CAPITALISM'S ACHILLES HEEL Dirty Money and How to

346 CAPITALISM’S ACHILLES HEEL
TOUGHER ON CORRUPTION
In Chapter 6 it was argued that fighting corruption has to be a top-down exercise.
The World Bank needs to put teeth into its anticorruption efforts, at
the highest levels of offending states.
Borrowing countries should face a requirement. Elected and senior appointed
officials are to declare their assets upon assuming office and pledge
to declare their assets again upon leaving office. Some countries choose to
require declarations now. The obligation should become normalized. If you
want to be a public servant, be transparent. The people who are clean and
intend to remain clean will not object. The poor in poor countries will add
their thanks to the World Bank for contributing to honesty in government.
There is another step that should match this in the drive to clean up
corruption in developing and transitional countries. Politically exposed persons
(PEPs) should be barred from financial account activity in western
countries. Anyone elected to public office or appointed to a senior administrative
position in a foreign government should, for the period of time the
position is held, have no transfers into or out of foreign financial accounts in
G-7, G-10, or OECD countries. Banks do not have to return legally accumulated
funds of serving officials, interest can still be earned, and principal
can still be managed. But no incoming or outgoing transfers. Present anticorruption
laws are not stopping raids on poor-country treasuries. Western
financial institutions can sever their own receptiveness to such corrupt proceeds
by freezing account activity while positions of public trust are held.
Thieves like Abacha, Mobutu, Suharto, Marcos, Montesinos, Pinochet,
Obiang, and thousands more should not be aided and abetted by responsible
western institutions. We cannot control their venality, but we can control
our cooperation with their venality. I’ve discussed freezing PEPs’
accounts with bankers and found a refreshing open-mindedness to the concept.
It is time major banks (such as the Wolfsberg group) did it now, without
waiting years for global unanimity.
REINING IN THE SUPPORT STRUCTURE
In delegitimizing dirty money, there are additional steps that should be
taken. The way to attack tax havens and secrecy jurisdictions is not frontally,