From Matangi Tonga Magazine Vol. 18, no. 3, December 2003.

By Pesi Fonua.

Corruption is hard to assess because it takes place in secret.

A study of the level of corruption in Tonga is expected to be completed before the end of the year, and made public by March 2004.

Dr Peter Larmour, from the National Centre for Development Studies at the Australian National University, the institution carrying out the study, said in Nuku‘alofa at the end of October that they will use the National Integrity Systems approach that was pioneered by Transparency International, and had been successfully carried out in 18 countries.

Peter said that NIS is the sum total of the laws, institutions and practices within a country that maintain the honesty and the integrity of government, and private sector institutions.

The study on Tonga began at the end of September and was carried out by Dr Kerry James, but it was commissioned by Transparency International Australia and funded by AusAID.

Peter said that Transparency International is an international body, which also has national chapters. In the Pacific Islands there are chapters in Fiji and in Papua New Guinea. “The main intention is corruption prevention, looking at the system and the way a country is organised to prevent corruption.

“Corruption is one of those things that is very hard to assess, because it always takes place in secret, and both sides usually end up being very happy. If someone wants to get a passport, and a corrupt official provides the passport, you pay the money, you are happy, and the official takes the money and he or she is happy. It is corruption, but it takes place in the dark and so no one sees it, but both parties are happy.”

Peter said that corruption takes place in every country in the world, but the benefit of the work that is carried out by Transparency International is that the issue of corruption is now openly discussed by the public.

“In Australia, we have a long running battle with corruption in the Police Force. There has been an independent commission to investigate corruption, but we still have outbreaks.” Peter said that often government deals with corruption by pointing at one or two people whom they punish by ‘hanging’ them. “It is not an effective way in the long run. The ideal situation is to set up a system that is resistant to corruption, and that is why there is a hope that some of the sector reforms that are going on in Tonga at the moment will make the system resistant to corruption.

“One of the things that creates opportunity for corruption is complicated detailed regulations, that gives bureaucrats discretion on whether to enforce them or not,” he said.

The Tonga study is part of a larger National Integrity Systems Pacific Island Countries Study, which will form an international overview. Each country research is being prepared in the same manner. At the same time the Pacific Country Studies will also look at the inter-action between traditional forms of governance and customary law on the one hand, and imported laws and institutions on the other.

Transparency International says the country studies are concerned with structures and systems, rather than investigating particular instances of corruption, or exposing and naming individuals. The organisation defines corruption in terms of “the use of public office for private gain” and the “misuse of power for private benefit”.

The project outline recognises that there may be differences between the law, traditional values and public opinion, and states, “Part of the job of the country studies will be to identify such differences, and how particular countries are dealing with t hem.”

Transparency International has mainly been concerned with official corruption, but the country studies may additionally cover corruption prevention in the private sector and non-government organisations.

Transparency international teaches that, “corruption engenders wrong choices. It encourages competition in bribery, rather than competition in quality and in the price of goods and services. It inhibits the development of a healthy marketplace and distorts economic and social development.

“Once the moral authority of managers is lost through corruption at higher levels, their ability to control their subordinates evaporates.”