Proceedings of the webinar “Dialogue on measuring corruption”
Webinar proceedings
“Dialogue on measuring corruption”
promoted by Eurispes – 27 January 2022
The meeting entitled “Dialogue on the measurement of corruption” took place online on January 27, 2022. The meeting was introduced by the President of Eurispes, Gian Maria Fara. Participants to the panel discussion were: Nikolas Giannakopoulos, President of the Scientific Committee Global Risk Profile – Grp Italia srl, Mario Carlo Ferrario, Vice President Transparency International – Italy, Giovanni Tartaglia Polcini, Magistrate, Legal Advisor MAECI and member of the Scientific Committee of Eurispes, Maria Giuseppina Muratore, First research officer at Istat. The final remarks were presented by the President of the National Authority for Anti-Corruption (Anac), Giuseppe Busia. The meeting was moderated by Paolo Mazzanti, Editorial Director of the Askanews news agency.
The webinar proceedings follow. Also available in Italian.
Paolo Mazzanti: I have been invited to moderate this dialogue on the measurement of corruption organised by Eurispes, whom I thank, with eminent guests that we will introduce. Before giving the floor to Gian Maria Fara, President of Eurispes for the introduction, I just want to say that the issue of corruption has accompanied our careers. As a journalist, I followed the events of Tangentopoli (at the time, I was working as a reporter for the Municipality of Milan), and I know very well how this issue has affected the political events of these decades. In the wake of Tangentopoli and Mario Segni’s referendum on the electoral system, we had a sort of regime change with the switch from proportional to majority voting, which citizens unanimously voted for in the wake of the political discredit of the time, crippled by corruption. Therefore, the issue of corruption and how to measure it – concerning controversial evaluations, for example, on Transparency’s Corruption Index, which measures perception of corruption, not corruption per se – is a critical topic because it intersects with major economic issues (for example the attractiveness of a country to foreign investments). I will now leave the floor to Gian Maria Fara.
Gian Maria Fara: Good morning everyone; I would like to thank you for your presence and participation in this joint reflection on a topic that has been close to our hearts for several years now. “In the past few years, Eurispes decided to take an in-depth look at the topic of corruption, in the awareness that there was a lot of discussion on the subject, but often with a rather superficial approach. Some data somehow collided and gave a distorted picture of Italy. The commitment of our friend Tartaglia Polcini guided the Institute in tackling this issue and enabled us to restore a basic degree of truth and plausibility about corruption. So I would like to thank Mr Tartaglia Polcini, the initiator of today’s event. Furthermore, I would like to thank Mario Carlo Ferrario, the Vice President of Transparency. In the past, we have also argued with Transparency, but politely, because in the end, the objective is the same, namely to protect the image of our country, but at the same time to focus on phenomena that can be harmful to the very existence of our system and institutions. I would also like to thank Maria Giuseppina Muratore, the ISTAT chief research officer, for the contribution she will be giving. I cannot forget the participation of the President of ANAC, Giuseppe Busia; thanks also to Paolo Mazzanti, Editorial Director of the Askanews news agency, who offered to lead the discussion and debate this morning. I will just make a few general remarks. The first consideration is that a significant rate of corruption undeniably characterises Italy. But at the same time, portraying a country as more corrupt than it is can negatively affect the economy and impact the trust in institutions and markets. For this reason, in 2017, together with Giovanni Polcini, we decided to verify the validity of this judgement expressed against us by the most common global indicators of a perceptual nature. At the time, we were among the most corrupt countries globally. We are convinced that Italy’s rating has often been ungenerous over the years and, at times even incorrect, with considerable consequences at a macroeconomic level. In the latest international ranking, our position seems to have improved considerably. We have jumped 10 places: it seems, in short, that things are somehow changing also because we are finally moving from subjective indicators to the observation of objective indicators. We believe this is a good step forward, and it is what we hoped for from the first conference we devoted to this issue. In short, the perceptive index we have all relied on over the years is the one compiled by Transparency and which has become a ranking comparison tool, the only one worldwide which everyone has referred to over the years. However, this index is not so much aimed at understanding corruption in its most intricate and modern forms, in its interrelationships with organised crime and money laundering, and in its actual harmfulness, especially in places where corruption is underestimated, as it is aimed at assigning ratings. We consider this to be one of the main problems associated with purely perceptive indices, not least because of the use that can be made of them and