At the 3rd Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) Symposium yesterday the delegates have launched a crusade against corruption and expressed strong support for blacklisting corrupt firms and individuals, barring them from participating in public projects worldwide.

The consensus was reached at the ICAC symposium as the World Bank (WB) sanction list of over 350 corrupt companies and individuals was welcomed.

WB Director (global programmes) Daniel Kaufmann said those on the list were barred from projects financed by his institute.

On the current list are individuals like Leikoc Trevor and Lin Yaoming based in Jiangmen whose names have been struck off since November 2004 for violating WB's procurement guidelines.

Official information shows the WB's sanction against them will not be lifted till November 2007. However, the World Bank may review their cases anytime.

The WB also lists a number of others from Russia, the US, Lithuania, Indonesia, Albania, Cambodia, the UK, Sweden, Greece, Paraguay, India and Singapore.

"It is considered a very significant deterrent for corruption. After we have announced the list publicly, other organizations will not use these firms," Kaufmann said.

He said although the list was not legally bound, many of the corrupt firms and persons were driven out of business. "We have dealt a great blow to these corrupt firms," he said.

Most of the delegates - many from government and judiciary operations - found the WB example impressive. Over 90 per cent of the 184 delegates who had answered the ICAC/WB questionnaire agreed to the idea of barring corrupt firms publicly.

Almost eight in ten also agreed it was appropriate for the institute to stop lending to these blacklisted firms.

Releasing the findings, Kaufmann said he was confident that public debarment of firms guilty of grafting could become a powerful anti-corruption tool if more international bodies adopted the same procedure. He said the WB had a 50-member special department to look into corruption claims against companies or individuals involved in projects financed by it. Debarments can be for a few years or for life.

He said the WB also maintained a list that ranked countries according to their states of governance and corruption. The Chinese mainland faces lot of challenges to combat corruption, he said.

"It has challenges...there's been no evidence of improvement in corruption control in the Chinese mainland over the past few years. This remains a significant challenge."

Kaufmann said countries such as China, Mexico and Brazil were important emerging economies and WB felt it was possible to tackle corruption if there was "enormous political commitment".

Delegates at the conference were generally of the view that while corruption in the private sector was worrying the developed countries, public and private-to-public sector bribery remained the major concern for the developing nations.

Hong Kong's ICAC Commissioner Raymond Wong said the survey showed corruption in both the public and private sectors was still affecting economies of developed and developing countries in varying degrees.

There is a need for more efforts in law enforcement, education and prevention, he said.

"We need concerted efforts of law enforcement agencies, regulators, professionals and corporate leaders to tackle the problem of corporate corruption," Wong said.

Corporate integrity played a "pivotal" role in upholding Hong Kong's edge as a premier international financial and business centre, he said assuring that the government would spare no efforts in promoting corporate governance.

Earlier during the conference, he said the ICAC would form an additional 11-member team this year to investigate corporate crimes in the commercial sector in the light of a number of serious corporate corruption and fraud cases in recent years.

In the past five years, ICAC investigated 17 corporate corruption and fraud cases each involving more than HK$10 million and some involving publicly listed firms. Of those prosecuted in the private sector cases, 60 per cent were senior executives or professionals.

Wong said yesterday that the ICAC would launch a new e-platform called "ICAC Post" to communicate with corporate leaders and executives around the world.

(HK Edition 05/12/2006 page2)