THE DISEASE OF CORRUPTION ,CAUSES POVERTY NARRATIVE HAS BECOME SO HEGEMONIC THAT IT HAS OFTEN MARGINALIZED POLICY ISSUES FROM POLITICAL DISCOURSE AS THE MERE PRESENCE OF CORRUPTION CAN LEAD TO NEGATIVE PUBLIC PERCEPTION.

Corruption has been described as a disease. Corruption erodes the credibility of government and weakens the moral bonds pm which democratic governance rests.  That is why it must be denounced and corrupt officials must be resolutely prosecuted.  But corruption is not the main cause of poverty, and challenge of poverty will not be met by the “anti poverty, anti-corruption” crusades that so enamor the middle classes and the World Bank.  Bad economic policies create and entrench poverty, and unless the policies of structural adjustment, trade liberalization, and conservative macroeconomic management are reversed, there is no escaping the poverty trap.When corruption infiltrates global health, it can be particularly devastating, threatening hard gained improvements in human and economic development, international security, and population health. Yet, the multifaceted and complex nature of global health corruption makes it extremely difficult to tackle, despite its enormous costs, which have been estimated in the billions of dollars. In this forum article, we asked anti-corruption experts to identify key priority areas that urgently need global attention in order to advance the fight against global health corruption. The views shared by this multidisciplinary group of contributors reveal several fundamental challenges and allow us to explore potential solutions to address the unique risks posed by health-related corruption.Corruption ,when it comes to governments, the effects of corruption can be devastating for the world’s poorest. It’s harmful for the rule of law and governance, taking away much-needed money that could be spent on more health clinics, better schools, and new roads. It’s also bad for business and even leads to political instability.Over the last decade, Africa has experienced spectacular levels of economic growth and marked increases in financial flows. However, developing countries can only achieve equitable and inclusive growth, provide good public services, and help lift their citizens out of poverty if they are able to make the most of their resources. This includes mobilising domestic resources, primarily tax revenues from citizens and private companies, including natural resource revenues in many developing countries, as well as maximising the impact of aid from donor governments and other organisations. Yet in most developing countries there is far too little information available about these revenue streams, about how governments spend their resources, and about what results they achieve. In many cases, it’s impossible to ‘follow the money’ – limiting people’s ability to hold governments and companies to account for their actions, to keep corruption in check, and to fight poverty.Improved transparency of revenue streams will shine a light on what resources are available for investing in development, how they are spent, and the results that are achieved, to help ensure resources are invested effectively for development – in better health services, more productive agriculture, higher quality education, and improved infrastructure.Budgets: One of the first steps to following the money is ensuring that government budgets are available for scrutiny so that citizens and civil society organisations can hold leaders to account for the effective use of public funds. According to the International Budget Partnership’s 2017 Open Budget Index, only one African country – South Africa – publishes sufficient budget information to allow citizens to effectively monitor government spending, and 30 African countries provide little or no budget data at all.

Argentina's former Vice-President Amado Boudou has been sentenced to five years and 10 months in jail for corruption.The charges related to his attempt to buy a money-printing company through a front business.Boudou was in power during the administration of former President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner.