the effects they can cause. For these reasons, we came to the conclusion in our 2017 research that there is considerable room for improvement in the techniques for measuring corruption. Moreover, we concluded that increasingly broader methods, including objective elements, could help understand the evolution of corruption. We have tried to refine observation and detection techniques and arrived at results that clearly contradict those international agencies have proposed over the years. We are pleased that, at last, the idea of changing the approach to the subject and of proceeding with the analysis using different, more credible, more reliable indicators has been taken into account. Of course, there is still much to be done, and the system of corruption will continue to affect our country and many other countries, as someone used to say, ‘There is something rotten in Denmark’. I am convinced that by seriously studying the phenomenon and with a scientific and objective approach, we will arrive at an overall picture and more benevolent considerations and judgements towards our country, which is often mistreated or not treated as it deserves. I will say no more. I confirm the idea that the Institute will continue to follow this issue with great interest and will support all those researchers who intend to commit themselves in this direction. As President of Eurispes, I thank you for your participation, and I thank you above all for your feedback, which will undoubtedly produce new assessments on a topic of great importance that certainly concerns us and many other countries, economies and institutional systems.
Paolo Mazzanti: Thank you, President Fara, for your remarks. The issue of integrating subjective elements and factors with objective elements and aspects to give an increasingly reliable picture of the phenomenon of corruption is undoubtedly on the table. It is a very, very important issue. Relying exclusively on perception risks giving a misleading signal because perception means the awareness that a country has of its corruption rate, and this can be due to many factors: for example, the extent to which news about corruption is widely known; the fact that our country has an independent judiciary that does not depend on the executive and therefore, it instead tend to focus on specific phenomena; the presence of a free media willing to give comprehensive coverage to these news (I mentioned Tangentopoli earlier, an event that contributed to offering our country an image that was probably much more emphasised on corruption than it was). The fact that corruption will remain with us is inarguable: I would like to point out that just this morning a small businessman was arrested as he was about to hand over a bribe in Piazza in Lucina, moreover with a somewhat questionable choice in terms of location, as opposed to the Command of the Carabinieri. This fact is also an indicator of a positive phenomenon because the official denounced this entrepreneur and attempted bribery. Therefore, this is a positive indicator because it means that a barrier of resistance to corruption is being created. I would now like to go into the substance of the debate with Nikolas Giannakopoulos, President of the Scientific Committee Global Risk Profile – Grp Italia, an organisation that works precisely on measuring corruption.
Nikolas Giannakopoulos: I would like to thank President Fara and Eurispes very much for making this webinar possible and also Councillor Tartaglia Polcini, the main actor behind this initiative and all the other esteemed colleagues. I would like to start by outlining the activities of our society and especially the Index, which we have been putting online free of charge for four years now, trying to do increasingly better. We only had the Transparency International Index to compare corruption at the international level for many years. It has been beneficial both for giving an impetus to public anti-corruption policies and for international investments and companies to benchmark the investment costs in different countries. Being the only one at the international level, it has been used everywhere, but, on the other hand, it has also been criticised on how the perception of corruption is conceptualised. It can be improved, but you have to credit the Transparency team for creating international attention and raising awareness about corruption issues. With Global Risk Profile, we tried to go beyond the perception, integrating different variables that could directly or indirectly give information on the level of corruption but also on the ability of institutions to fight corruption. Not only do we analyse the level of corruption, but also what we call “economic crime”, “white-collar crime”, because the two dimensions are very closely linked. So we have invested in researchers, data and all the necessary things to create an index that would measure corruption and economic crime globally. When doing an index on an international level, the difficulty is to find data and variables available in all the countries under investigation that are mutually comparable. Once the variables have been identified and constructed in a technically and scientifically accurate manner, the index allows a comparison to be made between different countries. It is not only a way of ranking countries and saying who is more or less corrupt, but above all, a way of getting an idea