Bribery: A Moral Evaluation

By: Nemesio Daryl Boy G. Adora III

Abstract

This article talks about the moral issue concerning about bribery. This phenomenon is found in all countries. Bribery runs so rampant that it has become widespread most especially in developing world. It is an insidious plague that has a wide range of undesirable effects on societies. The question is, why is this happening? Is this accepted and justified?

Keywords

Ethics, corruption, bribery

Introduction

Bribery is a form of corruption. Corruption is defined as the abuse of entrusted power for private gain (Transparency International, 2009). It is the misuse of one’s office position for personal benefit. According to the Electronic Journal of Business Ethics and Organizational Studies (2006), corruption is an economic problem intertwined with politics. It describes a relationship between the state and private sector. It takes the form of violation of norms of duty and responsibility within civic order. Therefore, corruption is the deliberate intent of subordinating common interest to personal interest.

Bribery  is define as the giving or offering of a bribe, which means giving or paying someone with something of value in exchange for a specific favorable outcome. Bribery is an offer, promise, or giving of any undue pecuniary or other advantage, whether directly of through intermediaries, to a foreign public official, for that official or for a third party, in order that the official act or refrain from acting in relation to the performance of official duties, in order to obtain or retain business or other improper advantage (OECD Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Official in International Business Transactions, 1997). Bribery is corrupt for two reasons: (1) it involves a public official using his office to gain advantages from citizens; and (2) it often distorts the underlying official action.

Bribery is typically illegal and dishonest under almost every country in the world and it’s considered a criminal offense. It may be a naive question to ask why this is happening. People bribe because of personal reasons and motivations – they want an unfair advantage over the others like paying lower taxes, to get an appointment or promotion, to avoid fine or penalty or to get something done quickly. Bribery can also be a result of systems that don’t work well and create bad incentives – lack of opportunities, lack of transparency, weak enforcement, bad incentive and attitudes or circumstances that make average people disregard the law such as poverty.

Many people accept bribery as inevitable and unavoidable. Others condone it, even going so far as to say that nothing should be done about it; that it’s a form of gift giving. Others say that it actually is useful, because at least you get what you pay for. People often say it is everywhere, it always existed, it is vague and culturally determined, eliminating bribery will require whole change in attitudes and values, and bribery is not harmful rather it is the grease that moves the economic engine.

According to Raghunandan (2014), people typically pay bribes for some specific reasons. (1) Need for speed. This results in payment of speed money to fast track applications. This in turn incentivizes offices to slow down procedures deliberately, so that they can collect fast tracking payments. (2) Convenience. Closely related to speed money. People pay because they are too busy to go to an office and find it convenient to outsource corruption to an agent for an overall service charge. This happens in cases where processes are convoluted, long drawn out and multi-step. (3) Fear, nervousness and relief. Many people have a dread of going to government offices and fear that they will be harmed if they do not pay bribes. In many cases, the fear is totally unjustified, but still sadly persists. People also pay bribes out of relief. Therefore, one time transactions in peoples' life, like buying a flat or getting a car, are more bribe prone than others. People consider bribing for registration as something like a tip paid out of happiness and relief at the completion of the transaction. (4) Ignorance and unwillingness to learn. People who are otherwise savvy, do not go to websites, or do their homework enough to understand a procedure beforehand. (5) Misinformation by middlemen and touts. Closely related to ignorance and unwillingness to learn. Ignorant people are vulnerable to being cheated by corrupt officials and their touts who mislead them by mystifying processes. (6) Persuasion by peers and elders. Closely related to ignorance and unwillingness to learn. Bribing behavior, and the notion that unless one pays a bribe nothing can be secured, is passed on from generation to generation and fortified through peer discussions. (7) Fear of justified, unjustified or excessive punishment. This covers payments such as bribes paid to the police to look the other way when there is a clear violation of the law. In the absence of the bribe, the bribe payer is vulnerable to punishment. (8) Faced with the denial of an essential service from a corrupt monopoly. For example, people are cornered and pay bribes for restoration of electricity and water connections, because if they do not pay, they are subject to high levels of inconvenience. With respect to the above reasons, one can expect that at least the bribe payers could be dissatisfied with the act of paying a bribe. (9) Mutual benefit. This typically happens in bribing to lower tax rates. For example, bribing to accept under-valued properties for registration or to reduce property tax rates. In such cases, both the bribe giver and the bribe taker benefit and the government suffers. Typically, for such cases, there are no complainants. (10) Avoiding business loss or getting unwarranted windfall profits. This is a strong justification for the supply side of private sector corruption. Businesses do not mind paying bribes because of two reasons. First, if they do not pay, they suffer business loss. Second, whatever they pay can be passed on to the consumer through an enhanced selling price.

