed that a “successful struggle against corruption” required “a strong and sustained effort by governments to combat this phenomenon in all its manifestations.”

Experts warned that any successful prevention and control program must rely on the existence of an independent judiciary, a free press and a team of trained professionals to investigate and supervise government activity.

The meeting discussed specific measures to oblige governments to establish codes of conduct and to create auditing bodies specialized in fighting corruption. Both initiatives must be independent of partisan politics, deleagtes agreed.

Experts also proposed simplification and increased visibility in the protocols on tendering for public works. These steps would have the effect of eliminating bribes and secretive banking procedures while allowing citizens an unimpeded view of open transactions. In turn, supervision by independent review bodies and involved citizen groups would diminish the tolerance of corruption.

The Buenos Aires document seeks to punish corruption in international commerce, to prohibit the use of bribes as tax deductions, to confiscate goods acquired with funds generated through illegal activity, and to promote programs that share technologies which will benefit those countries most threatened by these practices.

For Manfroni, the document placed the burden of proof for suspected illicit enrichment squarely on the shoulders of the accused. Manfroni describes this as a “revolutionary” initiative. Henceforth, any functionary suspected of bribery or corruption must clarify how any questionable wealth was obtained.

Manfroni emphasized that “corrupt individuals almost always spend their ill-gotten gains. Sooner or later they will make ostentatious display of their wealth. After all, we are not speaking here of austere people who are prone to put their earnings into savings accounts. These people are fundamentally motivated by ‘showing off’ what they’ve got.”

Manfroni added that in Argentina, the privatization of public enterprise and the elimination of certain regulations concerning private enterprise had ended some of the pathways to systematic corruption.

Nevertheless, he said, bribery was still a serious problem in Argentina but he was confident the future would see all government operations subject to civilian scrutiny.

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