Thoughts And Trivia

Volker committee report, instituted by UN has reported financial-scam of astronomical scale in UN sponsored Oil-For-Food program in Iraq. Is it not another example that our primordial-evolutionary ingrained programme makes human cheats, dishonest and hypocrites at heart.

So sad! This is nothing but snatching of food morsels from the hands of hungry Iraqis by a few influence wielders.
In general what are sure-shot ingredients which facilitate such large-scale corruption : -

• 1) When there is a large, artificial gap between the market-rate and the transaction-price. This gap is called "Rent" creation by Economist.


• 2) When such "Rents" are assigned, allocated or awarded in non-equitable, non-transparent and non-competitive manner, for reasons other than commercial.


• 3) When access to facts of such transaction is not made public for sake of commercial secrecy.


• 4) Even if 2) and 3) above are followed but when the group capable of such transactions is small and forms a cartel.

Why could such shenanigans escape the notice of press and public? What should be done?
Firstly UN should be reformed to conduct its business in competitive, transparent, equitable manner and in Public. It should also have an Ombudsman to look into such misdemeanors. There should also be external audit by independent experts.
Secondly, press and public has to be vigilant.
I also think UN should setup a mechanism to monitor large flows of moneys in the world economy and make these public. Drug trafficking, Terrorist funding, corruption and such scams would get detected. Violation of privacy of individuals and corporates is no arguments against it. After all commercial transactions are in public domain.

Business should be conducted like dogs do it - openly!

Posted by Girish Bhatnagar at Sunday, November 06, 2005