Governments Fail to Curb Corruption in Defence: Survey

The findings of the Transparency International survey was given to the governments surveyed for review.

Pyman said, “a shocking result of the survey was that in half of the countries surveyed, the defence budget was either not public or it contained no breakdown of defence spending,” as reported by Reuters.  

Just 12 percent of the countries in the survey showed ‘highly effective’ parliamentary scrutiny of defence policy and just a handful of whistleblowers protected the country by reporting defence corruption.

In the recent years European countries have reported high-profile cases of alleged corruption in defence deals.

Janez Jansa, Slovenian Prime Minister has been charged with bribery for a now-abandoned 2006 deal implying him buying armoured vehicles, which he denied.

European aerospace and defence group (EADS) is facing investigations in Britain, Austria and Germany. It has launched an external review of its anti-corruption rules recently.

The need to maintain transparency in defence is as serious as protecting one’s nation seriously. The bargaining can come at cost of innocent deaths, which is a really high price to pay. To eradicate corruption may not be feasible but to keep it under control with proper scrutiny can be achieved if governments take the situations more sternly, for the betterment of the country.

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