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| Special The requested resource (/editor/default/) is not availableReport |
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The requested resource (/editor/default/) is not available
| Points of View: Government |
Government priority to establishing public sector transparency is key to its sustainability. The Development Gateway
asked government officials - from three countries
about the challenges to putting in place transparency where it had previously not existed.
The following composite interview (see interview contributors by country, to right) raises issues about the obstacles and the promises of public sector transparency.
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 Why is public sector transparency important and what are the incentives for governments to make themselves transparent?
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 Lebanon
For any government, the most important incentive to be transparent is to make citizens, whether representing themselves or an
organization, realize that their interactions with the public sector are based on solid and accountable principles and that their
paid duties in direct or indirect taxes will be used in the best way possible. Within the context of democracy, transparency in
government will allow a greater participatory role for different sectors of society in policy formulation or decision-making
process. For governments of developing countries that are in need of international (technical or financial) assistance from the donor
community, the incentive to be transparent is quite rewarding for national socio-economic development across all sectors. Once a trusted
relationship develops between these two parties, it is quite likely that additional rounds of assistance to the country will be provided.
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Guatemala
Incentives for the government to embrace transparency are of variable nature such as:
a) people's trust it heir government and governors,
b) a more active civic participation,
c) getting the government action plans done,
d) getting the help and support of the international community,
e) getting in concordance with international treaties and agreements,
f) work evaluation of government officers.
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Tanzania
The government is supposed to provide services to its citizens, and at the same time get the resources it requires to deliver
services from its citizens through taxation and other levies. This would enhance the effective mobilization and use of public
financial resources achieved through people’s understanding of their rights and obligations. Likewise this also encourages
accountability and responsibility of public sector employees and the citizens they serve. It is therefore very
important for the government to be very transparent in the way it handles its affairs to avoid ill feelings and to harness
more support from its citizens.
Transparency is also a fundamental element of an open, fair, and honest public sector. Important elements of transparency
include adequate notice, publication, and record-keeping of major government actions. These elements enable the reduction of corruption and an
increase in accountability, giving citizens a better understanding of the government decisions and therefore enabling them to
understand the policies of their government. Openness and fairness in public sector activities cannot be achieved without
transparency in the public sector. Any alternative could potentially result in de-motivation of citizens, leading to anarchy and chaos
in the country. Transparency also promotes sustainable economic growth; an open and transparent procurement process gives new entrants the
confidence to compete for public contracts. Public Sector Transparency provides the incentive for political will and forms an integral
part of any good governance process.
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| Does civil society involvement always yield good results? |
Lebanon
With a very diverse and productive civil society in Lebanon, a wide range of national issues have been brought forward by government for open and
participatory discussions. From citizens’ rights to access information, to a variety of charters, to public service improvement, to national
awareness campaigns, civil society in Lebanon has been greatly involved with government. While this involvement has resulted in advancing
transparency in government in different domains, there has been no quantifiable measure as to the extent of these good results. Also, the fact
that civil society, particularly in Lebanon, through its national, regional and international networks has access to numerous technical assistance
and financing partners adds to their effective role in making government more transparent. Through these networks, best practices in promoting
government transparency can be exchanged between different civil society groups in different countries or regions.
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Bolivia
In 1995, I was involved with the founding of Transparency International in Germany to help mobilize
civil society. In 1994, Bolivia had passed a decentralization law which also played an important
role in transparency. Through this law, citizens in neighborhoods were allowed by law to demand
access to information and to participate in budgets. The neighborhoods work through what are called
“vigilante committees”, making a five year neighborhood plan and overseeing execution of the budgets.
This process is working well, because we borrowed the term from Bolivia's long history of revolutionary
movements. We used the same names because people understood the concept but this time they were
working for a democratic process, instead of fighting dictatorships. Under this system, if the elected
committee thinks the mayor is using money inappropriately, they fill out a complaint that goes to the
minister in charge of decentralization. The minister has a certain number of days to make an
investigation. If grounds for the complaint are warranted, the complaint is sent to the Senate. The
Senate has a certain number of days to act, ending up in freezing the funds of that municipality. This
already has happened and, as a result, elected officials are now more careful.
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Tanzania
Yes, it does. This is because civil society is needed everywhere as it is the key for access to the values and ethical
standards in cultural diversity. Governments will need the support and involvement of civil society everywhere to mobilize
people to link the reform measures and integrity systems with interests and experience of the people in different
parts of the world. For example, in the fight against corruption, involvement of civil society is more than mere talk.