of where these corrupt activities are prevalent and the institutions’ ability to combat these phenomena. Therefore, our index is a snapshot of the previous year’s picture, providing a not too blurred image of the level of corruption and institutional capacity. The variables, indicators, weightings among the 43 variables we use in the index are composed of a Corruption Index and a White Collar Crimes Index (WCC Index). The assessment is carried out by combining global and country-specific variables. In the country variables, we take into account information that, as mentioned before, can be found in all countries, data on the existence or non-existence of corruption data, the effectiveness of corruption. These data are collected and then weighted to provide a certain weighting of the different elements, to eventually arrive at a global corruption index. We choose to start from reliable, consistent sources, methodologically structured and available in most parts of the world. The next step is to retrace these variables on local sources, making country sheets or considering only some economic sectors. One of the most important problems, which can be clearly seen from these maps, is that there is a fairly strong Western ethnocentrism, which has to be also managed by integrating in this important effort against corrupt countries or cultures considered, from the Western point of view, as being more corrupt. Then there is always the unknown factor of the ‘black figure’: one can guess or reconstruct but never directly know the figure relating to corruption cases (even if one takes into account cases that reach the police, these are always cases that are under investigation; afterwards they go to the judiciary, first instance, second instance and, finally, final convictions). This ‘black figure’ must inevitably be based on direct indicators, but also on indirect indicators that can tell us many things. Today we live in the era of Big Data. We have data everywhere, and we do not use them for such an important phenomenon as corruption, which has become a key element in the public management of all countries in the last twenty years. As I was already saying, it is a series of data that offer different possibilities. It is interesting to cross spatial, territorial, but also sectorial dimensions (on industries, on regions, not only on states); and then there is the potential, as Prof. Fara was saying, to rebalance positions: there is certain Italian victimhood, when people say “we are the most corrupt country in the world”, “we are the mafia’s country”. However, it is only in Italy that you can find reliable, recurrent data on Anti-Mafia, on Anti-Corruption, which do not exist in other countries. As a Swiss, I can say that Switzerland is no less corrupt than Italy. It’s just that you don’t see it. Having more data does not necessarily mean that the country in question is more corrupt, but it does mean that it is more concerned about the corruption issue. If you compare the Netherlands and Italy, the Netherlands ranks 7th in anti-corruption while Italy ranks 41. If only the WCC is considered, the ranking changes and the Netherlands ranks 42nd and Italy 34th. Transparency made this effort once to say that there is a corruptor and there is a corrupted, but looking only at the corrupted part is not very useful; one has to look also at the corruptor because corruption is an exchange at least between two people or between two actors. This issue is fundamental not only for public policies but also for businesses, for their activity at the national and international levels. There is an additional cost of corruption that we do not know about. It is important to bring out these exact numbers: when we say that we are measuring corruption, it also means making decisions that are effective and adapted to reality, because otherwise, we generate regulations, legalisations, and methods that, in the end, we do not know whether they are really useful, effective or efficient. We need to find a way of measuring the scale of the cost of corruption; we need to find transparency in legal processes, political decisions, and information on companies to be able to measure the effect of corruption on funding, establishments, etc., through direct indices. The state must also be a driving force in the fight against corruption, which still falls into the paradox of collective action: everyone benefits from reducing it, but everyone fails individually. How best to measure it? By recognising the importance of corruption on political decision-making. We need to create the necessary conditions to bring out the impact of corruption on private companies and public decisions so that investments can be calculated as soon as possible on real data and no longer on a moral basis. The US is an example of this: the DoJ has created facilities, such as plea bargains, for companies under investigation for corruption, making it possible to reduce by up to 75% the financial sanctions that the authorities can issue. For Switzerland, this no longer exists, but there was a tax option for companies to deduct what they called first facilitation expenses. Finally, there is a great need for anti-corruption data because these are tough times for states, and resources should be given in those crucial areas like Global Warming. AI and Big Data give the possibility to know, anticipate and guide human behaviour.
