MUMBAI: India should introduce effective legislation to protect whistleblowers in the private sector, global anti-corruption watchdog Transparency International has suggested in its ‘Exporting Corruption Report’ released on Wednesday.
The report rates countries based on their enforcement against foreign bribery under the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) anti-bribery convention signed in 1961. For the first time, this year’s report evaluates China, India, Singapore and Hong Kong as they are each responsible for more than two per cent of global exports but not signatories of the OECD convention, the report said.
“India should criminalise foreign bribery and encourage company management to actively promote a corporate anti-corruption culture among staff and improve whistleblower reporting mechanisms and protection,” the report recommended. It points to Indian government’s efforts to curb corruption by mentioning a draft Bill ‘Prevention of Bribery of Foreign Public Officials and Officials of Public International Organisations’ by Indian Law Commission. The Bill is yet to be tabled in Parliament.
The report also takes cognizance of the amendment in Prevention of Corruption Act which covers bribe payers for the first time. “Although India has been a party to the UN Convention against Corruption since 2011, it has yet to meet the Article 16 obligations to define and criminalise foreign bribery,” it said.
While mentioning that there are no known foreign bribery cases in 2014-2017, the report notes that media research indicates that there are a few probes and action against Indian firms by foreign governments.