SEOUL — In the 2000 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), Korea ranked as 48th out of 90 countries. This means that in the perceptions of business people, the general public and country analysts, the overall situation in Korea was seen open for substantial improvement.
Korea’s history of close relationship between political dictatorship and economics has been an important factor in this current assessment. The 1997 economic crisis in Asia, based also in part on corruption in the financial sector, also contributed to this result. All in all, the 2000 CPI ranking indicates Korea needs to make further efforts in order to curb corruption.
Are so-called ‘Asian values’ the real cause of corruption?" Is there any kind of corruption affinities with any skin-color, religion, language, ideology, continent, or nation? No, we can find corruption in every society. Corruption takes many forms and is a universal cancer.
The Korean government itself has proclaimed a war against corruption. It prepared anti-corruption programs, which are now being enforced. Furthermore, Seoul metropolitan government’s ‘Online Procedures Enhancement for civil applications’ (OPEN) system is accepted worldwide as one of the best examples in preventing corruption in municipal administration.
Recently, the Anti-Corruption Network in Korea — now TI’s National Chapter in Korea — reported that people see corruption as slightly declining compared to a few years ago. It can be taken as a small sign of improvement.
However, the CPI 2000 should remind everyone that the fight against corruption has not been relaxed. We all yearn for improvement, but positive change only comes slowly when endemic corruption is the enemy. Perceptions of levels of corruption do not change greatly from one year to the next. Positive results are only going to emerge from tireless and consistent multi-year efforts.

Anti-Corruption Law in Korea
Korea is currently seeing large efforts to pass an anti-corruption law. It is important that there will be a protection and reward program for the whistle-blowers by the anti-corruption regulation, providing for an additional and effective way to curb corruption next to external auditors.
It empowers public officials themselves to become fighters against corruption, not friends of corruption; changing public servants from objects to subjects of the anti-corruption movement. The point is how to develop the bright sides of their characters and how to control the dark sides.
And I would like to mention again that numerous developed countries have also launched initiatives against money laundering, while awareness is growing in export credit agencies and development assistance agencies that challenge corrupt practices is vital.

Integrity Pacts
The Integrity Pacts (IP) concept was developed in the middle of the 1990’s by TI. It is a multilateral and mutual pact against corruption among government offices and companies submitting a tender for specific projects. It is intended to accomplish two primary objectives: 1) to enable companies to avoid resorting to bribery by providing assurances that their competitors will also not participate in the illegal practice, and government procurement agencies will undertake to prevent corruption, including extortion, by their officials and to follow transparent procedures; and 2) to enable governments to reduce the high cost and the distorting impact of corruption on public procurement.
TI-Korea has called upon the Korean government and municipalities to adopt the Integrity Pact for transparent public procurement. The fact that three municipalities, including Seoul metropolitan government, are currently applying Integrity Pacts to their tendering process is in my view a good start for transparent administration of local government.
On the other hand, despite these implementations, other government bodies and municipalities remain silent. The Integrity Pact will work effectively only when the entire public sector, including public companies, participate. Adopting this concept nationwide can make a strong impact against bribery and graft in public business. (TI-Korea will hold a workshop Dec. 4-6 on the implementation of the Integrity Pact with the participation of TI’s specialists on this subject.)

Business Ethics System
Corruption is not just the product of accepting bribes. There also is the bribe-giving side of the corruption coin, as well. Showing this side of the coin as well is the intention of TI’s Bribe Payers Index (BPI), first published in 1999. In this index Korea ranked 18th out of 19 countries. What is the meaning of BPI and that ranking?
This bribe-paying side of the corruption equation is extremely important right now. Many of the street protests that we see at major conferences — such as those in Seattle, Prague, and Seoul — reflect the distrust of the people toward globalization and the role of business in the international economy.
Transparency in business dealings is more important than ever and corporations should see the protests as a challenge to them to act with integrity. The OECD convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Officials in International Business Transactions was adopted in Korea on Dec. 17, 1997 as Law 5588. However, it is vital that countries that have ratified OECD Anti-Corruption Convention now enforce it and that companies demonstrate that they are in compliance.
This year, TI-Korea conducted research on 30 major companies in Korea regarding how many have codes of ethics or codes of conduct, and what their contents are. As a result, it was revealed that only eight companies have such codes. But even the existing codes remained on the formal side, rather than having easy-to-use, understandable, and pragmatic language.
Companies should see the need for education in business ethics as well as set-up ethics committees. The private sector should also recognize the importance of protecting whistle-blowers. As TI-Korea has argued, a business ethics system is one of the major elements for the anti-corruption struggle.

Civil Participation

Lastly, civil participation can be added as one of the main powers to curb corruption. Korean NGOs’ have a pivotal role in the nation’s anti-corruption movement. Activists, specialists and well-known personalities require civil participation and support in all parts of society to become effective.
People can be a more effective corruption control subject through their engagement than other visible institutions.
Looking at the progress or political democracy in Korea, there is also hope for the fight against corruption. It is my belief that this hope is on the way toward realization. Many NGOs have proposed and participated in the anti-corruption movement, in succession with human rights, social justice and democratization movements of the past several decades. Their campaigns during the last general election had an important impact on curbing political corruption in Korea.

National integrity System

However, none of these programs can be a panacea, one-size-fits-all, that solves all problems. In many cases corruption has been treated as a matter of private lack of morality or ethics of individual public officials. There has been little attention placed upon corruption as a systemic problem. Social background is an important factor of corruption. Low wages play another role in absolute or comparative, real or perceptive terms.
And while corruption in public administration is a key issue in the people’s perception, transparency in the private sector, academia and even within civil society play an important role as well.
Thus I would like to point out the importance of a systematic perspective or approach. TI recommends that a ‘National Integrity System’ should be constructed to control corruption.
As TI-Korea informed me, it is preparing to hold an anti-corruption fair on Dec. 10-12 in which the private and public sectors and civil society can participate. During this event, governmental bodies, private companies, economic organizations, as well as civil society organizations will exhibit their most effective practices for corruption prevention. I trust that this exhibition will promote possible benchmarking between them, including municipalities.
This kind of cooperation can be a model anti-corruption strategy for other countries. The methods and systems developed and applied in Korea will provide valuable experiences and will help to curb corruption worldwide.