To Inspire Businesses to Actively Involve in Anti-corruption

In order to understand more about activities concerning preventing corruption and enhancing transparency in business today, Reporter Quynh Anh has an interview with Mr. Tran Van Long, Research Specialist, Deputy Head of Information-Data and Library Division, Government Inspectorate Research Institute (GIRI).

 

First of all, I would like to tell a little about the relationship between corruption and transparency as both of them are mentioned in the question. There is a relatively classic formula of corruption set forth by UNDP as follows: Corruption = Monopoly + Discretion - Accountability - Transparency. (Source: United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) UN Guide for Anti-Corruption Policies, November 2003, page.89).

According to the above formula, transparency is an important factor. And, if the organisations and operations of every entities, particularly public authorities, are not "transparent", there is a potential risk of corruption. Transparency will reduce and clear "dark spaces" where corruption may occur. Transparency in guidelines and policies creates fair opportunities for enterprises to access as well as serve as basis and conditions for the people to exercise their oversight rights.

 

Currently, businesses and industrial sector associations are playing increasingly important roles in preventing corruption and increasing transparency in business transactions. The participation of businesses and business associations in anti-corruption are mainly by implementing preventive measures, like propagandising and disseminating law and legal documents on anti-corruption, building and implementing ethical codes for enterprises, gradually creating business culture, detecting and denouncing acts of corruption committed by power-holding state officials, organisations and individuals. In recent years, in implementing the Party and State’s policies on anti-corruption in the whole society, businesses and industrial sector associations have been doing specific and practical activities. However, not all businesses have done these activities well.

 

In the past time, following the State and Party’s advocacy of policies on anti-corruption in the entire society, businesses and professional associations have also carried out specific, practical activities and contributed to the results in this regard. Besides, businesses who have actively responded to the State and Party’s policies by strictly abiding by law on anti-corruption, building codes of conduct, creating corporate culture, establishing internal control mechanisms, etc., there are still businesses who are not yet interested in this cause due to several following factors:

 

- First, enterprises themselves are not really accountable to the State and society in preventing corruption. They still put their own interests on top and they are willing to pay “smoothening” costs in transactions with public organisations to get their work done. They even conceal information about negative and corruption behaviours in their business, in fears that their reputation and their business relations will be affected.

 

- Second, many companies pay bribes for advantages in doing business. This behaviour stems from a self motivation of businesses and this behaviour is due to a lack of cross-monitoring mechanism among enterprises and professional associations to detect violations.

 

- Third, monitoring mechanisms inside enterprises are limited, including specialized supervision mechanism of companies’ supervisory board, people's inspectors, and trade unions; and also a lack of supervision from employees. This reality is evidenced by a very small number of corruption cases detected and denounced by companies while the actual number of corruption cases is much larger. This fact is resulted from many reasons, including benefit-driven will of business leaders.

 

- Fourth, enterprises and professional associations lack coordinating mechanisms with State authorities in the fight against corruption. This has limited and confused coordination in disseminating preventive measures and providing information against corruption to the state authorities.

 

In this regard, in recent years, the Party and the State have issued many legal documents, creating necessary legal frameworks for businesses to participate effectively. To increase their involvement, in the future, the State and professional associations should work together to provide information about law on anti-corruption and instructive documents for businesses, helping them understand legal provisions on anti-corruption fully and correctly. It is more important that businesses are aware of their role and responsibility in this work.

 

Besides, companies should be encouraged to create and implement healthy, non-corruptive corporate culture, and build professional ethical code, code of conducts. This is one of most important contents provided in the Law on Anticorruption and enforcement-guiding decrees. The successful development and implementation of ethical codes and codes of conduct help create effective anti-corruption mechanisms. So far, many businesses have built and implemented these sets of codes, however the organization for effective implementation of these codes is not so good, limiting their effectiveness in preventing corruption behaviours.

 

Besides, it is necessary to have mechanisms to coordinate enterprises and professional associations with State agencies to detect, denounce and deal with corruption behaviours. This is a hard job because enterprises do not often want to break up good relationships with public authorities in fear that reporting corruption behaviours they may face with disadvantages caused by public authorities. Or if they self discover and report corruption behaviours inside their business, their reputation and image will be tarnished. Therefore, it is vital to make businesses understand impacts of corruption on economic, social relations and the significance of coordinating with other agencies to prevent corruption.