Essay 2

September 17th, 2007
Laura Calderón
EAP2 C Writers Workshop


Fighting Corruption

In the article: “Fighting Corruption is a Global Concern” Zussman (2005) explains why corruption should be fought in the entire world. First he points out that there was an anti-corruption conference in Beijing that helps Canadians fight corruption. Then, he explains that transparency shows corruption around the world and that many countries have been working together to end corruption in public and private sectors. Next, the author shows how corruption requires huge amounts of money not just in bribery, also in money laundering, which could be used to end poverty around the world. Zussan states that many countries are worried about corruption because it makes worse citizen’s quality of life, obstructs economy development and weakens people’s trust in government. After that, he tells us that the conference in Beijing concluded that there are at least four ways to fight corruption: more laws against corruption, citizen’s involvement and interest, hard implementation of the policies and placement of special people in leadership roles. Finally he gives the example of Canada, where these principles conduced to cooperation between public and private sector in the battle against corruption and therefore Canada is one of the best-placed countries in improving laws and policies to fight corruption in and out of government.

It is apparent that the author’s opinion is right in this article. Corruption is a huge problem that affects every country in the world and every country should try to fight it, even if it is expensive and risky. The author’s idea should be supported because corruption diminishes citizen’s quality of life, leads to violence and interferes with economic development.
At first, corruption should be fought because it affects citizen’s quality of life. Corruption takes money away from public investments that increase citizen’s quality of life. For example if the government gives one million dollars for building a new school, the person that chooses which enterprise is going to make the construction, chooses an enterprise that tells the government that the construction costs one million dollars, but in fact the construction just costs $800’000 and $200’000 go to the person that choose this enterprise. That means that the school will not be as good as it was supposed to be. In addition, corruption increases the number of poor people. For example if there is some money set for poor people, politicians, most of them wealthy, take a part of it, and the poor people receive less money. Consequently, corruption makes worse citizen’s life.
Second, we should find solutions for corruption because it increases violence. First, many criminals pay huge amounts of money in order to not be sent to prison or in order to get out from prison. For example, if a criminal is accused of murder and all the evidence shows that he is guilty, he can pay a considerable amount of money to the judge, who will make some arrangements to let him free. This will allow him to keep making crimes. Second, many honest people get killed by corrupt people. For example, in Colombia, some journalists that want to denounce corrupt acts and write in the newspapers or talk on the radio must leave the country because some of them have been killed. Because of these reasons, corruption must be fought.

Finally, corruption interferes with economic development. First, corruption affects competition. For example, if a government just makes contracts with enterprises that give it money, enterprises will focus on giving money to that government, and not on creating new products of better quality at a better price. Moreover, international investments decrease in corrupt countries. For example if an American enterprise is looking for a country for make an investment and has to choose between two countries that offer the same facilities, but one is more corrupt than the other, the enterprise will certainly choose the less corrupt one because it represents less risks. Therefore, it is very important that every country does everything that it can to end corruption.

In conclusion, corruption is very negative for every country and as the author of the article “Fighting Corruption is a Global Concern” claims it is a global concern and we all should fight against it. Corruption is very harmful because it causes poverty, increases violence and diminishes economic development. However, if every single individual makes something against corruption, it will certainly decrease, but if not, it will continue to develop and would be impossible to stop. As a result, everything will be influenced and controlled by money.

References
Zussman,D. Fighting Corruption is a Global concern. Ottawa Citizen. October 11, 2005.