Where the reach of the government is limited, where government fails to act or is reluctant to take on new challenges, civil
society stands ready to act.
Civil society involvement is important and welcome since through its participation it challenges the government to take the right
decisions. Through partnership with civil society, the government can establish a feedback mechanism which enables it to get the right
information to feed into its decision making process. It enables the government to get genuine feedback on its performance.
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Guatemala
In general terms the answer should be yes. But legal frameworks should be enforced, such as the free-access to information
law (actually in hearings at the Congress), and mechanisms of civil participation and public denouncement of illegal acts.
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| What tools have proved themselves sustainable and effective to increase transparency? |
Lebanon
On the operations level, Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) have proved sustainable and effective in
increasing transparency in government in both the presentation of information and the fulfillment of transactions.
Whether through information portals, where all government forms and related information are available,
or online transaction sites, for online customs processing, transparent information and services have
been effectively delivered to the citizens for many years now. From the awareness point of view, the most important tool to increase
transparency in government in Lebanon has been the media through its multiple delivery platforms, such as print, radio and TV. The media
sector in Lebanon is among, if not, the most advanced in the Arab world with the power to deliver publications and broadcasts in at least four
languages. This strength provides the means to push topics associated with increasing transparency to a wide and multi-lingual audience. Within the realm
of media, the advertising sector in Lebanon is very solid and produces work for national and regional clients in the public and private
sectors. The creativity in the advertising sector has had an effect on delivering transparency supportive messages through a schematic
with a few words if any. The citizens’ charter and the municipal voting procedures are but two examples that can be mentioned here.
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Bolivia
When we started to look into municipality problems, we found that no one knew what was really happening anywhere. So my first
task was to produce a manual for the citizens. Over the next two years, we forced government employees to record what they were
doing, how long it took to perfrom certain services, how much it would cost, and who would have to do it. We found a lot of overlap
because there were lots of people who didn’t really do anything or people doing things they weren’t allowed to do. I had to fire
about 2,000 people in the first year which was about 40 percent of the labor force, because these people had just been hired for political
reasons. The manual was an important step for government transparency. It informed citizens about how much things like building
permits cost, how to ask for services, who is supposed to be doing that, how long it would take to deliver the service, etc.
When I left to go into national politics, things were beginning to clear up. Unfortunately, there was a return to the
old ways. I returned as mayor but other politicians didn’t want to change, so they pulled a coup and I was deposed as mayor in 1987. But something
interesting began to happen. As a result of earlier efforts to clean things up, the municipality had been kind of immunized, against
corruption. The next three mayors ended up going to jail. When politicians returned to their old habits, people started to use the Xerox
copier to document illegal contracts and checks. They gave these to the press leading to convictions of dishonest politicians. In the end, La Paz became a city
fairly clean of corruption.
One of my projects for the next time I become mayor is to start kiosks or telecenters where people can go to get information and make
requests. This would be a big investment but in the long run it would save money. The transaction costs for citizens trying to do it
manually or verbally is expensive if you need to talk to somebody and have to take time off. It is more efficient with computers where you can go online
at midnight if you have to. However, this kind of e-government is not realistic for Bolivia in the near future. Poor people don’t have computers, although
many people use internet cafes. Many people are illiterate. They like talking to someone face-to-face and don’t want to talk to a machine. This will have to be introduced
gradually for some online services, such as paying taxes through the computer. Right now, most of our government investments are going to basic
infrastructure. In Bolivia, more than 60% of the population lives in cities and we need to get water to people, pick up garbage, take care of sewage, etc.
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Tanzania
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There are four tools of noteworthy value:
- Information and Communication Technology (ICT): Government transparency can be achieved through electronic
government. Corruption can be reduced by reorganizing government activities such as licensing, permit approval and creating an online
monitoring system to track each application.
- Participatory budgeting, in which the government invites stakeholders to comment on its budget.
- Access to information. This will enable citizens to know what the government is doing and how taxes are levied.
- Ability of the Government to report matters openly.
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Guatemala
Fundamentally the legal ones that typify bad behavior and go unpunished, as well as stronger penalties for those criminal
figures to judge corrupt public officers and more efficient judicial procedures judging those acts. Those
instruments should be better used with the help of technological means.