Bribery pays certain costs and consequences. It adds to the cost of doing business without adding corresponding value. Instead of the full contract amount going towards the delivery of the product or service, only a portion is productively employed compromising quality.

When high profile leaders are involved in bribery and corruption, their image are damaged. The message is not only that unethical and illegal behavior is acceptable, but also that the pursuit of personal gain takes precedence over service delivery. This risks creating an unethical culture among employees (or citizens) where such “lowest common denominator” behavior predominates.

Bribery also puts a country’s reputation at risk. A poor ethical reputation brings with it many potential negative results, such as reduced foreign investment, decreased tourism and the loss of our top talent to other countries.

Understanding reasons why there is bribery and its consequences is important in finding cures for it subsequently.

History of Bribery

Corruption has been a part of human societies since the oldest of times. Corruption, fraud, embezzlement, theft, bribes, and kickbacks are all forms in which people try to increase their income at the cost of others. Beginning in the latter half of the 1990s, an increased recognition of these costs led to many international and nongovernmental organizations demanding that political and business leaders demonstrate high standards of honesty, ethics, and social responsibility. This in turn led to a concerted fight against corruption, money laundering, and black markets around the world as well as to the recognition of the importance of governance (International Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences, 2008).

Two thousand years ago, Kantilla, the prime minister of an Indian king, had already written a book, Arthashastra, discussing bribery. Seven centuries ago, Dante placed bribers in the deepest part of hell, reflecting the medieval distaste for corrupt behavior. Shakespeare gave corruption a prominent role in some of his plays; and the American Constitution made bribery one of the two explicitly-mentioned crimes currently paid to corruption is unprecedented and nothing short of extraordinary. Corruption and bribery are not new phenomenon.

Ethical Consideration

Bribery is an ethical issue. Let us consider the different views of Kant and Bentham regarding bribery.

Immanuel Kant, a 19th century German philosopher, believed in the theory of deontology. It basically says that consequences doesn’t matter, what really matter is the intention. He came up with the law of Categorical Imperative which are the steps that can be used when making a decision. The principal of universality, which basically says that if an action is right for others, then it is right for us. Is bribery then morally right or morally wrong? Many people think that it is right and others believe it is wrong. Categorical imperative have this other principle about treating humanity as an end, never as a mean. Humanity are rational beings, and never as a thing. This principle basically says that if you treat someone as a mean or thing you are disrespecting him and it is morally wrong. Generally when someone bribes you, you don’t have any option but to accept the bribe, you are a human being capable of making your own decisions, but because someone is threating or bribing you aren’t able to make your own independent decision (Woodin, 2013). According to Kant, doing that is morally wrong, so bribery isn’t acceptable. The third and last principle of the categorical imperative is autonomy. Autonomy is self-governing yourself. One can be autonomous if threatened or bribed because Kant might argue that doing that is false dichotomy. Most of the times when people bribe, they make it look as if you only had one option so you are forced to accept it.

Jeremy Bentham, on the other hand, holds that pleasure is the standard of value - everything that leads to pleasure is good and everything that leads to pain is bad. This is the theory of ethical hedonism. Pleasure is the standard because human nature is such that everyone (by nature) already pursues pleasure and seeks to avoid pain. Bentham would say, it is better to seek the pleasure of others, indeed, the greatest pleasure of the greatest number. Hence, the "greatest happiness" principle of utilitarianism. Bentham, on a personal basis, probably would be opposed to bribery, but the theory of utilitarianism does not offer a clear-cut opposition to it. Indeed, the greatest happiness of the greatest number is to be determined by consulting the hedonic calculus or, today, by conducting a cost/benefit study.

Solution

Since bribery is not moral, according to Abun (2013) preventing it is better than curing the bribery because if the practice becomes part of the culture of the organization, it will be difficult to solve or eradicate it. Be it in the government or private sector, bribery occupies a dominant position.

