Transparency International

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Transparency International (TI) is an NGO operating under the slogan "fighting corruption worldwide"[1]. The organisation's stated mission is "the relief of poverty, suffering and distress in any part of the world caused directly or indirectly by corruption", "the promotion, for the public benefit, of ethical standards of conduct and compliance with the law by the public and private sectors in international and domestic business transactions and overseas development initiatives", and "increasing awareness of corruption and its effects through communication initiatives to the wider public and active engagement with our membership"[2].

However, investigative journalist Greg Palast says, "Transparency International is itself a corrupted organization - a kind of bribery cartel".[3]

Writing in The Guardian, Calvin Tucker describes the tension between the media perception and funding of Transparency International. He argues:

The international corporate media considers TI to be a reliable source, despite the fact that almost all their funding comes from western governments and big business. The British government is one of the major donors, contributing £1 million in 2007. Other donors include the US government, Shell and ExxonMobil.[4]

History

Transparency International was founded in 1993 by Peter Eigen, Michael Hershman, Jeremy Pope, Laurence Cockcroft, Joe Githongo, Michael Hershman, Kamal Hossein, and Frank Vogl[5]. Founding member Jeremy Pope described in an interview the emergence of an idea "that a group could organise to campaign against corruption on the part of the rich multinationals in the North as one way of helping the South with the problem that it was experiencing"[6].

Jeremy Pope traces the early sources of funding for TI when he says "the initial money was provided by the Rowntree Foundation, and the Nuffield Foundation. The German development agency guaranteed their rent, and then, the Ford Foundation came in. "Finally, what really made TI was when USAID came with about $3 million. At that stage, I decided I didn't want to manage this thing anymore."[7].

According to Jeremy Pope the World Bank dismissed corruption as a political issue and refused to broach the topic until James Wolfenson became the president of the organisation. Pope describes this example of a shift in policy towards corruption as important because "One of our missions in TI was to reverse the policies of the World Bank, United Nations Development Programme and so on, on the corruption issue and very quickly, we’ve achieved them. It was really quite phenomenal. We thought it might take about 10 years and it had taken months rather than years."[8].

Activities

Corruption Perceptions Index 2006 by Transparency International. http://www.transparency.org/policy_research/surveys_indices/cpi/2006

Transparency International publish a Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), which according to Jeremy Pope "was developed because journalists kept asking, "Who were the worst countries? Who were the best?"[9]. The organisation are operate a series of five programmes each tackling corruption in a different area. The programs are designated the following topics:

  • Programme 1 - Corruption in the Infrastructure, Construction and Engineering Sector
  • Programme 2 - Defence Against Corruption
  • Programme 3 - UK Anti-Corruption Strategy and Implementation of International Conventions
  • Programme 4 - Domestic Corruption and Reform of Corruption Law
  • Programme 5 - Increasing Awareness of the Impacts of Corruption and Fraud[10].

Controversy

Controversy

Investigative Journalist Greg Palast subjects Tranparency International to strong criticism, he argues "one of its big benefactors is Balfour Beatty construction - Britain's 'Halliburton' - which has admitted to massive bribery. Five years ago I reported how the former chairman of Transparency International's backer, "announced with enormous pride that he personally had handed over the check to the government minister for the Pergau Dam bribe."[11].

Palast goes on to describe the way they operate "TI's support comes from bribe payers who want to reduce their pay-outs -- but not eliminate them or the edge they give over honest businesses". Of the corruption index he says "What is the source of the Transparency International corruption index? It runs "surveys" of corrupt countries by asking corrupt corporate leaders which nations they consider corrupt".

Jamaica

Beth Aub was the general secretary for the Jamaica chapter of Transparency International. She resigned her membership of the ‘global anti-corruption body’ in 2004, alleging corrupt practices such as "facilitation payments" by TI, a term she described as another name for bribery and corruption.[12]

Venezuela

In 2008 the organisation was criticised over its report on Venezuela entitled "Promoting Revenue Transparency".[13] The report examined the published accounts of oil companies in 42 different countries, and ranked them according to whether they were of high, medium or low transparency. The report claimed that Venezuela's state-owned oil firm PDVSA had failed to disclose basic financial information such as their revenues, royalties, and that they had not produced properly audited accounts. As a result, the report gave PDVSA the lowest possible ranking for transparency.

But it later emerged that the information on PDVSA's accounts was freely and publicly available. Further investigation uncovered that Transparency International's Venezuelan chapter was run by political opponents of the Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez, leading to claims of a bias by TI against the Venezuelan government.[14]

Calvin Tucker, co-editor of 21stcenturysocialism.com, wrote in an article in The Guardian that TI's "report on Venezuela, which was produced after months of research, is factually inaccurate in almost every respect." He adds, "Unsurprisingly, TI's damning report was seized upon by rightwing newspapers and websites and used as another stick with which to beat Venezuela's socialist president, Hugo Chávez."[15]

In reply to criticism of the report, TI said that they "stand by their report" and stand by the person who compiled the data, whom Tucker describes as an anti-Chávez activist who backed the 2002 military coup against democracy.[16]

It is worth asking why Venezuela's oil industry should be a particular focus of investigation. A possible reason is that Venezuela is one of very few countries with a state-run oil industry. The profits from its oil industry are put into social programmes.[17] In other words, its oil industry is not in the hands of the big oil companies, some of which are among the funders of TI.

