A day ahead of the ‘Vigilance Awareness Week’ beginning October 31, both the Governor and Chief Minister made the customary anti-corruption messages, calling for greater resolve to confront the problem. While such encouragement from the Governor and Chief Minister is no doubt welcome, the question remains as to what concrete measures they can likewise suggest for taking up as a matter of public policy. Last year the Chief Minister had given a good suggestion calling upon the media and NGOs to become the whistle blowers to detect check and counter corruption. Unfortunately, nothing much has been done by the concerned authorities to take forward this suggestion from the Chief Minister. For instance, unless necessary steps are taken to give protection to whistle blowers or those who make public disclosure, the lid on corruption cannot be opened. In Britain and other countries like United States and Australia, there is Whistle Blowers Act or Public Disclosures Act which protect the rights of those who take on the corrupt.
One practical suggestion for the State Vigilance Department 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.
A few years ago the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) had circulated a “Zero Tolerance Action Plan on Corruption” to all the State governments wherein it was observed that obsolete laws and time consuming bureaucratic procedures are the breeding ground for corruption. The CVC had likewise recommended what is called ‘the principle of the sunset laws’ so that no law will be on the statute book for more than five years or ten years unless it is re-enacted and re-promulgated after careful examination. The CVC was of the view that obsolete laws should not be allowed to clutter the system. Recently, the 2nd Administrative Reforms Commission (ARC) had recommended for the scrapping of the Officials Secrets Act (OSA). This is in tune with the sunset principle and an important pre-requisite towards a corruption free system.
If one may say so, having the OSA is completely flawed and defeats the very purpose of giving constitutional sanction to what is undoubtedly a revolutionary piece of legislation, the recently enacted Right to Information Act. Knowing that the barrier to information is the single most important factor responsible for corruption in the system, the laws or practices that promote illness in the system has to be removed before it kills the body politic. More needs to be done beyond the vigilance awareness week. As mentioned recently in these columns, the significance in tackling corruption, the Chinese way, is the manner in which their leadership has taken up corruption as a major political task, to be addressed at the highest level. This underlines that corruption is actually a political agenda, usually rare for any political leadership to take up but which the Chinese are determined to pursue in order to uphold integrity of its people.
