Laurence Cockcroft

Laurence Cockcroft is the chairman of the UK chapter of Transparency International. His TI profile describes him as:

"a development economist who has worked for the Governments of Zambia and Tanzania, as a consultant to various international organisations (UN, FAO, World Bank, etc.), for a large private UK-based agri business company (Booker) and for the Gatsby Charitable Foundation. He was a founder member of the boards of Transparency International and Transparency International UK, serving two terms on the former. During the period from 2000-2002 he has chaired the international group which has developed the Business Principles for Countering Bribery. He became Chairman of TI-UK in 2000 and pioneered the work of TI-UK on Corruption in the Official Arms Trade.

Interviews

The Gatsby Charitable Foundation works with the Rockerfeller Foundation. At a 2004 conference Cockcroft stated:

... that TI in the UK ‘needs to focus more on what is going on in defence and politics’. In the private sector changes happen much faster than in the political or public sectors. The day after Cockcroft's forum, the Financial Times reported that there had been no major prosecutions of businesses for corrupt practices. The paper quoted Cockcroft as saying that corporate behaviour would ‘only change markedly when there are a couple of high-profile prosecutions’.

Cockroft, in an 'interview' with the former CIA run (now Soros owned) Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty told us that:

At the most senior level, Cockroft said, ministers have access to information and decision-making powers that have the potential to earn them millions of dollars, so doubling or tripling their salaries can have little effect. "If we move up the scale to the level of ministers, then certainly in terms of the developing world, whether we're looking at India or Cameroon or Colombia, the fact of the matter is that ministers are paid a small sum and do find it difficult to survive on those salaries," he said. "On the other hand, the fact of the matter is that in those cases, the means of sustaining or increasing their take-home pay is really to become involved in very large contracts where the distortion of public finances is rather serious and the implications for society as a whole are likewise very serious."