These figures notwithstanding, why does Transparency International hesitate to publish figures on the total economic damage inflicted by corruption?
Whenever a journalist is writing a story about corruption and turns to Transparency International we are asked about facts and figures how corruption has grown, what sums are involved and what damage it does financially. Our frequent – and somewhat dissatisfying – answer is as simple as it is complex: There simply are no hard-and-fast figures about corruption. But even if there were concrete figures we would hesitate to publish. Not for a lack of transparency, but simply because these figures tend to be grossly misleading. consider this case story as an example: A power plant is being built somewhere in the world, at a cost of 100 million dollar. It could be argued that -were it not for the corruption involved – the cost could have been as low as 80 million dollar. The financial damage to the public would there be at 20 million dollar. In practice, what happens quite often is that projects are being planned for the simple reason of allowing those involved in it to make huge private pro
