Single-source, or non-competitive, defence procurement is a widespread phenomenon that is prevalent both in developing countries and in advanced arms exporting countries. The usual competitive bidding process - which assists in both value-for-money evaluation and in lowering corruption risk - is used much less often than expected in defence procurement. Whilst there can be good reasons for single sourcing, the opportunities and inducements for corruption are significantly escalated. Further, some countries that claim to employ single-source only in rare instances are found to have high percentages of non-competitive defence procurement. This is of particular concern as defence is perceived to be one of the more corruption-prone international business sectors, as identified in the 2002 Bribe Payers Index (Transparency International, 2002), with procurement presenting a significant source of corruption risk. The work presented here gives data on the percentage of defence single source procurement in a number of countries. Some countries were transparent and open about this data, even where it showed them in an unfavourable light. Most were not, citing sensitivity reasons or even that the data did not exist as reasons for refusal.
The defence integrity system relies on numerous elements, including systems of internal controls to regulate the ethical and business conduct of employees. Often these regulations are formalised in Codes of Conduct. This article, based on the internal controls programmes of defence ministries and armed forces in 32 nations, forms an international study of the state of current regimes to address this issue in defence establishments. It assesses programmes on the basis of whether they are compliance-or ethics-based, the strength of regulations pertaining to bribery, gratuities/gifts and hospitality, conflicts of interest, and postemployment procedures, as well as training and dissemination of ethics and business conduct programmes. While some countries had well-developed regimes, others had poorly developed regulations in many cases, suggesting a pressing need to raise standards internationally in the field of ethics and business conduct in defence establishments.
This paper presents the results of the Global Corruption Barometer Survey 2006 and 2007 as they relate to the military, showing that globally the military is regarded as relatively corruption-free compared with other institutions such as political parties and parliaments. Only religious bodies and NGOs benefit from more favourable perceptions. The most positive perceptions of the military are found in Western Europe, while the least favourable are found in Africa, Latin America and Newly Independent States. The disaggregated results also reveal broad variation in perceptions by country, with some surprising scores thrown up. The analysis is enriched by context the local perspectives, provided by anti-corruption experts.
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