Bribery and corruption

Imagine yourself as a Christian student. You have worked hard for three years; you have just passed your final exams. But, before he recommends you for a degree, your professor demands a bribe. Do you say this is the custom of your country and pay up, or do you remember that the apostle Paul spent two years in prison rather than pay a bribe to the Roman governor for his release?

I met a girl at the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students (IFES) European conference in Hungary last year, who had to make the choice of re-taking her course or paying the bribe. She had had excellent marks, but was in tears because she knew she had to try again. 'They don't dare to demand a bribe the second time.' She was not the only one facing the problem of bribery. The room of students who wanted to discuss the problem of bribery was packed.

The problem does not go away when they graduate. A young Christian doctor who was my interpreter in the former Soviet Union had refused, unlike all the other doctors in the hospital, to ask patients for bribes, and he could not live on the government's meagre salary. That was why he was hoping to emigrate and was working meantime as a freelance interpreter.

Aid and economics

Corruption goes all the way through a society. The local director of an aid agency went to the warehouse to pick up the food aid desperately needed for a local emergency. The official in charge of the warehouse would not open it without a bribe, local officials would not help and the issue had to go as far as the President. With a warning that aid agencies would not continue to help if they had to pay bribes for the release of free food, the warehouse was at last opened.

Bribery usually starts from the top, the President taking the largest cut. It is not just that bribery adds to the cost. It introduces uncertainty into the whole commercial process, with contracts going, not to the most competitive bid, but to the highest bribe. Corruption also discourages inward investment. The board of an international oil company decided not to build a refinery in a South-East Asian country when they realised that, in that corrupt society, it would certainly be held to ransom by this or that arbitrary demand. Aid is also discouraged when the money seems to melt away and the scheduled and agreed repayments for loans cannot be made.

The old democracies have their scandals too, but bribery is much more likely to be found out and life is very lonely for the culprits.

What can be done?

IFES now has member movements in over 100 countries and there are unaffiliated groups of Christian students in most of the remainder. So endemic corruption is a cause of concern to many Christian students and young graduates.

At the 2003 World Assembly in The Netherlands, a group, mainly of old hands, put our heads together to see what could be done to help them. We were told of a young electronics engineer, who, refusing to pay the bribes which were 'the custom of the country', split the family business with his father and sold only to countries which were free of bribery. Within a short time, his sales were half as high again as his father's. We decided to take that as our role model, using the international network of the IFES to connect buyers and sellers, and using experienced and respected Christians on the spot to pick out likely sellers, whose integrity and capability they could guarantee.

The 'Mutual Assistance Project' was, through the next year, approved by the committees of IFES, with the caveat that, since IFES was a student movement, the project would have to find its own finances. The project has also to find the initial buyers and, with them, maybe, some of the initial finance. So, with two of the old hands in charge, half a dozen of the larger member movements are being asked what they can do to help.

Done before

With that crowded room in Hungary in mind, I hope and pray that others will see the huge difference which it could make. It has been done before. The Huguenots (the French Protestants) created their own culture after their religious liberty was guaranteed by Henry of Navarre. They were honest, hard-working and innovative. When the famous Minister of Commerce, Colbert, asked what the state could do for them, they said simply: 'Laissez faire', by which they meant, just let us get on with it. When, in his folly, Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes which protected them, they took their skills and credit to welcoming Protestant countries. most of which were already their customers. As the economy of France went into steady decline, the economies of the welcoming countries, Holland, Prussia, England and New England, all took off.

At present emigration seems the only option in too many countries for the trained and talented. So let us pray that the mutual assistance works and that their governments learn to respect and protect those who work hard to provide employment for their neighbours and bring in hard currency to help their countries.

Further information from www.ifesworld.org

Fred Catherwood

© Evangelicals Now - March 2005
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