The UK’s Ministry of Justice enumerated some steps to ensure bribery is prevented based on a common sense application of the following six principles. (1) Proportionality – if the risk of bribery is small only modest procedures may be needed; (2) Top-level commitment – senior managers need to make it clear throughout the business that bribery will not be tolerated, and they should be personally involved in making sure that proportionate steps are taken to prevent bribery and that adequate procedures are in place; (3) Risk assessment – businesses should check the markets you operate in and the people they deal with to assess the likelihood of bribery, particularly for new projects. For example, in smaller organisations, existing controls over company expenditure, accounting and commercial or agent contracts may be a sufficient procedure, perhaps supplemented by oral reminders to staff. However, what will be crucial, irrespective of the size of the organisation, will be for it to be in a position to demonstrate that a proper assessment has been carried out of the risk of bribery and the adequacy of the procedures which are, or will be put, in place; (4) Due diligence – it will be important to ask a few questions and carry out a few checks before engaging people to represent you; (5) Communication – it is essential that staff know what procedures are in place. Training or awareness raising may be needed; and (6) Monitoring and review – check your procedures remain appropriate.

The World Bank established six complementary approaches to solve bribery as well as corruption. (1) Paying civil servants well. Whether civil servants are appropriately compensated or grossly underpaid will clearly affect motivation and incentives. If public sector wages are too low, employees may find themselves under pressure to supplement their incomes in “unofficial” ways. Van Rijckeghem and Weder (2001) did some empirical work showing that in a sample of less developed countries, there is an inverse relationship between the level of public sector wages and the incidence of corruption; (2) Creating transparency and openness in government spending. Subsidies, tax exemptions, public procurement of goods and services, soft credits, extra-budgetary funds under the control of politicians—all are elements of the various ways in which governments manage public resources. Governments collect taxes, tap the capital markets to raise money, receive foreign aid and develop mechanisms to allocate these resources to satisfy a multiplicity of needs. Some countries do this in ways that are relatively transparent and make efforts to ensure that resources will be used in the public interest. The more open and transparent the process, the less opportunity it will provide for malfeasance and abuse. Collier (2007) provides persuasive evidence on the negative impact of ineffective systems of budget control. Countries where citizens are able to scrutinize government activities and debate the merits of various public policies also makes a difference. In this respect, press freedoms and levels of literacy will, likewise, shape in important ways the context for reforms. Whether the country has an active civil society, with a culture of participation could be an important ingredient supporting various strategies aimed at reducing corruption; (3) Cutting red tape. The high correlation between the incidence of corruption and the extent of bureaucratic red tape as captured, for instance, by the Doing Business indicators suggests the desirability of eliminating as many needless regulations while safeguarding the essential regulatory functions of the state. The sorts of regulations that are on the books of many countries—to open up a new business, to register property, to engage in international trade, and a plethora of other certifications and licenses—are sometimes not only extremely burdensome but governments have often not paused to examine whether the purpose for which they were introduced is at all relevant to the needs of the present. Rose-Ackerman (1998) suggests that “the most obvious approach is simply to eliminate laws and programs that breed corruption.”; (4) Replacing regressive and distorting subsidies with targeted cash transfers. Subsidies are another example of how government policy can distort incentives and create opportunities for corruption. According to an IMF study (2013), consumer subsidies for energy products amount to some $1.9 trillion per year, equivalent to about 2.5 percent of global GDP or 8 percent of government revenues. These subsidies are very regressively distributed, with over 60 percent of total benefits accruing to the richest 20 percent of households, in the case of gasoline. Removing them could result in a significant reduction in CO2 emissions and generate other positive spill over effects. Subsidies often lead to smuggling, to shortages, and to the emergence of black markets. Putting aside the issue of the opportunity costs (how many schools could be built with the cost of one year’s energy subsidy?), and the environmental implications associated with artificially low prices, subsidies can often put the government at the centre of corruption-generating schemes. Much better to replace expensive, regressive subsidies with targeted cash transfers; (5)  Establishing international conventions Because in a globalized economy corruption increasingly has a cross-border dimension, the international legal framework for corruption control is a key element among the options open to governments. This framework has improved significantly over the past decade. In addition to the OECD’s Anti-Bribery Convention, in 2005 the UN Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC) entered into force, and by late 2013 had been ratified by the vast majority of its 140 signatories. The UNCAC is a promising instrument because it creates a global framework involving developed and developing nations and covers a broad range of subjects, including domestic and foreign corruption, extortion, preventive measures, anti-money laundering provisions, conflict of interest laws, means to recover illicit funds deposited by officials in offshore banks, among others. Since the UN has no enforcement powers, the effectiveness of the Convention as a tool to deter corruption will very much depend on the establishment of adequate national monitoring mechanisms to assess government compliance.

