TAKING STOCK: Why corruption? If you require a permit to build a factory and the only way to get it is by bribing your way through, is it wrong to pay? If urgently required medicines you have imported are not being cleared by customs until you tip the official, is it immoral to pay up? If the only way to get clearance for a hospital project is by buying-off the ministry employees, does then corruption serve a purpose? Would you not just give the government clerk a few hundred rupees for your passport than risk loosing your hard won job abroad? If a government’s drive against corruption makes its officials perform without pay offs, then it would be great. However, as is far more likely, if the officialdom, angry at being made a target, simply refuses to do its work, then the loss to the nation would exceed the benefits of an anti-corruption drive. It is impossible to take action against a permanent government employee for sloth or incompetence. If, now, too afraid to accept money from the public and lacking any other incentive to perform, the bureaucrats do nothing, clear no papers, approve no projects, then who will pay the price for this inaction? You and I, who else? As files stack up in government offices and people wait interminably for approvals, the entire nation suffers. The rules and regulations of the bureaucracy are frequently so onerous that it is impossible to survive without breaking them? In India street vendors and rickshaw pullers are not permitted to earn their livelihood without a government license. In New Delhi alone, almost a million people without licenses survive by daily surrendering a third of their earnings to the police and municipal authorities. If the authorities did not take bribes and strictly enforced the law over 90 per cent of these street vendors and rickshaw pullers would be off the roads and starving. Illegality and corruption go hand in hand. Licenses which could end bribery, are rarely issued. Does then corruption serve a purpose? Unfortunately yes. It enables the poorest of the poor to eke out a living and provide for their families. Harvard economist Robert Barro said, “In some circumstances, corruption may be preferable to honest enforcement of bad rules. For example, outcomes may be worse if a regulation that prohibits some useful economic activity is thoroughly enforced rather than circumvented through bribes.” Are we then supposed to accept corruption as it is? Fortunately no. If we want to eliminate corruption then we must strike at its very root; it is rules and regulations, which force us to seek government approvals and bribe officials to get the licenses, permit and clearances without which our economy would grind to a halt. Take away the requirement to seek approvals for everything, simplify procedures, and you strike a big blow against corruption. If you free your imports from quotas, tariffs, and licensing requirements, no one would have to bribe a customs official. If you eliminate the income tax, no one will pay-off tax authorities; they would not even exist. If you must retain the income tax then simplify it so that the scope for corruption, if not ended, is substantially reduced. Russia has ended a very corrupt tax regime by legislating a 13 per cent flat tax. Better compliance by taxpayers, due to the lower rate, boosted government revenues by 28 per cent in the first year itself while simplification has simultaneously cut collection costs. An example which Nepal can surely follow. These are but some examples of how to eliminate corruption and, at the same time, lift the deadening weight of the government from the shoulders of the public. The savings from these cuts in bureaucracy may be used to offer better salaries to those essential government employees which are retained. This is what Singapore does to its great benefit. Taxes are low and imports are duty free. Government officials are highly paid; their salaries comparable to what is on offer by the best private organisations. The result: Singapore is corruption free with arguably the most efficient government employees in the world. Let Nepal emulate Singapore, for then, Nepal too can give its people a clean and efficient government. Its people deserve nothing less and should be satisfied with nothing less. (The writer can be contacted at: everest@mos.com.np)