Paolo Mazzanti: Thank you, Mr Giannakopoulos, for your comprehensive overview, which explains the complexity of the work being done to address this issue. You mentioned conceptual problems. In other words, it is also challenging to define what exactly the concept of corruption is from one country to another, from one system to another, in the West, in the East, in emerging economies, in Africa. Indeed, the spectrum within which one can address the issue of corruption is very broad. Speaking of our country, it ranges from influence peddling, which is quite abstract and difficult to define, even though it is in the news every day. We see, for example, the case of Grillo with the shipowner Onorato, but even recommending a friend is influence peddling, up to much more severe things like organised crime. There are very delicate issues, and it is essential to incorporate in these assessments not only the perceptive aspects but also the actual data, as you said, the capacity to fight corruption, the legal apparatus, the public detection systems. Obviously, countries with legal instruments that punish corruption bring it out much more than countries with fewer. Thank you for your work, which on the one hand, is complex, but on the other hand, is very valuable. Big Data can actually be a way forward, because when properly extracted and refined, it can give a helpful indication, as can more up-to-date systems such as Whistleblowing, which has been introduced into Italian law and is still struggling to become part of everyday practice in public administration, for example. There is always a stigma against whistleblowing employees. In the last two years, there have been many discussions in Italy about the inclusion of the agent provocateur, which is in use in other legislations, for example, in the United States, that is, to insert the agents provocateurs who provoke to see the response. Personally, I would also favour this, but I realise that it involves severe issues. To pursue these questions, we give the floor to Mario Carlo Ferrario, Vice President of Transparency International.
Mario Carlo Ferrario: Thank you for the invitation. I would like to make two general remarks. The CPI index that was presented two days ago showed this trend of improvement in Italy’s positioning, not only last year but for about ten years now, especially since 2012, that is, since Transparency adopted a methodological reform on the calculation of the index that is very important, very profound of a statistical and processing nature. This is to say that Italy is beginning to bring out its strengths, which are certainly not that perceived and widespread image based on bias. I have suffered this form of bias for twenty years in my professional activities to be a reliable witness from this point of view. I went around collecting funds to invest in Italy in venture capital: an investor, to give funds for venture capital, must be able to trust who receives them, how they will be used, and how they will manage them over time, not only on the fact that they will then produce a result over time. So there is an essential element of trust, of behavioural analysis. Some of the big American investors (pension funds, insurance companies, banks) used to take measures that even consisted in filming the presentations we gave to have our behaviour analysed by psychologists. Over many years, Transparency has tried to mitigate these harmful forms of bias, first by selecting sources. On the website, you can find the methodological apparatus. As you can see, it goes from the data of the Monetary Fund to those of the Economist Intelligence Unit to those of the African Development Bank. In short, all data has been processed with an analysis as selective and objective as possible. Then some statistical methodologies were adopted to make averages and differences and rankings in an attempt to minimise all this, to arrive at the formulation of what we consider to be a composite and synthetic index specifically based on perceptive data, because the sources have only indirectly objective data, if at all. Even data defined as objective, macro-economic and fiscal data are always data that must be reviewed in the specific context. This kind of analysis does not totally eliminate bias. Still, it helps to analyse available data that are comparable, that applies to many countries in a consistent and comparative way, that are consistently available because certainly the Monetary Fund data are available year after year and are comparable in terms of methodology and related. That “unacceptable for some countries”, unacceptable in the sometimes objective sense because they are too small and are not able to process some figures, they don’t have the information or statistical systems to process some data, or they are developing and have systems of administrative output that are not adequate or, as it often happens, even for important countries are systems that have an autocratic type of government some data are not available or are even objectively reworked for the country. Unfortunately, the context in which these data are processed and collected is also an important element often underestimated. Let’s think about the context of crisis: the work of the G20 in Italy has well highlighted how important data analysis is in contexts of crisis (not only pandemic but also social). This means that analysing the data on corruption is a highly complex job, very difficult from a statistical point of view. It is not that almost all the existing indices, which are mainly based on objective but somehow perceptive elements, do not want to adopt more objective systems. It isn’t easy to obtain the data, process it, and thus allow a scientific approach to the ranking that is being elaborated. Transparency International, at an international level, has often indicated its openness this year. It is not that it wants to defend its Index critically. It has, for example, been accused several times by China for being too low in the index. Transparency knows that there are important and relevant problems in all of this. It is, from year to year, reworking the methodology, is moving forward and is open to contributions from everyone. It is always trying to deepen a scientific approach. I would like to underline this, because as you know, especially in the field of the Third Sector, of associations and civil societies, there are various mindsets. Also, Transparency is not unrelated to this