Others (Heinemann and Heimann (2006)) have argued that a more workable approach in the fight against corruption may consist of more robust implementation of the anticorruption laws in the 40 states that have signed the OECD’s AntiBribery Convention. Governments will need to be more pro-active in cracking down on OECD companies that continue to bribe foreign officials. In their efforts to protect the commercial interests of national companies, governments have at times been tempted to shield companies from the need to comply with anticorruption laws, in a misguided attempt not to undermine their position vis-à-vis competitors in other countries. Trade promotion should not be seen to trump corruption control. Governments continue to be afflicted by double standards, criminalizing bribery at home but often looking the other way when bribery involves foreign officials in non-OECD countries; and (6) Deploying smart technology. Just as government-induced distortions provide many opportunities for corruption, it is also the case that frequent, direct contact between government officials and citizens can open the way for illicit transactions. One way to address this problem is to use readily available technologies to encourage more of an arms-length relationship between officials and civil society; in this respect the Internet has been proved to be an effective tool to reduce corruption (Andersen et al., 2011). In some countries the use of online platforms to facilitate the government’s interactions with civil society and the business community has been particularly successful in the areas of tax collection, public procurement, and red tape. Perhaps one of the most fertile sources of corruption in the world is associated with the purchasing activities of the state. Purchases of goods and services by the state can be sizable, in most countries somewhere between 5-10 percent of GDP. Because the awarding of contracts can involve a measure of bureaucratic discretion, and because most countries have long histories of graft, kickbacks, and collusion in public procurement, more and more countries have opted for procedures that guarantee adequate levels of openness, competition, a level playing field for suppliers, fairly clear bidding procedures, and so on.

Chile is one country that has used the latest technologies to create one of the world’s most transparent public procurement systems in the world. ChileCompra was launched in 2003, and is a public electronic system for purchasing and hiring, based on an Internet platform. It has earned a worldwide reputation for excellence, transparency and efficiency. It serves companies, public organizations as well as individual citizens, and is by far the largest business-to-business site in the country, involving 850 purchasing organizations. In 2012 users completed 2.1 million purchases issuing invoices totalling US$9.1 billion. It has also been a catalyst for the use of the Internet throughout the country (http://blogs.worldbank.org/futuredevelopment/six-strategies-fight-corruption).

In the Philippines as stipulated in RA 3019 also known as the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act, it is the policy of the Philippine Government, in line with the principle that a public office is a public trust, to repress certain acts of public officers and private persons alike which constitute graft or corrupt practices or which may lead thereto. There is a corresponding sanctions to those who are doing bribery. Any public officer or private person committing any of the unlawful acts shall be punished with imprisonment for not less than one year nor more than ten years, perpetual disqualification from public office, and confiscation or forfeiture in favour of the Government of any prohibited interest and unexplained wealth manifestly out of proportion to his salary and other lawful income. He or she shall be punished by a fine of not less than one hundred pesos nor more than one thousand pesos, or by imprisonment not exceeding one year, or by both such fine and imprisonment, at the discretion of the Court.

No public officer shall be allowed to resign or retire pending an investigation, criminal or administrative, or pending a prosecution against him, for any offense under this Act or under the provisions of the Revised Penal Code on bribery. Any public officer against whom any criminal prosecution under a valid information under this Act or under the provisions of the Revised Penal Code on bribery is pending in court, shall be suspended from office. Should he be convicted by final judgment, he shall lose all retirement or gratuity benefits under any law, but if he is acquitted, he shall be entitled to reinstatement and to the salaries and benefits which he failed to receive during suspension, unless in the meantime administrative proceedings have been filed against him (http://www.chanrobles.com/republicactno3019.htm#.V0KlepFcSko).

Conclusion

It is not difficult to judge bribery as immoral (Abun, 2014). It is wrong because it is dishonesty. It is exercising undue influence over a person to act in favour of the one who is giving the bribe. It violates the categorical imperative. Consequences are irrelevant in determining the morality or immorality of an action; dishonesty is dishonesty and bribery is bribery. One's duty is always to tell the truth, that is, to be honest.

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