Where is corruption most rife: in India, the country from which, depending on your estimate, between $500bn and $1.5tr in illicit funds have been spirited overseas since 1947; or the countries in which those funds are deposited?
That was the question raised by AP Singh, the head of India’s Central Bureau of Investigation, in a speech to the first-ever Interpol Global Programme on Anti-Corruption and Asset Recovery, which opened in New Delhi on Monday. Singh pegged the amount of illegal Indian money held abroad at $500bn, or nearly 30 per cent of India’s 2010 GDP.
According to Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index 2011, the answer to our question is clear. In TI’s ranking from best to worst, India clocks in at 96 out of 192 countries, while Switzerland sits pretty at number nine. (New Zealand tops the list, perceived as the world’s least corrupt country.)
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But Singh might be letting India off lightly at the expense of the Swiss and others. In 2008, when the German government offered to provide the names of foreign citizens with money deposited in Lichtenstein’s LTG bank, countries like the Czech Republic, Spain, Italy and Finland accepted.
India declined to pursue the accounts of its citizens, prompting Transparency International India to report allegations “that this money belongs to the rich and powerful politicians, industrialists and stock brokers and that is [the reason for] the reluctance on the part of Government of India.” Full story...
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That was the question raised by AP Singh, the head of India’s Central Bureau of Investigation, in a speech to the first-ever Interpol Global Programme on Anti-Corruption and Asset Recovery, which opened in New Delhi on Monday. Singh pegged the amount of illegal Indian money held abroad at $500bn, or nearly 30 per cent of India’s 2010 GDP.
According to Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index 2011, the answer to our question is clear. In TI’s ranking from best to worst, India clocks in at 96 out of 192 countries, while Switzerland sits pretty at number nine. (New Zealand tops the list, perceived as the world’s least corrupt country.)
(...)
But Singh might be letting India off lightly at the expense of the Swiss and others. In 2008, when the German government offered to provide the names of foreign citizens with money deposited in Lichtenstein’s LTG bank, countries like the Czech Republic, Spain, Italy and Finland accepted.
India declined to pursue the accounts of its citizens, prompting Transparency International India to report allegations “that this money belongs to the rich and powerful politicians, industrialists and stock brokers and that is [the reason for] the reluctance on the part of Government of India.” Full story...
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