Corruption is a constant in the society and occurs in all civilizations; however, it has only been in the past 20 years that this phenomenon has begun being seriously explored. It has many different shapes as well as many various effects, both on the economy and the society at large. Among the most common causes of corruption are the political and economic environment, professional ethics and morality and, of course, habits, customs, tradition and demography. Its effects on the economy (and also on the wider society) are well researched, yet still not completely. Corruption thus inhibits economic growth and affects business operations, employment and investments. It also reduces tax revenue and the effectiveness of various financial assistance programs. The wider society is influenced by a high degree of corruption in terms of lowering of trust in the law and the rule of law, education and consequently the quality of life (access to infrastructure, health care). There also does not exist an unambiguous answer as to how to deal with corruption. Something that works in one country or in one region will not necessarily be successful in another. This chapter tries to answer at least a few questions about corruption and the causes for it, its consequences and how to deal with it successfully.African governments can increase budget transparency substantially by publishing online basic budget documents, enabling citizens to ensure that government expenditures reflect development priorities. Donor governments can help by providing targeted technical assistance to strengthen capacity at relevant government institutions and oversight agencies, by encouraging and supporting African country efforts to make budget processes more transparent, and by opening their own contracting processes with developing countries.Natural Resources: Natural resources such as minerals, oil, gas and timber represent a source of vast potential wealth for poor countries. 28 countries in Africa have significant natural resources, but due to a lack of transparency, it is extremely difficult for citizens to know if they are getting a fair deal for the use of their country’s natural resources. Only 19 countries worldwide have satisfactory transparency standards in oil, gas and mining, and just two of those are in Africa.By making public the payments that corporations make to governments, citizens can better track the resources that are due to them for the export of their oil, gas and mineral wealth. Twenty-four African countries are now members of the Extractives Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), a global standard that compares the receipts of companies and governments to increase the transparency of natural resource revenues. The European Union and Canada have implemented mandatory reporting requirements that will ensure citizens have access to information about the payments their governments receive from oil, gas, and mining companies.Retaining Resources: Every year, a trillion dollars is siphoned out of developing countries through a web of shady, secret and corrupt activities that involve anonymous shell companies and illegal tax evasion. Instead of being invested to help people, it fuels inequality and instability, keeping millions of people in developing countries trapped in the cycle of poverty. Anonymous shell companies and trusts are used to cover up the identity of the person who really benefits from the company, allowing them to mask illegal activities and hide stolen money, diverting countries’ resources and robbing governments of much-needed revenue. A study by the World Bank of more than 200 major corruption cases found that over 70% involved anonymous shell companies and trusts.To ensure that developing countries are able to retain and invest more of their own resources, countries should put an end to anonymous structures by requiring public disclosure of who owns and controls companies and trusts and publicly disclose how much tax they pay and other financial information in every country they do business.Aid: Developing countries, as well as taxpayers in donor countries, need reliable and comprehensive information about aid flows. In many cases, the governments of poor countries are not even given information about how much money is being spent by donors on different sectors (such as health and education) or in different regions in their own countries.For information on aid flows to be useful, it needs to be published regularly in a standardized and comparable format. The International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI) has created a common international standard for publishing information about aid spending. The list of signatories to IATI is growing, with over 600 organisations having published so far, but progress on making all aid transparent must continue.Argentina's former Vice President Amado Boudou (Front, R) attends a sentence hearing in Buenos Aires, capital of Argentina, on Aug. 7, 2018. Argentina's former Vice President Amado Boudou was sentenced on Tuesday to five years and 10 months in prison for "bribery and business dealings incompatible with public service.Boudou, who served from 2011 to 2015 alongside then President Cristina Fernandez, was also barred for life from holding public office and fined 90,000 pesos (3,214 U.S. dollars).Boudou was convicted by a federal criminal court in relation to the so-called Ciccone Case, which alleged he profited from awarding government contracts to a company called Ciccone Printing, the only private company enabled to print money apart from the state mint.The case has been moving through the judicial system since at least 2012.Others were also convicted of wrongdoing, including Nicolas Ciccone, the former owner of the printer.In his defense before sentencing, Boudou denied the allegations."Politicians who follow the path of the powerful, walk without problems. Politicians who decide to transform reality are persecuted, at first by the media and then by the legal system," said Boudou.The head of the national anti-corruption agency, Laura Alonso, hailed the "historic trial," saying "for the first time in Argentina a vice president has been convicted."Boudou's attempt to buy a company that printed currency through a front business while serving as Kirchner's economy minister.A court found  guilty of "passive bribery" and conduct "incompatible" with his duties as a public servant, sentencing him to five years and 10 months in prison.Boudou, who served in Kirchner's cabinet from 2009 to 2015, has been banned for life from holding public office.His lawyers are expected to appeal the conviction.Argentina has recently been rocked by another major corruption scandal involving top political and business figures and compared to neighboring Brazil's sprawling Operation Car Wash probe.Kirchner, who served as president from 2007 to 2015, has been summoned for questioning next week amidst allegations that tens of millions of dollars in bribes were funneled to the presidential residence, executive mansion and offices.Ever since she left office, her administration has been beset by various corruption allegations and convictions.Boudou told the court that he never negotiated a 70 percent stake in Ciccone Calcografica eight years ago, saying the "alleged bribe has no basis or link to the evidence because it didn't exist."Five other entrepreneurs were convicted alongside Boudou, including the company's former owner Nicolas Ciccone, who was given a four-and-a-half-year jail term.At the beginning of the year, Ciccone was granted a release from detention into house arrest as his partner, former Mexican politician Monica Garcia de la Fuente, was expecting twins.Laura Alonso, head of the anti-corruption office, said this case showed the country had confronted official corruption in an "open and public trial" and that there is "justice in Argentina."The court found Boudou guilty of trying to lift a bankruptcy declaration against Ciccone in return for a 70 percent share in the business.Amongst those also convicted were Argentina's former representative to the World Bank, Guido Forcieri, who was given a two-and-a-half-year suspended sentence.The more recent corruption case revolves around allegations that the planning ministry applied pressure to businessmen to contribute to the election campaigns of both Kirchner and her husband Nestor, whom she succeeded as president.A businessman who has admitted paying such contributions, Juan Carlos de Goycoechea, surrendered to police on Friday and asked for protection under an "accused collaborator" program.Prosecutors believe a total of $160 million could have been paid in bribes.Since this case came to light last week, 16 ex-government officials and businessmen have been arrested in dozens of raids. They face charges of conspiracy in a bribery and kickback scheme.