aspect. There are mindsets more inclined to the scientific analysis and production of research and studies. As far as the measurement of corruption is concerned, Transparency’s objective is to move towards contemplation of the perceptive data with the more objective data. Provided that they manage to have the two characteristics that were also discussed in the G20 and that they are so-called “reliable” indicators, meaning actual corruption indicators and not too general to indicate other forms of criminality or illegal behaviour or, even, as mentioned before, of a moral nature that are also actionable measures. Transparency is working on these two criteria and will certainly continue refining the data. I think it is important to make two remarks on the trends we are seeing. There are a lot of indices going around today in the various research centres (there are, I think, a few hundred). What are the emerging trends we should also be focusing on, considering what we could do in a country like Italy? The first is the one I was talking about a few minutes ago, namely having more solid indicators, a little more objective even if not objective, that complements the macro data. Often, perceptions are used together with macro or top macro data: they lack something that puts them together and makes it possible to be more focused and specifically highlight the individual corruption phenomenon. The second is that corruption does not only concern the public administration sector but also the business sector, civil society, and we could extend it to specific sectors of society. So, there is a major segmentation problem. Giannakopoulos combined data on corruption in the public sector with data from the WCC: it is certainly an important and relevant step; is a trend on which we need to go on working by deepening the measurements as much as possible. However, I think that this trend of complementing macro data with perceptive data with something intermediate is a trend that we should focus on because it is fundamental in order to achieve the most objective but realistic measurements of the phenomenon. The second point is disaggregation: we need to have indicators that allow us to disaggregate data on corruption. What does this mean? It means for specific sectors, such as public procurement, the tracking of conflicts of interest between large companies and the public sector, or even in the international contracts of large companies, etc. There are many consequences. One is emerging today in associations and civil society, and that is gender disaggregation. It is often considered an undetected fact, but it is now considered important to include gender disaggregation as much as possible in all data analysis.
What is the problem with this? The problem is that these more reliable data require certain pre-existing conditions. The first is that of e-government infrastructure. All governments are adopting this approach, even those of the smallest countries, but there is still a very large gap. Digitalisation helps, it is important, but the implementation of systems capable of having solid macro and disaggregated data is a complex and not easy task, and many countries, including those of the G20, unfortunately, do not yet have the infrastructure needed to provide public information that is effectively accessible, transparent, reliable, recurring and updatable from year to year. Another point I would like to raise is about the future, about the very important development of the business sector. Businesses have made great progress in recent years (we are mainly talking about large companies, but also medium-sized companies). Those who operate on an international level have found themselves almost forced to evolve. We have gone from what I used to call a cosmetic culture of anti-corruption: we applied the rules, the formulas, I don’t want to give examples but we all think of 2, 3, 1 or other formulas of this kind. We moved on, and this is the fundamental thing, from understanding that this was not an extra bureaucratic cost that we had to have because the law imposed it on us, to understanding that, in some way, they were management tools, useful tools. In particular, corruption control tools were tools for controlling and assessing investment costs. When you make a foreign investment you very often completely underestimate these types of costs. Today, large companies are beginning to understand this and to think in these terms, and they have become a tool of competitiveness because now there is a specific request for these forms to be in place in large tenders and large international contracts. From my own experience, I can say that even in the way of large sovereign wealth funds, large pension funds, there is a specific demand that the company should have adequate corruption control systems. From the interaction between the public sector and the legislator’s side and the corporate and civil society’s side, it is possible to begin to fine-tune the understanding of what may be the impact of the various measuring instruments, of the measuring trends, in order to finally achieve an understanding and a numerical and quantitative analysis of the corruption phenomenon, which is more objective and less perceptive.
Paolo Mazzanti: Thank you, Mr Ferrario, I find your presentation very interesting, not only because you have explained that Transparency is progressively refining its analysis tools, but also because you have indicated the four characteristics that data on corruption must have (they must be meaningful, sustainable, comparable and scalable, in order to be good). This assessment and comparison between the private and the public sector is also interesting (in the private sector, an increased interest in fighting corruption is perceived). Perhaps new instruments can emerge from a successful collaboration between the public and private sectors: one that comes to mind is that of the fiduciary union – which, as you know, is the organisation set up by the popular banks to provide services to the financial world – which has set up a dedicated server to collect whistleblowers’ complaints in order to guarantee confidentiality, because one of the big problems of whistleblowers from within the company is guaranteeing confidentiality. Having an external server, which is not inside the company and to which whistleblowers can address their complaints, could be a step forward and could also be a useful tool for the public administration.
