9 December: International Anti-Corruption Day

(Vatican Radio) Attitudes on corruption are changing. There are increasing signs of growing intolerance toward corruption, and campaigns – such as the on-going “Exposed” campaign – that reaches across the echelons of society to denounce the scourge and raise the awareness that each and every one of us has a role and a responsibility in beating corruption.

December 9^th has been designated by the United Nations as International Anti-Corruption Day.

Pope Francis has raised his voice on many occasions to denounce this global challenge. Just recently, during a homily at morning Mass, he said “Parents who feed their children on ‘unclean bread’, earned through bribes and corruption, are starving their children of dignity”.

Jesuit Father Anthony Egan of the Jesuit Institute in South Africa is one of those who has joined his voice to the chorus in the effort to fight the scourge of corruption with a recently published article explaining why the Church has engaged with the ecumenical “Exposed” campaign.

Vatican Radio’s Linda Bordoni asked Father Egan what he thinks the significance of a World Day Against Corruption is…

Listen to the interview…

“I think it is extremely important that we get in touch with the issue of corruption because in a very real sense it affects the whole of one’s social life, one’s public life. A corrupt society is a society where you will have leaders who will use their position and influence in order to gain personal wealth and influence, and as a result they will affect the common good of the society around them”.

Regarding his article on Corruption, Father Egan explains the formula he quotes: C=M+D-A – “Corruption is Monopoly of Power, plus Discretion, without Accountability”. He says the formula was developed by a number of political scientists in the ‘70s. And Father Egan says “it is useful because it gives you a sense of the dynamic: corruption isn’t just some sort of word that people use and that doesn’t have a real meaning – it is that use of power, that use of authority, without the constraints that one would have - for example in cheques and balances - to prevent the misuse of power”. And ultimately, he says, that is about personal or group gain. “It undermines not only the moral sense of obligation on the part of for example a civil servant who has an obligation to the public, it is also undermining economic wellbeing, the effective running of structures and systems…”.

Father Egan says the great thing about “Expose” is that it helps people to see that corruption is about all of us. It highlights the complicity of us all within a corrupt system.

And Father Egan also speaks of “Transparency International” and the CPI – the Corruption Perceptions Index – which he says is a big multi-national organization that is working to investigate levels of corruption around the world, and where possible, to expose corrupt practices.

He explains that their annual report measures how people perceive the levels of corruption in their own countries. He says it is a very important tool – although limited.

And Father Egan goes on to illustrate and comment on the CPI Index in 2013, and observes the status, in particular, of emerging economies.

He agrees that in South Africa, Church leaders have really started to engage with the corruption issue. He says that it a real ecumenical effort “which is connected to the success or failure of South Africa, our success or failure as a democracy, our success or failure as an economy, because corruption affects the political, the cultural, the economic, the whole tout… it has become one of the n.1 challenges that the country is facing, and it will affect the nation for decades.