Due to the hidden nature of corruption and the paucity of criminal convictions, scientific evidence is difficult to come by. And there are those who just make huge amounts of money from the corrupt deeds of others.

There is no doubt that corruption is to be condemned and corrupt officials resolutely prosecuted because it erodes trust in government.  It also weakens the moral bonds of civil society on which democratic practices and processes rest.  But while research suggests that corruption has some bearing on the spread of poverty, the claim that corruption is the principal cause of poverty and economic stagnation, although popular with voters, is questionable. It is also a safe language of political competition among politicians, that is, one that they can deploy for electoral effect against one another without arousing the destabilizing effects of a discourse based on class.Not surprisingly, the international financial institutions have weighed in.  The World Bank has made “good governance” a major thrust of its work, asserting that the “World Bank Group focus on governance and anticorruption (GAC) follows from its mandate to reduce poverty—a capable and accountable state creates opportunities for poor people, provides better services, and improves development outcomes.” Yet it is a discourse that has increasingly less appeal to the poorer classes.  Despite the corruption that marked his reign, Joseph Estrada is running a respectable third in the presidential contest in the Philippines, with solid support among many urban poor communities.  But it is perhaps in Thailand where the lower classes have rejected most decisively the corruption discourse, which the elites and Bangkok-based middle class deployed to oust Thaksin Shinawatra from the premiership in 2006.While in power, Thaksin brazenly used his office to enlarge his corporate empire, but the rural masses and urban lower classes—the base of the so-called “Red Shirts”–have ignored this and are fighting to restore his coalition to power.  The reason is that they remember the Thaksin period from 2001 to 2006 as one where Thailand recovered from the Asian financial crisis owing to Thaksin’s kicking out the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and his promotion of expansionary policies with a redistributive dimension, such as cheap universal health care, a one-million-baht development fund for each town, and a moratorium on farmers’ servicing of their debt.  These policies made a difference in their lives.Thaksin’s Red Shirts are probably right in their implicit assessment that when it comes to addressing poverty, pro-people policies are more decisive than corruption.  Indeed, in Thailand and elsewhere, clean-cut technocrats have probably been responsible for greater poverty than the most corrupt politicians. And one suspects that one of the reasons the corruption-causes-poverty discourse is so popular with the elites and the international financial institutions is that it serves as a smokescreen for the structural causes of poverty and stagnation and for wrong policy choices.The case of the Philippines since 1986 is illustrative of the greater explanatory power of the “wrong-policy narrative” than the corruption narrative.  In contrast to an ahistorical narrative that sees massive corruption as having suffocated the promise of the post-Marcos democratic republic, the wrong-policy narrative locates the key causes of Philippine underdevelopment and poverty in historical events and developments.The complex of policies that have pushed the Philippines into the economic quagmire over the last 30 years might be summed up in that formidable term: structural adjustment.  Also known as neoliberal restructuring, it involved prioritization of debt repayment; conservative macroeconomic management involving huge cutbacks in government spending; trade and financial liberalization; privatization and deregulation; and export-oriented production.  Structural adjustment came to the Philippines courtesy of the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and the World Trade Organization, but it was internalized and disseminated as doctrine by local technocrats and economists.Corazon Aquino was personally honest—indeed the epitome of non-corruption–and her contribution to the reestablishment of democracy was indispensable, but her submitting to the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) demand to prioritize debt repayment over development brought about a decade of stagnation and continuing poverty.  Interest payments as a percentage of total government expenditures went from 7 per cent in 1980 to 28 per cent in 1994.  Capital expenditures, on the other hand, plunged from 26 per cent to 16 per cent.  Since government is the biggest investor in the Philippines—indeed in any economy—the radical stripping away of capital expenditures goes a long way toward explaining the stagnant one per cent average yearly growth in gross domestic product in the 1980’s and the 2.3 per cent rate in the first half of the 1990’s.In contrast, the Philippines’ Southeast Asian neighbors ignored the IMF’s prescriptions.  