In the Techniques section:
Techniques
Avoiding eTransparency Failure: Ideas About Resistance of Corrupt Staff
This page offers ideas about how to address one factor identified as important to the success or failure of e-transparency projects. Follow this link for more information about such factors (and some related case examples).
Idea 1: Raise Wages To Their Real Value
Bribes and other corrupt income are often seen by public servants as part of their overall wages. This may be particularly true in developing/transitional economies where basic wages can be very low and/or where a large "transfer fee" (i.e. bribe) might be paid by a public servant to enter a particular job that then needs to be recouped. Attempts to eradicate corruption mean a significant loss in salary for the public servants involved, perhaps to levels where they can no longer sustain their livelihoods. Recognising and wholly or partly compensating this loss through the formal wage system can help reduce resistance.
(From: Sam Lanfranco & Richard Heeks)
Idea 2: Change the Culture
Raising wages may work in some situations but the main evidence is that wage increases (at least alone) are not very effective in fighting corruption and, hence, are not very effective in heading off resistance. More effective will be 'softer' measures that seek to instill a sense of motivation and of mission in public servants, and that are made part of the broader context for e-transparency.
(From: Rita Santos)
Idea 3: Share The Benefits Of New Technology
The idea is that ICTs bring benefits. Typically these benefits are felt by clients or managers. They are not so often felt by the operational staff involved. Sharing some of the non-financial benefits of ICTs with those staff can help to offset some of the financial losses they incur through removal of corruption. For example, ICTs can be designed to enable better shift patterns, longer rest breaks, better working conditions or greater training. Such benefit-sharing can best be designed through discussion with the workers involved.
(From: Sam Lanfranco)
Idea 4: Name And Shame
Where it is undertaken as part of a multi-pronged attack on corruption, public exposure of corrupt staff can be effective. The Uganda Revenue Authority, as part of its development of a professional agency had photographs of corrupt officers published in newspapers with a clear warning to members of the public not to deal with them. The threats of such public disgrace can help to reduce resistance of staff to anti-corruption measures. A variation on this is to name and shame internally within the public agency, through a noticeboard or as part of the agency newsletter.
(From: David McLean & Moshtaq Ahmed)
Idea 5: Bypass The Corrupt Staff
ICTs enable disintermediation. eTransparency systems can therefore be designed that bypass corrupt staff. In Kerala, for example, the FRIENDS Centres were set up that allowed citizens to pay a number of bills and fees. These were new offices in new locations, thus completely removing the need for citizen interaction with corrupt staff in the existing Departments of government. Because the initiative was external to those Departments, it was harder to staff resistance to have an impact. Where staff contact with the public is merely automated/disintermediated by an e-transparency system sitting within the same department, then resistance may be more effective.
(From: Kannan Srinivasan & Moshtaq Ahmed)
Idea 6: Use The Private Sector
One tactic used by corrupt staff to resist e-transparency systems is to claim that the technology they are provided with is faulty, or outdated, or in some other way sub-standard. One way to combat this is to outsource construction and maintenance of the technology infrastructure to the private sector (e.g. on a BOOT basis - build, own, operate, transfer) with clear service level indicators. The service level agreement plus the greater 'distance' enjoyed by the private sector undermines the corrupt staff's tactic.
More generally, the private sector can be brought in to various parts of a public sector operation to help overcome internal staff resistance: a variation on the idea above about bypassing corrupt staff. However, privatisation of public services also brings its own problems.
(From: RK Dave)
Idea 7: Walk Before You Run
Don't go all out to eradicate all corruption with your first e-transparency project. Instead, target some small, feasible pocket of corruption where players lack political strength. When - and if - this succeeds, then build incrementally from that bridgehead.
(From: Richard Heeks)
Idea 8: Plan Quietly, Implement Quickly
Use the e-government equivalent of the surprise attack, planning and introducing the system before the 'enemy' can organise resistance. Of course, this will only work where the operational staff are willing to work the new system. A related notion is that of removing any mention of transparency and anti-corruption from project discussions and documents. Instead, they should focus on other potential system benefits such as reduced workloads or use of modern technology.
(From: Roy Mathew & V Venkatakrishnan)
Idea 9: Involve The Corrupt
A contrast to the 'surprise attack' idea is that of co-opting the enemy: the notion that e-transparency systems can only be successful if they have strong involvement and ownership from the public servants involved. Such involvement may require the re-design of systems to leave some corrupt practices intact.
(From: S Jagadish & Srinivas Noojilla)
Idea 10: Get Top-Level Support
None of these ideas will work without top-level support. Such support may come even if senior staff are corrupt: they may hope that attacking the corruption of lower-level staff can increase their own opportunities for income-generation, or at least help misdirect attention away from their own corruption. A much more explicit approach is to identify a high-level champion willing to be publicly identified as a "Corruption Buster", and willing to push on with the panoply of carrots and sticks that an effective fight against corruption requires.
(From: Murray Jennex, Rita Santos, Helga de Torres & Richard Heeks)
Idea 11: Get Front-Line Corruption In Perspective
The economic and social damage is not caused by the 'corruption of need' (front-line workers supplementing their low salaries to supply services and information) but the 'corruption of greed' (high-level officials perverting the judicial, executive and legislative systems to the interests of 'big money'). Avoid resistance of the front-line staff by designing around their corruption - allowing it to continue but also allowing ICTs to gradually pervade the public sector.
(From: Rita Santos & Richard Heeks)