MBR_ISSUE 47_JAN_LR

Malta Business Review
INTERVIEW OF THE MONTH
Evaluating corruption:
something rotten around the world
By Andre’ Camilleri
The universality of corruption hurts everyone whose life depends on the integrity of people in a position of authority. Corruption increases
poverty and inequality, prevents a free market and exploits marginalized groups. It increases the cost of doing business, leads to the
inefficient use of resources, excludes people from public services, perpetuating their social degradation, undermines the rule of law and
its is a major threat to human rights. This is why we need to combat corruption. DR ENRICO TEZZA is the co-author of a new book entitled
Evaluating Corruption: Something Rotten Around the World. Andre Camilleri met Dott Tezza when he participated in a conference on
professional ethics and how to safeguard the services to the consumer, which was organised by The Malta Federation of Professional
Associations
MBR: What made you want to write on
corruption?
ET: I have been studying evaluation of public
policy for 20 years within different public
authorities such as the Veneto Region or the
Italian Ministry of Labour. The focus of my
evaluation effort has been the logical link
between Output and Result, which leads to
the impact and related change in population
in needs. Even during my career at the
International Labour Organisation Turin
Centre, I developed an evaluation model
addressing to the effectiveness dimension of
programmes and projects.
In 2017, during the Green Economics
Conference in Oxford organised by the
Green Economics Institute, I was involved
in a discussion on corruption and I realised
how underestimated the evaluation
issue in dealing with corruption is. This
awareness leads to a study on a tentative
evaluation framework, subsequently
described in Evaluating Corruption, edited
in collaboration with the Green Economics
Institute.
MBR: Do you think that we can overcome
poverty by fighting corruption?
ET: Literature highlights that corruption
exacerbates conditions of poverty such as
low income, poor health and education
status, vulnerability to shocks and other
characteristics.
It is acknowledged that corruption increases
poverty and inequalities, prevents a free
market and exploits marginal groups.
Countries experiencing chronic poverty
are seen as natural breeding grounds for
systemic corruption due to social and
income inequalities and perverse economic
incentives. The casual relationship between
corruption and poverty has been proven
by several studies. Hence, corruption is
the main obstacle to fight poverty, since
corruption feeds itself from antipoverty
funds. Peter Eigen and Michael Wiehen,
former World Bank officials, founded
Transparency International, whose pressure
urged the international organisation to
recognise that corruption was the key
problem in poor countries. As a result,
considering the correlation between the
increase of poverty rate and the increase
of corruption in poor countries, the fight
against corruption has been ineffective.
However, fighting corruption remains the
priority for a development strategy. Needless
to say, anticorruption policies should be
accompanied by an ethical perspective able
to overcome private interests and public
office bias.
MBR: Which institutions do people
perceive as most corrupt?
ET: Alina Mungiu-Pippidi studied the
perception on Governmental institutions
and showed that all Members States have
regressed in controlling corruption since
Dr Enrico Tezza
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