They limited debt servicing while ramping up government capital expenditures in support of growth.  Not surprisingly, they grew by 6 to 10 per cent from 1985 to 1995, attracting massive Japanese investment while the Philippines barely grew and gained the reputation of a depressed market that repelled investors.When Aquino’s successor, Fidel Ramos, came to power in 1992, the main agenda of his technocrats was to bring down all tariffs to 0 to 5 per cent and bring the Philippines into the World Trade Organization and the Asean Free Trade Area (AFTA), moves that were intended to make trade liberalization irreversible.  A pick-up in the growth rate in the early years of Ramos sparked hope, but the green shoots were more apparent than real, and they were, at any rate, crushed as a result of another neoliberal policy: financial liberalization.  The elimination of foreign exchange controls and restrictions of speculative investment attracted billions of dollars in the period 1993-1997.  But this also meant that when panic hit the ranks of foreign investors in Asia in the summer of 1997, the same lack of capital controls facilitated the stampede of billions of dollars from the country in a few short weeks in mid-1997.  This pushed the economy into recession and stagnation in the next few years.The administration of the next president, Joseph Estrada, did not reverse course, and under the presidency of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, neoliberal policies continued to reign.  New liberalization initiatives in the next few years were initiated on the trade front, with the government negotiating free trade agreements with Japan and China.  These pacts were entered into despite clear evidence that trade liberalization was destroying the two pillars of the economy, industry and agriculture.Radical unilateral trade liberalization severely destabilized the Philippines’ manufacturing sector, with textile and garments firms, for instance, being drastically reduced from 200 in 1970 to 10 in recent years.  As one of Arroyo’s finance secretaries admitted, “there’s an uneven implementation of trade liberalization, which was to our disadvantage.”  While he speculated that consumers might have benefited from the tariff liberalization, he acknowledged that “it has killed so many local industries.”As for agriculture, the liberalization of the country’s agricultural trade after the country joined the World Trade Organization in 1995 transformed the Philippines from a net food exporting country and consolidated it into a net food importing country after the mid-1990’s.  The year 2010 is the year that the China ASEAN Trade Agreement (CAFTA) negotiated by the Arroyo administration goes into effect, and the prospect of cheap Chinese produce flooding Philippines markets has made Filipino vegetable farmers fatalistic about their survival.What likewise became clear during the long Arroyo reign were the stifling effects of the debt repayment-oriented macroeconomic management policy that came with structural adjustment.  With 20-25 per cent of the national budget reserved for debt service payments owing to the draconian Automatic Appropriations Law, government finances were in a state of permanent and widening deficit, which the administration tried to solve by contracting more loans.  Indeed, the Arroyo administration contracted more loans than the previous three administrations combined.When the deficit reached gargantuan proportions, the government refused to take the necessary steps to contain the key factor acting as the main drain on expenditures; that is, it refused to declare a debt moratorium or at least renegotiate the terms of debt repayment to make them less punitive.  At the same time, the administration did not have the political will to force the rich to take the brunt of bridging the deficit by increasing taxes on their income and improving their collection.  Under pressure from the IMF, the government levied this burden on the poor and the middle class via the adoption of the expanded value added tax (EVAT) of 12 per cent on purchases.  The tax was passed on to poor and middle class consumers by commercial establishments, forcing them to cut back on consumption, which then boomeranged back on small merchants and entrepreneurs in the form of reduced profits, forcing many out of business.The straitjacket of conservative macroeconomic management, trade and financial liberalization, and a subservient debt policy kept the economy from expanding significantly, resulting in the percentage of the population living in poverty increasing from 30 to 33 per cent between 2003 and 2006, according to World Bank figures.  By 2006, there were more poor people in the Philippines than at any other time in the country’s history.

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