Anti-Corruption

Anti-Corruption Strategy – Mission and Early Implementation Recommendations

Thomas Samuelian, International Consultant 2002

 To be successful, any strategy needs a goal that is widely supported. One way of formulating the goal of the anti-corruption strategy is voluntary compliance with laws and regulations that Armenian society supports as a means to secure a globally competitive, corruption-free environment that makes Armenia the most desirable place for Armenians to live, work and create. The following are ten recommendations to be considered in implementing Armenia’s anti-corruption strategy.

1. 1. Select and Prioritize Anti-corruption Measures. Given Armenia’s budgetary constraints, the highest-impact, lowest cost measures, that have the fewest negative effects should be implemented first. These are largely in the field of environment change, public awareness, incentives, and key universal institutions: courts, education, health, tax, customs, traffic police, army and other bureaucracies that citizens deal with on a regular basis. Deterrent/punishment and preventative/oversight measures will be more effective after the legal and regulatory system has been streamlined. Enforcement before reform could have serious negative effects and discredit anti-corruption strategy.
   2. Streamline and simplify laws and institutions so that people do not circumvent them. Apply the principle of “legal efficiency”: Laws and regulations should be no more complex than (1) necessary to achieve a legitimate state end, (2) the ability of the people and the system to understand and apply them; (3) the ability and willingness of the people and system to pay for them.
   3. Reduce the size of government and complexity of laws to a level that Armenia can afford. Corruption cannot be significantly reduced without reducing the size of government and sphere of government regulation to a level that society can afford, assuring efficiency, high quality service and reasonable civil service salaries.
   4. Determine how to increase state revenues (1) by increasing the size of the economy through a corruption-free, globally competitive business environment; (2) by reducing or eliminating the largest state losses due to corruption, e.g., electric system losses.
   5. Review the efficiency of revenue collections (tax and customs services) by conducting a cost-benefit analysis of the system, including externalities (e.g., circumvention, costs of compliance, role in supporting “monopolies”). Determine whether it is possible to improve revenues through tax and customs simplification.
   6. Close the gap between the formal and informal systems in education and health. Determine whether certain informal practices and services can be “regularized” on a user-fee basis, making these institutions “self-financing”
   7. Reform the Courts and Establish an Ombudsman’s Office to Assure Effective Complaint Mechanism and Dispute Resolution
   8. Use Publicity, Public Awareness and Clarity as a form of prevention in the first instance. (1) Promote compliance by publishing lists and statistics on the most common “compliance”/ ”enforcement” problems in tax, customs, etc.; (2) Implement Freedom of Information, E-Publishing, E-Governance Proposals: (a) judicial opinions, (b) draft laws and regulations, (c) adopted laws and regulations, (d) government directory, (e) Citizens’ Guidelines to Common Government Procedures, (f) voting lists by district; (3) Introduce practical procedures classes into the schools – how to handle ordinary transactions with the government. Make the school system “an island of virtue” – children learn more by example and experience than exhortation; (4) To the extent that Armenia’s corruption is the result of a “culture of corruption,” successful anti-corruption will require changes in values, mentalities and attitudes; (5) Identify historical and traditional values that disfavor corruption, e.g., from Christian and literary heritage. Encourage TV, Radio to have fictional programs that use humor and satire to stigmatize corruption, depict corrupt attitudes as passé, or expose injustices.
   9. Expose Corruption without prosecutions as a form of deterrence in the first instance. Study impact of exposing corruption on attitudes, evaluate deterrent effect of exposure on public official behavior, citizen behavior, citizen perceptions. If found effective, then develop public awareness campaign through TV, public lectures, media, education over several months, prepare society for “Corruption-Free Era”
   10. Create a Self-Correcting Process for Implementation of the Strategy. One of the most important aspects of the strategy is to assure that the causes are properly diagnosed and the measures are properly selected and adapted to assure a net positive result. This requires the establishment of a self-correcting process which presupposes expertise, accountability, and public ownership. Civil Society, both individuals and groups, need to have a sense of ownership of the process if it is to have the desired result rather than become yet another government regulatory activity to be circumvented by civil society and the bureaucracy. In addition, during this period of socio-economic-political transition, the strategy must have built-in mechanisms for re-calibrating policy and priorities based on changing circumstances and evaluations of results. To achieve these goals, the following mechanism of shared responsibility and shared accountability is proposed, in the form of a web-site discussion on the public record, followed by one or more public hearings, to which both State and Civil Society Representatives as well as media invited. Program Initiation and Quarterly Assessment thereafter, consisting of the following steps:
       1. State (Executive and Legislative, and in the future, Ombudsman’s Office), representatives present their suggestions, accompanied by support arguments: (a) at the time of program initiation, for the measures to be implemented from the strategy, and (b) thereafter, quarterly assessments of implemented measures and results
       2. Civil Society (individuals and groups) present their suggestions, accompanied by support arguments: (a) at the time of program initiation, for the measures to be implemented from the strategy, and (b) thereafter, quarterly assessments of implemented measures and results
       3. State and Civil Society comment on each other’s reports
       4. State and Civil Society make proposals on next steps, with explanations of the basis for selections, rejections, and expected results
       5. State adopts plan for measures to be implemented, with explanations for its selections, rejections and expected results
       6. Civil Society has a right of response to the plan, including identifying potential problems, advice and alternatives to avoid problems, substantiated objections.

    

   Summary

    Anti-Corruption Strategy – Mission and Early Implementation Recommendations

Thomas Samuelian, International Consultant

1.  To be successful, any strategy needs a goal that is widely supported. One way of formulating the goal of the anti-corruption strategy is voluntary compliance with laws and regulations that Armenian society supports as a means to secure a globally competitive, corruption-free environment that makes Armenia the most desirable place for Armenians to live, work and create. The following are ten recommendations to be considered in implementing Armenia’s anti-corruption strategy.
   1. Select and Prioritize Anti-corruption Measures.
   2. Streamline and simplify laws and institutions
   3. Reduce the size of government and complexity of laws to a level that Armenia can afford.
   4. Determine how to increase state revenues
   5. Review the efficiency of revenue collections (tax and customs services)
   6. Close the gap between the formal and informal systems in education and health
   7. Reform the Courts and Establish an Ombudsman’s Office to Assure Effective Complaint Mechanism and Dispute Resolution
   8. Use Publicity, Public Awareness and Clarity as a form of prevention in the first instance.
   9. Expose Corruption without prosecutions as a form of deterrence in the first instance.
   10. Create a Self-Correcting Process for Implementation of the Strategy.