The article in the url below contains some shocking (to me, at least) figures from a report by Transparency International (http://www.transparency.org/), widely regarded as the leading source of global data on bribery and corruption, regarding the extent to which bribery is an integral aspect of business in some parts of the world:
“Did you know that a global poll of business executives found two in five have been asked to pay a bribe when dealing with business institutions? Half of these estimated that corruption raised project costs by at least 10 per cent. One in five of the executives claimed to have lost business because of bribes by a competitor. More than a third felt that corruption was getting worse. Moreover, politicians and officials in emerging economies are estimated to receive bribes of between $20bn and $40bn annually - equivalent to some 20-40 per cent of official aid.”
The article also addresses the paradox that, while the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (1977) is “the gold standard” for anticorruption legislation, the US is ranked only at 18th on Transparency International’s list of least corrupt nations:
“… in which 180 countries are ranked "in terms of the degree to which business people and country analysts perceive corruption to exist among public officials and politicians".”
Take care,
David
Bill Werther & David Chandler
Strategic Corporate Social Responsibility
© Sage Publications, 2006
http://www.sagepub.com/Werther/
Worse evils exist than corruption
By Samuel Brittan
838 words
18 September 2009
Financial Times
Asia Ed1
09
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/85e294c4-a3d3-11de-9fed-00144feabdc0.html
or
http://www.ftchinese.com/story/001028972/en