Funders

ABB AMEC Anglo American
Bombardier BP International Consolidated Contractors
EBRD Fluor Corporation Halcrow Group
Hilti Corporation Hochtief International Federation of Inspection Agencie
ISIS Equity Partners KPMG Motorola
Novo Nordisk Obayashi Corporation Pfizer
PricewaterhouseCoopers Rio Tinto SGS
SIKA Skanska SNC Lavalin
Deutsche Bank
Between € 50,000 AND € 200,000:
Federal Foreign Office - Germany Royal Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs (DANIDA) Chr. Michelsen Institute - Norway
Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID) Ireland AID The Charles S. Mott Foundation USA
Over € 200,000:
European Commission Ministry for Foreign Affairs - Finland Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) - Germany
Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) US Agency for International Development (USAID) Department for International Development (DFID) - UK
Ministry of Foreign Affairs - The Netherlands Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD)
The Ford Foundation - USA AVINA Group - Switzerland Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA)
Royal Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Private Sector
TI also received "generous contributions" from participants in the Global Corporations for Transparency International (GCTI) initiative [18]:
Exxon General Electric Lafarge
Merck Norsk Hydro SAP AG
Shell International Sovereign Asset Management Sovereign Global Development Anglo American Nexen UBS
Companies participating in this initiative typically contribute 50,000 Euro per year to Transparency International.
Participants in private sector projects
ABB Amanco Bombardier
BP Calvert Consolidated Contractors
F&C Asset Management Fluor Corporation Halcrow
Hilti Hochtief International Federation of Inspection Agencies
ISIS Merck Motorola
Norsk Hydro Pfizer PricewaterhouseCoopers
Rio Tinto SGS Sika
Skanska SNC Lavalin TRACE
Individuals and Other Donors
William F. Biggs (USA) Hartmut Fischer (Germany) Arnesto Gonçalves Segredo (The Netherlands)
Basel Institute on Governance (Switzerland) Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE USA) Deutsche Investitions und Entwicklungsgesellschaft (DEG Germany)
European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) Fondation Pro Victimis (Switzerland) Gesamtverband Kommunikationsagenturen (GWA Germany)
KPMG IHK Frankfurt (Germany) Lahmeyer International
Ministry for Foreign Affairs Norway Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade New Zealand (NZAID) Partners of the Americas (USA)
Stockholm International Water Institute (Sweden) The World Bank (IBRD)

Source: [19]

Affiliations

See Also

Contact, References and Resources

Websites

Transparency International Secretariat
Alt-Moabit 96
10559 Berlin
Tel. +49-30-3438 20-0
Fax +49-30-3470 3912
Principal: www.transparency.org
Ireland: transparency.ie

Contact

Resources

References

  1. About Us, About Tranparency International UK, Transparency International, Accessed 29-June-2009
  2. Mission, About Us, Transparency International, Accessed 06-July-2009
  3. Greg Palast, Venezuela Corrupt? "Transparency International" Has Some Questions to Answer Itself, Greg Palast Journalism and Film, Accessed 06-July-2009
  4. Calvin Tucker, Seeing through Transparency International, The Guardian, Comment is Free, 22 May 2008.
  5. Jeremy Pope, Conversations:Anti-Corruption Crusader, Sun2Surf, 28-October-2005, Accessed 29-June-2009
  6. Jeremy Pope, Conversations:Anti-Corruption Crusader, Sun2Surf, 28-October-2005, Accessed 29-June-2009
  7. Jeremy Pope, Conversations:Anti-Corruption Crusader, Sun2Surf, 28-October-2005, Accessed 29-June-2009
  8. Jeremy Pope, Conversations:Anti-Corruption Crusader, Sun2Surf, 28-October-2005, Accessed 29-June-2009
  9. Jeremy Pope, Conversations:Anti-Corruption Crusader, Sun2Surf, 28-October-2005, Accessed 29-June-2009
  10. About Us, Strategic Plan 2007-2010, Transparency International, Accessed 06-July-2009
  11. Greg Palast, War on corruption? Not quite, Minister, The Guardian, 9-July-2000, Accessed 07-July-2009
  12. Bolaji Abdullahi, Bribery Scandal Rocks Transparency International, thisdayonline.com, 16-November-2004, Accessed 24-June-2009
  13. "Promoting Revenue Transparency", Transparency International, 27 April 2008, accessed 7 July 2009
  14. Calvin Tucker, Seeing through Transparency International, The Guardian, 22-May-2008, Accessed 06-July-2009
  15. Calvin Tucker, Seeing through Transparency International, The Guardian, 22-May-2008, Accessed 06-July-2009
  16. Calvin Tucker, Seeing through Transparency International, The Guardian, 22-May-2008, Accessed 06-July-2009
  17. Trent Hawkins, "Climate change -- the case for public ownership', Inhabitable Earth website, 16 February 2009, accessed 7 July 2009
  18. Who supports us, TI website, accessed 7 July 2009
  19. 2009 Global Corruption Barometer, TI website, accessed 7 July 2009