2013 was a year of lost opportunity in terms of prospect of corruption control, and in fact, much more. It was a year of blatant denials in the face of credible allegations of high profile corruption. Corruption continued to cause huge loss to the economy and unbearable burden to the common people. We also saw how corruption killed people. Corrupt forces gained more influence and power in the policy and governance structure. It unleashed a shameless picture of questionable accumulation of wealth of people in positions of power inconsistent with legitimate sources of income. Ever-increasing premium of holding power reinforced the zero-sum game of politics. To cap it all, indicators of kleptocratic state capture have taken deeper roots.
At the end of this last year of the tenure of a Government that came to power with anti-corruption as one of top priority pledges that ensured it a huge popular mandate, one can also recall some positive efforts that were taken. The Parliament, the key institution of democratic accountability, started off well. While in the eighth parliament forming of parliamentary committees took over 18 months, the present ruling party can claim some credit for forming all such committees in the very first session after election. Some committees have been active, though conflict of interest remained a key predicament against delivery. Expectations of an effective Parliament were further shattered from the very first session due to boycott by the opposition, who abstained from about 90% of working hours of the House.
The right to information act 2009 was passed in the first session, followed by the protection of information disclosure act in 2011. If effectively enforced, these could go a long way in corruption control. Among other positive initiatives were anti-corruption training of officials in institutions funded by public money; second generation Citizen's Charter in public service delivery institutions; local level IT-supported information centres; and introduction of e-procurement, limited though. These could have opened opportunities for corruption control in service delivery in relevant sectors.