Ferrario: If I may intervene, as Transparency we have implemented this very aspect in collaboration with ANAC: we filter the whistleblower, we give him protection, we guarantee anonymity with cryptographic systems and we carry out the complaints. We protect the whistleblower and we transfer his complaint to ANAC.
Paolo Mazzanti: Let’s pass the floor to Tartaglia Polcini, who will tell us the latest updates on this issue, which was also discussed during the G20 in Rome. You have the floor.
Giovanni Tartaglia Polcini: Thank you Mr Mazzanti and thank you Eurispes for making this webinar possible. Thank you to all my fellow speakers, thank you to the President of the National Anti-Corruption Authority, which is the highest authority in this field. I would like to start from the motivation, the reason, the ratio of this Italian effort, resulting from a study by Eurispes. There is a singular temporal frequency in what happens in the multilateral fora of legal diplomacy activities: everything starts in the think tanks, where research is free, independent, and can make proposals, bringing certain issues to political, national and international attention. This happened precisely with reference to the measurement of corruption, because the first strong impact with the theme of perception indices came from Eurispes. Why is corruption measured? What is the rationale behind this exercise? We could have two distinct approaches to answer this question. The first approach should be typically juridical, is best expressed in the sources. The main source of reference in this area is the United Nations Convention against Corruption, the Merida Convention, which is a fundamental multilateral instrument, extensive and detailed, covering the prevention of corruption, criminalisation and repression, international cooperation and property law enforcement. This international convention has a specific provision devoted to the measurement of corruption and explains the reasons why the phenomenon is measured. An alternative functional method to that of the jurist moves from the economist’s point of view: the “jurist” method is supplemented by an “econometric” method, which tends to highlight different aspects regarding the usefulness of measuring corruption in terms of the ratio. What is the added value of this exercise? We heard in the two first speechs, the report of the Global Risk Profile representative, and that of the representative of Transparency International, a key international benchmark on the subject. Valuable precisely in illustrating a specific purpose of measurement, that of rating. Not surprisingly, after a careful analysis, we realise that these two approaches can converge in the same direction, it is just a matter of process.The UNCAC, the Merida Convention against Corruption, states the way to understand the purpose of measuring corruption in article 61, which is the collection and analysis of information on corruption in order to understand its dimensions and trends in the specific territories of each State party of the Convention, also considering the different frameworks surrounding the crimes of corruption. The aim is not only epistemological or scientific and cultural insight: in fact, Article 61 adds that all this effort is aimed at refining prevention and repression strategies and at circulating good practices in the prevention and repression of corruption. This exercise is also very useful to verify the efficiency of the work carried out by the States and by the prevention institutions and it also serves, not a secondary chapter, to develop capacity-building initiatives. It is not by chance that Article 61 of this Convention is included in the chapter dedicated to international technical assistance, international capacity building and exchange of information. Article 61 makes no reference to rating or raking, it does not aim at comparing legal systems or even economic-social systems or entire countries. Our first conclusion is therefore soon available: it is ontologically unexceptionable and documented; measuring corruption helps better understand the phenomenon in all its aspects and this contributes to better prevention of the criminal phenomenon and better repression of it. Moreover, the Convention itself has a system for monitoring the compliance of signatory and ratifying countries with their commitments: it is a mutual review mechanism that does not lead to the awarding of scores or ratings and does not establish rankings between countries. It is a mutual peer review mechanism in which the business sector and civil society are playing an increasing role, and pay review reports are published and available for consultation. This is the first conclusion, which is kind of the basis of our effort. There is no point in hiding the fact that when we started the research with President Fara, to whom I owe a great deal for the trust he placed in this path of research, we were motivated by the protection of national interests. It is well known that Italy was not being rewarded by the perceptual measurement indices. We tried to demonstrate through scientific theory – the so-called Trocadero paradox – that the more you fight corruption, the more you make it perceptible and that, therefore, having a strong perception of corruption does not necessarily mean being more corrupt in comparative terms compared to other systems. This activity has begun to challenge the issue and narrow a gap that at times seemed vast between the reality of our national system and its representation abroad. To acknowledge that the initial motivation