JAMAICA DID not receive a rating by Transparency International on that agency's perception of corruption index this year due to "insufficient data". Last year's rating of 3.5 out of 10 placed the country towards the high corruption end of the scale. By its very nature as an under-the-table operation, corruption is difficult to measure. But there is little doubt that we are operating in a high-corruption environment.
One of the significant causes of corruption is the host of concessions which the Government gives to various sectors and entities, including to its own employees. The World Bank in one of its annual World Development Reports stated the obvious that corruption flourishes where distortions in the policy and regulatory system provide scope for it. That is, in an environment with "perverse underlying incentives in public service".
On Sunday we reported one more instance of corruption through concessions. This time it is the concession for the importation of vehicles at lower duties by some categories of public sector workers. Only one agency, the Jamaica Cane Farmers Association, has been cleared by RPD investigators for honest use of its concession by members. According to head of the RPD, Mike Surridge, "the level of fraud is enormous and everybody is trying to cash in..." Among those implicated are some Parish Councillors.
The perpetrators of this extensive fraud are not necessarily more dishonest than ordinary persons. The root of the problem is the loophole created by the concession in an environment of high punitive duties on vehicle imports.
We have seen the same effects with concessions to "Informal Commercial Importers", for example, and in any number of other cases of offering special benefits to some, which amounts to punishment for the rest.
Undoubtedly any Government may need to offer concessions from time to time, but the inevitable distorting and corrupting effects of special benefits to some should be carefully weighed with great deliberation. Even the food stamp programme, aimed at the poorest, has been deeply corrupted. In the case where the state is making tax claims on private resources, certainly the proverbial level playing field is the ideal.
The opinions on this page, except for the above, do not necessarily reflect the views of The Gleaner.
