In 2003, the United Nations General Assembly designated 9 December as the International Anti-Corruption Day. In a year where one of the defining images was of our parliamentarians waving wads of cash during the trust vote and India actually slipped from 72nd position to 85th position in Transparency International’s corruption index, this is a good opportunity to reflect on our failure to tackle corruption.

There is no dearth of analysis on the causes of corruption. The nexus between politicians and bureaucrats, patronage politics, the structural failures of accountability, lack of transparency in administrative procedures and our own complicity in perpetuating corruption have been the subject of many newspaper articles and research. One aspect that has received relatively less attention is that of the systems and mechanisms put in place by the state to redress corruption, specifically the anti-corruption agencies tasked with investigation and prosecution.

Effective enforcement measures are one small element of a wider strategy to tackle corruption. The primary purpose they serve is to create an environment of deterrence. In a recent study on monitoring corruption in Indonesia, economist Ben Olken found that incidents of corruption — unaccounted expenditures on material procurement and wages—on a rural roads project reduced significantly when local officials were informed that their expenditures might be audited by the government. These findings demonstrate that in the absence of deterrents, corruption becomes a low risk activity. It is for this reason that strengthening anti-corruption enforcement mechanisms is a worthwhile endeavour.

At the centre, corruption cases against senior public officials are handled by the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC). The CVC is a statutory body with substantial independence. However, its role is merely advisory and this is its greatest weakness. The CVC has no powers to take action when its recommendations are not complied with. Not surprisingly, there are many instances of non-compliance. According to the CVC’s latest annual report, 225 cases imposing major penalties on officers were not complied with.

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