TOKYO, Nov 28: The Sept 11 attacks have exposed hidden pockets of corruption in Asia’s financial system, Asian Development Bank officials said on Wednesday at the start of a three-day conference on battling corruption in Asia.
Officials at the Manila-based multilateral institution said Asia needs to do more to root out corruption after money laundering networks and suspicious non-governmental agencies were unearthed in the wake of the hijacked airline attacks on America.
“September 11 opened our eyes about corruption even more,” said Jak Jebes, an adviser on governance at the ADB, which provides soft loans to Asia’s developing countries, some of which, like the Philippines and Pakistan, are also on the front line in the U.S.-led “war on terrorism”.
The Tokyo meeting, organised by the ADB and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), aims to get 24 member counties from both the ADB and OECD to endorse an action plan on Friday to root out corruption in Asia.
There are few sacred cows in the plan. It tackles money laundering, government bribes, the tidying up of scandal-tainted courtrooms and a list of other areas from corporate governance to the issuing of public licences.
Officials said the plan, outlined in an eight-page draft, is not legally binding and allows countries to reform at their own pace. But countries involved need to identify areas to reform and development loans would be tied to how these are dealt with.
“The plan is an open commitment,” Shoji Nishimoto, director of strategy and policy at the ADB, told Reuters.
“If it is a commitment, and it is well known both inside and outside the country, it will give sufficient pressure for them to follow up with what they endorsed,” he said.
“But it’s almost impossible to force anything on the borrowers. We can only give them encouragement and support. At the end of the day it is really the recipient country’s people who will drive the pace, speed and form of the plan.”
ASIA’s BATTLE WITH CORRUPTION: Rooting out corruption has taken on new urgency in Asia since the Sept 11 hijack assault on America.
Since the attacks, the United States has sought to track and identify sources of funding for global terrorism, including Saudi-born militant Osama bin Laden — whom the United States blames for the attacks — and his al Qaeda network.
The extent of the al Qaeda networks, and how much money flows through them, is unclear. But pressure has mounted on Asian nations with large Muslim populations to crack down on money laundering and suspicious groups, including some non-governmental organisations.
“We’re not in the best position to police. But we will try to eliminate the opportunity by improving the supervisory system on the transaction side when it comes to money laundering,” said Nishimoto.
The joint ADB-OECD plan aims to tackle other forms of corruption that have existed long before the attacks — from bank bribes, rigged construction tenders that allow firms with strong government ties unfair advantages to illegal logging.
Officials said they have already had some success in Indonesia in helping reform the banking system.
But questions hang over whether some key countries in the region will join the ADB-OECD anti-corruption drive, including China — long a hotbed of corruption before a crackdown that helped it join the World Trade Organisation this month.
On Wednesday it was uncertain whether China would endorse the plan at the end of the Tokyo meeting on Friday.
“Of the 24 participants, not all of them are ready to endorse the action plan yet, but we expect the bulk of the participating governments will be prepared and ready to endorse,” Nishimoto said. The ADB’s Jebes said he expected most countries to be on board by next year.
“Within a country’s system it takes a while for a document like this to be discussed, and accepted, and countries really have to do it in their own way,” he said. “I am sure that any country that has not endorsed it this time will probably take a little bit more time and probably endorse it next year.”—Reuters