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Suppose you learned in a direct or an indirect way, or from some trustful source, or forced to practice any of the forms of corruption listed above, at which apparatus, institution, or organization, did this occur? The answer was as follows:
1- People's Committees: Public People's Committees, the municipal People's Committees, and the rest of the People's Committees (7.09 percent);
2- Customs and licensing institutions, etc. (5.61 percent);
3- Economic institutions: banks, companies, public marketplaces, investment corporations (6.46 percent);
4- Apparatus of Revolutionary Committees: Communication Bureau, , Coordinators of Revolutionary Work (6.42 percent);
5- Security apparatus: the intelligence, internal security, external security, public security, police forces (6.12 percent);
6- Institutions located abroad: People's bureaus, medical bureaus, student bureaus, and Dawa Association Bureaus (5.85 percent);
7- Educational institutions: universities, colleges, schools, institutes, Administration of exchange students (5.85 percent);
8- Medical institutions: hospitals, medical centers, infirmaries, clinics (5.61 percent);
9- Customs institutions , at airports, seaports, and land border gates (5.40 percent);
10- Service institutions: electricity, telephones, water supplies, transportation (5.29 percent);
11- Institutions of taxes, insurance, and social welfare (5.16 percent);
12- Institutions, companies, and organizations owned by Qaddafi's sons: Development, Waatassimu, Libyana, al-Madar (5.03 percent);
13- State institutions of inspection, bureaucratic control, financial auditing (4.94 percent);
14- Military institutions: armed forces, security divisions, military clubs and stores (4.77 percent);
15-Judicial institutions: courthouses, district attorney, public attorney (4.46 percent);
16- Apparatus directly connected to the leadership: Leader's Information Bureau, private guards (4.50 percent);
17- Public organizations: guilds, trade unions, syndicates, clubs, and leagues (4.09 percent);
18- Private sector institutions, companies, agencies, stores, and private marketplaces (3.39 percent);
19- Media institutions: newspapers, radio, television, publications, distribution (3.05 percent).
Although the difference among various institutions is null, the order of institutions as far as corruption is concerned came out similar to what any observer of financial and bureaucratic corruption in Libya might notice. The People's Committees, the Revolutionary Committees, security apparatus, public companies, and government enterprises came first, while the institutions of the private sector, public organizations, and media institutions came last.
Although companies and private sector institutions come last as far as corruption is concerned, this does not mean that corruption is totally nonexistent. No doubt business relations between some employees and their partners or producers in foreign countries use illegal means to provide services to foreign companies, gain privileges and monopolies at the local market, or sell bad goods inside Libya.
The rate that came against all expectations was at the apparatus controlled by the leadership and the institutions and companies owned by Qaddafi's sons. The reason for this may lie in the fact that these institutions being unavailable to deal with common citizens. Rather, they deal exclusively with big state officials and major companies executing gigantic projects in the country. Moreover, corruption on this level – of sons and aids – is not to be measured only by quantity, but also by quality. A single commission to sign up a project contract worth tens of millions surely equals tens or even hundreds of bribes acquired by minor employees in state institutions.
3. Bribes and Commissions
These include acquiring cash or any other benefits in return for executing or abstaining from executing an act that violates regulations. Bribery has recently become widespread in all transactions of citizens with the state institutions, and in all bureaucratic transactions between public and private sector institutions, most notably tax and custom exemptions, business or construction contracts, licenses to unqualified persons or companies in return for cash. This denies the public treasury some of its major resources. Bribes sometimes come in the form of extortion through which some public officials acquire money from some party in return for a favor or an interest related to the person who practices corruption.
4. Nepotism and Favoritism
This includes any kind of intervention on the part of a public employee or authority to the advantage of an individual or a group of people that goes against the regulations. Nepotism gets clearer in appointing someone to a position for reasons based on kinship or tribal affiliation and despite incompetence, disqualification, or lack of eligibility. These also apply to an official who gives away certain material benefits on family or tribal bases, with disregard to the ineligibility that exists. For example, when a small technician or engineer becomes a secretary of a Public People's Committee of a multi-million-dollar-budget institution by nepotism, such a secretary is often ready to practice all types of financial, bureaucratic, and moral pillage and corruption.
Favoritism extends to include favors to the advantage of some individual or some authority to which one belongs, like the family, tribe, authority, region, etc, without being eligible for it. The best example for this is probably what happens in People's Committees when government tenders are announced. Tenders usually are illegally given to specific companies or partnerships with some connections with officials, their family members, or tribes, via illegal deals between the parties concerned and in absolute absence of integrity and transparency. Sometimes tenders are given to specific companies against the legal procedures required. Under this category also there the kind of favoritism by which some particular authority gets illegally favored to attain certain services.
By comparing the areas of corruption, they could be combined in three major types:
1. Theft, commissions, bribes, and money laundry, with millions and tens of millions of dollars being involved.
2. Nepotism and favoritism, with thousands and tens of thousands of dollars being involved.
3. Privileges and exploitation of public resources, with thousands of dollars being involved.
One may safely claim, as the diagram shows, that the rates in all three types are convergent, which emphasizes that the aspects of corruption may vary and cannot be thoroughly listed. They vary according to the authority in question, and to the interest being sought.