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| In your opinion, what are the challenges and costs of transparency? |
Lebanon
I view the main challenge of transparency is keeping matters of national economy and security importance out of public
eyes. In other words, the challenge of transparency is to set the proper criteria for publicly disclosing what needs to be
disclosed. If the criteria are too broad, then information can get in the wrong hands. On the contrary, if they are too
narrow, transparency itself becomes at risk i.e. government enclosure. Within this context, the challenge of constantly
monitoring what needs and does not need to be exposed surfaces. As for the costs of transparency, tThe requested resource (/editor/default/) is not availablehere is no simple
method to quantify these. With more ICT solutions in government for information presentation and formalities
processing, more transparency is attained. Similarly, with more media and advertising initiatives, more
transparency is delivered. The costs hence are in some sense directly proportional to the level of transparency
sought in government. The more transparent a government wants to be the more costly and vice versa. There are also costs
associated with a government being overly transparent. For example, when being overly transparent leads to reducing the competitive
advantage of a national economic sector of a country, then the cost becomes enormous as all stakeholders associated with potential
investments in this sector lose capital and related gains.
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Bolivia
Bolivia was—and still is—one of the poorest countries in Latin America. When I was mayor, most people earned
about US$8-15 per month. Corruption was rampant at all levels and systemic within society because everyone was
trying to survive. The more honest people were clocking in and out, then going somewhere else to work. But, most
people were stealing gasoline, spare parts, typewriters, whatever. When I first was elected mayor, I was about
30 years old. I discovered there was not enough money to even pay salaries at the end of the month. It was a very
challenging situation.
We also started to reform the system of property registration in La Paz. The current system was a source of
total corruption. One day, you might try to sell your home and then discover that, five years ago,
according to the books, your home had been transferred to somebody else and that a third party had already
bought the home. Someone might show up at your door and say he was the owner, asking if you were a tenant.
There was also rampant corruption in altering property registration, since taxes were paid based on the
size of the property and the quality of construction. I was the first mayor who published these accounts.
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Guatemala
Any cost incurred while applying transparency is always rewarded as to those benefits of the transparency
itself. For that, any effort that the government should
have an effect in the short or mid-term. In economic terms, the cost for a country like ours is high
because you have to make great investments in the control agencies, but they should be implemented.
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Tanzania
The major challenge is to fight through the prohibitive rules and regulations in service delivery, so that the
people are free to give their opinions, and the government to accept the opinions of the people without
being defensive. The costs involved would be to change these rules and regulations. Globalization is also
seen as a challenge, but for which it is difficult to measure the short term costs.
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The requested resource (/editor/default/) is not available
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 Raymond Khoury, Director of the Technical Cooperation Unit (TCU) for Lebanon’s Office of the Minister of State for Administrative Reform. NEW! |
 Ronald MacLean-Abaroa, former mayor of La Paz, Bolivia and a co-founder of Transparency International. |
 Hugo Maúl Figueroa, Presidential Commissioner for Transparency and Anticorruption, Guatemala |
 Ramadhan S. Mlinga, Executive Secretary, Ministry of Finance, Central Tender Board |
| Vincent Kihiyo, Prevention of Corruption Bureau, Tanzania |
- Muslehuddin Ahmed, founding chairman of Civic Watch-Bangladesh and the Foundation for Education and Development
- Londa Esadze, coordinator of Georgia’s TraCCC Money Laundering Programme
- Eduardo Bohórquez, director of Transparencia Mexicana
- Codru Vrabie, executive director of Romania’s chapter of Transparency International
- S. J. Chavda, secretary of Tanzania’s Front Against Corrupt Elements
- Geir Sundet, from Tanzania’s Research on Poverty Alleviation
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- Harris Whitback-Piñol, Commissioner for State Reform, Decentralization and Civic Participation, Guatemala
- Thomas Riley, executive director of Commonwealth Centre for Electronic Governance, Canada
- Jerzy Szeremeta, ECOSOC and a principal author of the 2003 World Public Sector Report 2003 “E-Government at the Crossroads”, United Nations
- Steven Clift, consultant named to “The 25 Who Are Changing the World of Internet and Politics”, U.S.
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 How did Development Gateway members respond to our Public Sector Transparency Survey questions?
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| How does global transparency measure up? Charts and graphs on how transparency measures up. Click here. |
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