Corruption erodes confidence

Businesses worldwide face an uphill struggle to wipe out corruption and restore public trust after the collapse of Enron, the world's top anti-corruption think tank said yesterday.

Launching its annual global corruption report, Transparency International said public confidence in governments and firms had fallen sharply over the past year, as one scandal followed another.

"The over-arching theme is one of trust," said TI's Jeremy Pope. "People just do not believe politicians any more; they don't trust the private sector any more."

Cataloguing cases of corruption and bribery across the world - from the Hobsons-Co-op cash-for-contracts scandal in Britain to police protection rackets in the Ivory Coast - TI said the key to progress was greater access to information. "The antidote is for us to know much, much more about what they're doing," Mr Pope said.

The organisation criticised knee-jerk "actionism" among western governments keen to be seen tackling the problem.

Jermyn Brooks, TI's executive director, said the US Sarbanes-Oxley act, aimed at cleaning up corporate America, had failed to get to grips with corruption. "Forcing CEOs to sign off the company's accounts looks good, but it's irrelevant," he said. "There are much more fundamental issues, like whether the all-powerful US CEO is tenable."

TI said it was working with firms and governments to set up ground rules. These included "integrity pacts" for public contracts, in which firms agree not to pay bribes to help the bidding process.