Crackdown against corporate bribes in the South?

Crackdown against corporate bribes in the South?

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Many societies consider bribing immoral, and many countries in the West passed laws making bribing illegal. But Western multinationals are making use of the practice of bribing.

Bribes are as old as history. In the King James Bible, there is a passage saying that those who bribe will be destroyed. Unfortunately, we are not told when that will come to pass.

Many societies consider bribing immoral, and many countries in the West passed laws making bribing illegal. However, international transactions are taking place that originate from the West and which make use of the practice of bribing. According to the Department of Commerce, multinationals spent $2 billion in bribes in 400 deals in the last six years

The World Bank is try to blacklist companies that bribe and business people in the global South. Multinationals that receive World Bank contracts for work in developing countries are feeling the pressure from the Bank. A trial in Maseru, the capital of Lesotho, will have a ripple effect on the ways multinationals conduct business throughout the global South. A government official was jailed for accepting a total of $10,100,000 from 12 different Western companies.

The Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development, composed of 12 wealthy countries, agreed in 1997 to consider making the practice of bribery a crime.

How long will it be before multinationals and the wealthy countries in which they are based realize that bribes are not grease to a wheel but in fact impediments to world trade and development? A culture of bribery and taking sustains corrupt regimes in the global South.

2002-10-30

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67

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Urdu

New York Awam

edits

Crackdown against corporate bribes in the South?

Rehan Ansari

born-digital

article

Many societies consider bribing immoral, and many countries in the West passed laws making bribing i

yes

no

2002-10-30