A day ahead of the ‘Vigilance Awareness Week’, coinciding with the birthday of the ‘Iron Man of India Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel’, Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio in his message called for greater resolve to fight the virus of corruption at all levels by one and all. Rio in particular made mention of the media and NGOs pointing out that they have to become the whistle blowers to detect, check and counter corruption. While such encouragement from the Chief Minister himself is no doubt welcome, the point remains as to what concrete measure the State government can likewise take to put his suggestion to good use. Further, in order to cleanse the corrupt system of the government, whistle blowing cannot remain confined to the media and NGOs alone. In fact, if the root of corruption is to be uprooted from the system, those in the government who should also be encouraged to make disclosure. As the Chief Minister himself stated, “We in the Government should stop paying a lip service to fighting corruption if we want our legitimacy to grow”. If Rio himself means what he says, then his government should take steps to bring in legal measures to give protection to whistle blowers or those who make public disclosure of corruption, whether they are from the media, NGOs or government employees. In Britain and other countries like United States and Australia, there are Whistle Blowers Act or Public Disclosures Act which protect their right.
Besides making public disclosure of corruption, what is equally important is to ensure effective punishment so as to not only eliminate such practices but also to deter the corrupt. Today as per the system, punishment is possible under two circumstances. One is through prosecutions and another is through departmental actions. Looking at the slow pace at which the cases are disposed of in the judicial system, effective punishment through the prosecution route may not be possible. Time bound departmental action would be a more effective deterrent. In the recent past in Nagaland, some element of corruption has been eliminated through this route. Further, in every organisation people who are corrupt are well known. Such corrupt public servants must be trapped with the help of investigative agencies or police as the case may be. The recent exposure by the State Vigilance of fraudulent drawal of funds is a case in point. This will send the right signals that the corrupt will be punished.
Another innovative strategy which the State Vigilance Department can utilize is to draw up a corruption ‘Perception Index’ of all Government departments in Nagaland. For instance, the Transparency International ranks countries on the basis of corruption perception index. Departments can be listed out in the order of corruption perception index from the most corrupt to the least corrupt. Every year this list can be published. This will help authorities to focus attention on the most corrupt departments. It is also possible that the honest public servants in these various departments will be moved by a sense of shame and try to check corruption in their respective departments.
And as the State observes another Vigilance week, it is important that the government look beyond the one week period and take a long term approach to deal with corruption at all levels. Initiation of action urgently on the above points will go a long way to help realizing the vision of making our society and system of governance less corrupt.
