Improving the delivery of public services and the quality of public goods for the common man is the single most pressing reform essential to fertilize all others, and to improve inclusion and equity. The government is ours and is run by people like us. But poor systems have perverted incentives in governance. Public servants are also often unhappy in a stagnant and dysfunctional system. Reform to improve these systems is happening, slowly.
But what can we do to improve matters?
First, take a vow never to pay a bribe. With more alternatives available now, it is possible to live and work without having to bribe anyone. This is the only way to create a critical mass and break the norm of corruption that has set in.
How has a society that used the power of truth to defeat a colonial power become known today for corruption? Returns to corruption rise as a function of the number of corrupt in any society or organization, and can even exceed those to honesty. Even if returns to honesty are high initially they fall as the percentage of corrupt rise. So initial returns to corruption are low, but they rise at an increasing rate with the percentage of corrupt, before falling as corruption decreases activity. Initially society maybe at a low-level of corruption but an exogenous shock or organizational decay that raises the returns to corruption can lead to an escalating increase so that the majority becomes corrupt.
Corruption becomes the difficult to remove norm, and modes of sharing extra-legal payoffs become standard. Such shocks probably occurred in India around the seventies. First, political fragmentation weakened the government, and multiple power centers developed. Second, user charges were not raised in the face of large cost shocks, as populism increased. As public sector undertakings found it difficult to meet costs, salaries were also squeezed, encouraging extra-legal means of making money. The disease spread from the top. A former cabinet secretary has noted in his memoirs that as politics became a lucrative business with few checks and controls, political leaders could force civil servants to collude with them for mutual benefit. Service rules and procedures were progressively adapted to make this possible.
Second, we need to work to strengthen horizontal democracy for efficient delivery without corruption. Vertical democracy has survived in India, with regular elections and changes of government. But more continual engagement, or horizontal democracy, is required to create those missing checks and balances. Working with NGOs and using the RTI to force more transparency, showing more civic responsibility and participation in public life in our own local areas are ways we can contribute. It is important also to recognize and thank those who do good work in Government.
Third, politicians do respond to our demands, since they have to win elections. Finally, we get the government we deserve. So we have to send the right signals to them. We must stop asking for subsidies and sops, or responding to divisive slogans based on religion, caste and class. We must ask for a good infrastructure, schools and colleges, hospitals, clean air, which will allow each of us to work to our maximum potential. We must take voting seriously, go out in large numbers, select and reward those who work
and deliver.
by
Ashima Goyal
February 11, 2009
0 comments:
Post a Comment