Corruption may be practiced by an individual, a group of people, a private institution, an official, or a non-government authority. It may seek some material benefit, political gain, or social privilege. Corruption can be individually practiced with a personal initiative and without coordination with other individuals or authorities. It may also be practiced by a group of people in an organized and coordinated way. The latter is the most dangerous type of corruption, since it permeates in the political, economic, and social structure of society.
However, a distinction should be made between the material weights of various types of corruption. Favoritism and nepotism are confined to thousands of dollars. Acquiring privileges may cost the public budget tens of thousands; while bribes, thefts, and money laundry practiced by major figures of corruption may amount to millions, and even tens and hundreds of millions of dollars.
All evidence indicates that corruption is rampant in both state and society in Libya, and includes minor and marginal types practiced by small public servants. So, any transaction or bureaucratic procedure, no matter how minor, requires a bribe for the top official of that authority, and sometimes for a whole team of public servants, who coordinate to facilitate the procedures of corruption.
It also includes major types of corruption practiced by major officials on issues larger than daily bureaucratic transactions, with the purpose of gaining privileges much bigger than just a small bribe. This is to say that corruption in Libya is rife horizontally, vertically, and in all directions.
Factors of Aggravating Corruption Phenomenon in Society
The major factors that led to the aggravation of corruption in Libyan society during the year in question were as follows:
1. Lack of real propensity on the part of the political leadership to combat corruption:
A recent project has been announced recently by the regime requiring government officials to fill forms called 'transparency declaration' with a deadline at the end of December 2006, extended to March 2007. When asked about whether the regime was serious in fighting corruption, the respondents' answers came as follows:
- No, 78.06 percent;
- Yes, 7.10 percent;
- I don't know, 14.84 percent.
These results are concordant with any minor revision of the Libyan regime's anti-corruption record. Colonel Qaddafi never took serious precautionary procedures against the elements of corruption. This reluctance is due to several reasons. First of all, he has always employed the issue of corruption to racketeer absolute loyalty to his own regime. Qaddafi is known to have taken punitive procedures in several cases against state officials for charges of financial corruption. In more than one case, however, he allowed these same officials to come back to higher and even more sensitive positions with bigger chances of corruption. This inspired many that Colonel Qaddafi personally manipulates symbols of corruption for a special agenda of his own that gives top priority to their loyalty to his regime.
It may be useful in this context to point out how Libyan citizens received Qaddafi's speech on August 31, 2006, in which he attacked the Revolutionary leaderships entangled in corruption, giving them a grace period to repent and fill 'transparency declarations'. The citizens' response was skeptical of the authority's seriousness in this regard. There were many evidences that the 'transparency declaration' program was, to a great extent, similar to the so-called 'Revolutionary Caravans' or 'Purging Campaigns' launched late in 1996 by the Revolutionary Committees through the steering of Colonel Qaddafi. Many wonder about the difference between this procedure and any previous one in the past.
The prevalent sense in intellectual circles is that Colonel Qaddafi can launch a program to reform the internal affairs and fight corruption within months. However he has no intention to do anything to curb these ‘Fat Cats', simply because of their loyalty to his person and because of the favors they have done his regime.
On surveying public opinion about this issue, the Questionnaire's results came to emphasize these same convictions.
To the question: Do you think the regime is capable – if they want – to fight corruption and put an end to the mafias of corruption in both state and society?
The respondents' opinions came as follows:
- Yes, 54.70 percent;
- No, 35.47 percent;
- I don't know, 9.83 percent.
Then, the problem lies in the political leadership's lack of will to fight corruption in the country.
Regarding what is to be expected from the 'transparency declaration' program, the following question was asked: What result is to be expected from the 'transparency declaration' program after the grace period, turning in the Forms, and their revision?
The opinions came in the following order:
- 22.04 percent, revealing the identity of some individuals on television, just like previous purge campaigns.
- 18.60 percent for Qaddafi's announcement of a campaign against corruption during the 'General People's Congresses', but without any real procedures against the corrupt.
- 18.11 percent for a cabinet change to get rid of some elements as scapegoats.
- 12.88 percent for closing the door by exonerating everybody from the charge of corruption.
-12.40 percent for delaying the whole issue to a later time.
- 11.64 percent for restoring some amounts of money from some figures of corruption in return for amnesty.
- 4.34 percent for bringing elements of corruption to transparent and integral justice without interference on the part of the authorities.
One may conclude that the 'transparency declaration' program will end up, at best, reducing the phenomenon of corruption by bringing a few scapegoats to justice. Thus, closing the whole issue in preparation for another round of manipulation in the future is in favor of the regime's proper agenda.
Within the context of future expectations under the 'best scenarios', the respondents were asked: Suppose that the regime's purpose of this whole campaign was achieved, what do you expect in regard to the spread of corruption in state and society in the next years?
The answers came to reflect pessimism and despair concerning the possibility to end corruption in Libya:
- 36.27 percent for "no change in regards to the spread of corruption";
- 26.62 percent for "a relative decrease in the spread of corruption";
- 22.43 percent for "a relative increase in the spread of corruption";
- 14.68 percent for "I don't know".
Among the other evidence that reflects the leadership's reluctance to combat corruption in their insistence to hold on to a number of figures at sensitive executive positions for long periods of time. This takes place despite their proven incompetence and being formerly indicted in corruption-related lawsuits. The political leadership's connivance of the corrupt even enabled these elements to permeate and widen their overlapping interest connections.
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