Eliminating System-Induced Forced Corruption

There is a certain kind of corruption which is induced by the current systems/procedures/inefficiencies. The solution of making the system more effective is long term and cannot be easily addressed and hence will continue to encourage corruption.

A position of a “Public Procedures Officer” is required as a stop-gap arrangement for reducing system induced/ system forced corruption. This document summarizes this need.

Background

I would like to define 2 types of corruption - "Active" and "System Induced Forced Corruption".

Active corruption is the act of insisting on money for completion of a certain work - could be either to perform the duty or exceed the scope of duty.

• You want something done from someone. But you know it won’t get done till you pay a bribe. It’s a bribe for a public servant to perform his/her duty

• You want something outside the normal procedure. You pay a bribe and get it done. It’s a bribe for a public servant to exceed his authority

The other is SIFC - System Induced Forced Corruption.

The Problem

This form(SIFC) of corruption is initiated by the citizen as against the public servant in the former case. Majority of SIFC is due to a combination of the following reasons and usually involves the citizen “hiring” an agent to complete a government formality:

1. Procedure: Lack of clarity in the procedure, necessary forms and formalities to complete a certain work. Lack of clear guidelines, example forms, locations for form availability etc. A citizen attempts to get a work done at a government office. After multiple attempts at being told that his/her “application package” is incomplete, he/she is forced to hire an agent. There are limitation on the number of days a citizen can take time off their regular work to attempt to complete the “incomplete package” and the extent of this incompleteness is known only one step at a time.This agent usually has an “arrangement” with the public servant.
2. Lack of clear indications on timelines - Assuming that the application package is complete, how long does a citizen wait to get the response? There are no clear timelines on the same. Random answers at the government office causes a citizen to panic and again results in them hiring an agent.
3. Lack of accountability and escalation procedures - The most successful citizen has managed to submit the completed application after being reasonably certain how long it would take for processing and getting the appropriate response. But no response comes through. Who is responsible for this particular response? If there is a sequence of internal processing required, who coordinates it? Who front-ends it? How does a common man know who is supposedly the right person within a government organization? Who does he/she approach when work does not get completed within a certain timeframe? Again an agent is hired.

There could be several other reasons for the forced hiring of an “agent” and such a habit will continue unless a citizen’s 3 simple expectations are fulfilled:

1. Knowledge of Application procedure/package

2. Knowledge of expected timelines for completing a process

3. Knowledge of the exact officer who can be held accountable

If these 3 pieces of information are available to a citizen, then most of the agent hiring and SIFC would cease.

It does NOT MATTER whether the departments are slow or understaffed. That’s not the problem we are attempting to solve. Making government departments efficient is NOT THE most important task at hand.

Let’s accept the current state of efficiency as given. What is needed is KNOWLEDGE on how to handle the system in its current form. How does a citizen obtain this knowledge? This knowledge is critical to eliminate SIFC as we have seen.

Possible Solution - appointment of PPO (Public Procedure Officer)

The government has done a reasonably fine job with the RTI act and in appointing PIO’s and appellate authorities.

What we need is a PPO - a Public Procedures Officer for each department/office or whatever the case maybe.

For a moment let’s leave out the structure of such a PPO and focus on the roles of such a PPO.

Simple: A PPO needs to provide answers to a citizen on the 3 aspects mentioned above - procedure, timelines and accountability/escalation.

The methodology for providing this information can be easily arrived at once it has been accepted in principle that such an officer is required.

Without solving the problem of SIFC, we may only eliminate corruption marginally. Government servants are going to hide behind a maze of complicated procedures forcing agents to become the new route for bribes

Twitter: bmadhusudhan