A clerical officer of the National Housing Trust (NHT) has been arrested on fraud charges. So have been two Jamaica Public Service employees in Montego Bay. Ever since these stories broke, I have been naively waiting to see if anyone else will be arrested.

In the NHT case, it is alleged that the officer who handled the resale of repossessed NHT houses collected money from potential purchasers to put their names at the top of the list since the properties were going fast. One man claimed to have paid $2 million to be well-positioned on several houses. The police were called in based on the complaints of disgruntled persons who were getting neither house nor getting back money deposited.

money returned

In the case of the JPS employees, they were arrested for allegedly collecting money from a customer who had an illegal connection at his business place. The fee of $50,000 was for not reporting the irregularity. The men were asked to return for the money. The police, in the meantime, were alerted and the JPS employees were arrested in the act of collecting their fee.

Not a whisper or word about the other parties in these alleged acts of bribery.

Corruption is rife in Jamaica. On this year's Corruption Perception Index of Transparency International, Jamaica ranks 96th out of 180 countries. And the Human Development Index of the UNDP parallels closely the CPI of TI. The Bruce Golding administration came to office vowing to root out corruption. But corruption is not an issue with government only; it is also rife in private enterprise.

It takes two to tango. Someone has to be willing to accept a bribe and someone has to be willing to pay. While it is generally taken for granted that the acceptor is the initiator and wields greater power because they control the allocation of a scarce resource, this is not always true, as in the case of drug traders who can bring enormous resources and pressure to the bribery of state officials.

Justice requires symmetry, a long and hallowed principle in law, which is, unfortunately, slowly fading away. A good case of its robust survival is in the treatment of stolen goods. A person who buys goods knowingly below market price or without required documentation is liable to face criminal charges of collusion with the original thief and to have the goods forfeited without compensation.

But someone who reports that he or she is the other half of a bribery pair is allowed to walk away free. The persons who reported that they paid the NHT officer for special favours have, in effect, confessed that they have breached the law. There can be no reason why they should not be taken before the courts like the person who promised them special favours.

why that charge?

I have seen no dispute that the business operator who called in the police on the JPS employees to be paid off had an 'irregular' connection to the JPS power system. Why then is he not arrested on a charge of stealing electricity and defrauding the JPS? The police should not complain if suspicions are raised that they too were bribed to overlook the irregularity.

The police, against the principle of symmetry for justice, will be quick to answer that the complainants are important as witnesses in the cases against corrupt officials and if complaints are not prosecuted then bribery and corruption will continue to flourish. The system has come to regard the payers/complainants as victims who are ill done by the receiver of the bribe. We refuse to see them as what, in fact, they are: perpetrators of crime. Certainly, in the NHT case, bribers could not claim that they would have no reasonable opportunity to receive fair access unless they paid a bribe under duress. They voluntarily paid in order to negotiate an unfair advantage over other potential purchasers.

The businessman who called the police in on the alleged JPS bribers did so with the understanding from the way the system operates that his own fraudulent behaviour was likely to be overlooked. It shouldn't. If payers can continue to pay with impunity and may even rely upon the state to help them to recoup losses, bribery will continue just as much as if the paid are left undisturbed.

One of the positive consequences of symmetry in justice is that it dissuades people from involvement in criminal action. Laws of aiding and abetting, collusion and conspiracy were intended to have precisely this effect. And crimes would be drastically reduced if there were many more prosecutions under these laws.

costly Corruption

Corruption is costly. The World Bank Institute (WBI) has estimated that more than US$1 trillion is paid in bribes each year. And they are mostly talking about bribery involving state services. The size of the world economy at the time was estimated at just over US$30 trillion.

WBI data shows that countries that tackle corruption and improve their rule of law can increase their national incomes by as much as four times in the long run. Countries like Botswana (36), Chile (23), Costa Rica (47) and Slovenia (26), which have curtailed corruption to levels comparable to those of many wealthy industrialised countries, challenge the popular notion that a country needs to become rich in order to address corruption, the Institute says (CPI rankings in parentheses). In fact, higher per capita national incomes result from improving governance, rule of law and corruption control.

Revisiting the wisdom of anti-corruption agencies and traditional legal initiatives, the WBI says the overall record of anti-corruption agencies (which are often created for political expediency and at the expense of difficult systemic reform) is mixed at best. So is the focus on redrafting laws. This suggests that a shift away from these agency-creation and/or traditional legal initiatives may be warranted. Instead what is needed, the Institute proposes, is moving towards much more focus on incentives, prevention, and systemic institutional and regulatory reforms focusing on existing public, private and civil society institutions.

Further, anti-corruption efforts cannot succeed only by actions of a few government agencies. Civil society, the media, Parliament, the judiciary and the private sector must be involved in a participatory way.

Martin Henry is a communications consultant. Feedback may be sent to medhen@gmail.com or columns@gleanerjm.com