Five hundred dollars. That is what the harbourmaster is demanding to allow the ship into port.
The ship’s captain telephones head office. Can he pay? No, bribery is against the law. The harbourmaster lowers his demand to $50. The captain refuses. Days later the ship is allowed to dock, bribe unpaid. The delay costs the ship’s company $2m.
A second dilemma. A building inspector threatens to close your factory unless you have a risk assessment done by an outside consultant, who is the building inspector’s brother-in-law.
These were situations I heard discussed at a conference on corruption this week at London’s Chatham House. At the conference were business leaders, anti-corruption campaigners, lawyers and academics from around the world.
Their message was depressing. In spite of anti-bribery laws, corruption was everywhere, although it was changing. “The corruption gene is mutating,” one speaker said. It was no longer possible to walk into a UK bank with a suitcase of cash and open an account, but there were new forms of graft. For example, traffickers of girls were creating a web of corruption, just as heroin smugglers had.