Corruption is plain evil and concerted efforts must be made by the global community at banishing it from the face of the earth. That maybe easier said than done but one suggestion is to pay top dollar to top officials. In that way corruption can at least be reduced though not removed altogether.
In its latest rankings, Singapore emerged 7th in global listings, from its once stratospheric ratings in the 1990s.
Corruption diminishes the quality of life in every country. That includes the rich, the poor and peoples all over the world yearning for that inalienable right to a better life.
Though it is not possible to pin down corruption right down to its brass tacks, corruption can only mean anything derived dishonestly either from monetary inducements, favours of some kind or simply by backhand methods that expose all and sundry to questions of propriety. In that case, would workplace favouritism too, be considered as a corrupt and questionable method as such behaviour has proven to devalue and detract away from productivity?
Looking to government for leadership is as given as watching the sunrise every morning and in desperate times leadership without venality is the crucial difference that makes a country tick.
The exposure of rampant influence peddling in the United States underlines the need for a body to regulate financial reform and lobbying methods in wealthy nations.
In poorer nations we wind up with the cyclical mushrooming of corruption and poverty where each feeds the other. High illiteracy and manipulation by the government of its people is but one facet of the harshness of life in Indonesia, for example. The mistrust causes such an unbridgeable divide that in extreme cases nations become ungovernable, according to the New Zealand Herald in an article published in 2005.
Poorer nations of all countries need the type of freedom for them to speak and publish their views. And when regimes clamp down on free assemblies as we often see in Myanmar; it is only because of the threat free speech pose to corrupt leaders.
So the next time when a natural disaster, or a calamity of any magnitude takes place somewhere in the world, it is only fair that aid be assigned to those nations that are free of corruption.
Only a few countries qualify in this enviable list, and as we close, it is quite a bit of a shame that just few countries out of the 190 in the world qualify for this enviable category.