in our efforts was to defend the national interest is an act of intellectual integrity. Yet, it is also true that, in the course of this research effort, we realised and understood that this exercise can be fundamental to the global rule of law. It is not by chance that the search for second-generation indicators that are more complete, that incorporate perceptive indicators, that add objective indicators as well, has become one of the most widely recognised themes at the global level. The proof is easily provided by history: imagine that we were alone in this activity at first, during the presidency of the G7 in 2017. Immediately after that research, Italy focused on the G7 countries and developed to look for more comprehensive indicators, a roster of indicators, to see how to combine what might seem to be a gap between the result of the perceptual approach versus what was actually an objective assessment. The G7 was followed by the Council of Europe’s Group of States against Corruption, which on 25 June 2019 highlighted the presence of a gap between the public perception of low levels of corruption in some countries and the underestimation of the need for prevention and counteraction measures, corresponding to a lack of compliance with the recommendations of the GRECO itself. Therefore, the need to complete that approach based solely on perceptual indicators emerged. Italy presented and received approval for a resolution on the measurement of corruption at the United Nations Conference of States Parties to the Merida Convention in 2019 – the one that sparked this discussion (resolution number 10 in the 8th Conference of States Parties, which is practically a milestone that marked a multilateral breakthrough on this exercise). In its anti-corruption working group, the Group of Twenty (G20) included the need to complete the improvement of corruption measurement indices in its 2019 action plan, which covered the three years 2019-2021. We arrived at the Italian Presidency in 2021 via a complex path, where we adopted a critical document. It is my duty to point out that these are joint efforts and when Italy works as a system it is actually competitive. It was not just one institution that contributed to the exercise’s success; all of the Italian Institutions that are part of a chain that we can define as the prevention and repression of corruption collaborated to make it a success. In light of the impending pandemic, a task force has even been formed to actively prepare the way, meeting at a sometimes frenetic pace. If we abandon this line of historical reconstruction and return to the question of rationale, as referred to in Article 61 of the United Nations Convention, allow me to say one last thing that is novel compared to what has come before. Numerous requests for technical assistance in the fight against corruption have been made to our country. We receive requests from so-called developing countries and G7 and G20 countries to share our regulatory and institutional models and even to contribute to the training of magistrates and officials involved in corruption prevention. Our regulatory models are considered global standards; for example, our National Anti-Corruption Authority inspired the most significant reform in neighbouring France in the establishment of a French Anti-Corruption Authority inspired by the Italian model, and it was not only a form of “legislative plagiarism” – let me use that term – but a constant approach, in a constant dialogue because the French Anti-Corruption Authority looks at our Authority in the dynamics of corruption. However, as a unique feature of our system, we would like to highlight that the entire OECD community values the independence of the Public Prosecutor as a member of the jurisdiction, similar to that of the judge. We can look to the well-known Legislative Decree 231 of 2001, which governs the liability of entities arising from criminal activity. I discovered that 11 countries have a regulatory instrument on legal person liability that is nearly identical to our legislation 231, even in titles and chapters but not in regulatory content. And we are not just talking about faraway places: Spain has a similar organic law to ours on the liability of entities, but Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Peru, Chile, and, most recently, Costa Rica can also be mentioned. How does one compare and reconcile the country’s image as one of the most corrupt in the world with the greatest number and quality of requests for technical assistance? Is there a widespread self-defeat in the global search for models that do not work? Perhaps it is time to reconsider the distances that are sometimes the result of non-irreconcilable approaches. In this regard, I must say that I am also very encouraged by the progress of this webinar, which reminds me that we are halfway through and making significant progress in dialogue. As Mr Giannakopoulos’ speech showed, I like the title of the webinar, “Dialogue on the measurement of corruption”, and I thank him for his vision because hearing how you see the issue from the perspective of the business sector is very important; I thank Lawyer Mario Carlo Ferrario, for his fascinating insights, including, if I may, on the relationship between investment and corruption, because this is an issue that is increasingly entering the global lexicon. Moreover, Italy has never wanted to sweep the dust under the carpet. Indeed, it has never wanted to hide the existence of corruption as an endemic phenomenon that exists in our country and, in some cases, is so pervasive that it has negative consequences for our national socio-economic development. However, as I have attempted to demonstrate briefly, Italy is also a global reference point. During Italy’s G20 presidency last year, the country did not simply say, “let’s measure corruption better” but also, following UN Convention Article 61, “let’s try to understand what corruption looks like today, how it manifests itself”. That is why, in addition to the compendium on measuring corruption, it issued other documents to persuade and obtain the consensus of the world’s greats on the new forms of corruption. I am referring to the high-level principles on corruption concerning organised crime, on which we have focused the world’s attention on the importance of looking at organised crime infiltrating public administration through corruption. We have not hidden the fact that corruption has emerged and those criminal organisations have demonstrated a particular ability to exploit the general need created by the pandemic while keeping in mind that it is not only the pandemic that has revealed this face at this point, but that other moments in our recent history have also designed these methods, which are not exclusively Italian. In truth, we are putting our experience gained from dealing with such emergencies and forms of corruption to good use for the benefit of others. So the path has been established, and the action plan we presented for 2022-2023-2024 anticipates that the G20 will continue to address corruption measurement. We hope to take additional small steps with your assistance, not only for the defence of national interests but also for the development of new global measurement models.
Paolo Mazzanti: Thank you very much, Mr Tartaglia Polcini, for this in-depth report on international issues. It is worth noting that, in addition to our country’s record exports of nearly 600 billion in 2021, we are also net exporters of anti-corruption techniques. This is very encouraging, and it should be considered in the overall evaluation of a country’s corruption index. We hope that these opportunities for international cooperation continue. Let us take it a step further with Dr Maria Giuseppina Muratore of the ISTAT and look at another chapter. How damaging is this perception of corruption to business? Indeed, analyses of multinationals investing in our country – Istat’s report on multinationals on 2019 data was just released a few weeks ago – show that multinationals’ interest in our country is steadily increasing. The most recent example is KKR, an American hedge fund, wanting to buy TIM. Apparently, international business willingness to invest in our country is unaffected by the perception of corruption. According to the most recent ISTAT data, nearly 16 thousand multinational corporations operate in our country, employing nearly 2 million direct workers and accounting for 8% of GDP, 30% of R&D expenditure, and 50% of exports. As a result, multinational corporations are a huge reality in Italy, which foreign companies offset under Italian control, which numbers roughly the same, even if they invoice less because they are, on average, smaller. Of course, you can always argue that “if there wasn’t corruption, there would be many more of them”, but there are no proofs, and multinational corporations have constantly grown and want to grow in the last 5, 6, 7 years. It could be the “Draghi effect”, as they say, but there has clearly been a resurgence of interest in our country from international companies in the last two years. Mr Muratore, please.
Maria Giuseppina Muratore: Thank you for this meeting and for providing an interesting perspective and providing an extremely detailed overview of the dynamics. The report I prepared is related to the activity that occurred within the G20 countries during the Italian Presidency, but it is not limited to that because, as Mr Polcini previously stated, this activity has obviously been prepared over the years and thus arrived at an interesting and shared path. The concept that emerged from the G7 workshop in 2017 was, in fact, the result of a national working group that brought together a wide range of subjects from various matrices, all with different competencies, but the goal was to go and understand how we could pay attention to the phenomenon of corruption and its measurement. We have no evidence of improved conditions, but the fact that Italy has begun to raise the issue of measuring corruption or making known the risk arising from a perception of the country as one of the most corrupted – which, as previously stated, causes problems for investments – is already a major factor. But, in reality, the situation is very complex, because, as you have already stated, the publicising of the judiciary’s activities, a free press, and various other factors, including negative ones, such as the length of trials and a whole series of things that are put on the table in a very transparent way, have probably also allowed a different awareness to grow among the various institutions, on the one hand, but also among businesses and the different actors contributing to make our Country a good competitor. I wanted to start by saying “data are essential because” implying that only through knowledge of the phenomenon can we then make policies – both political and legislative interventions – and evaluate them, again using data. We must constantly keep the various aspects in mind in our concept and imagine data that is monitored and created for specific purposes. Furthermore, because data will be used somehow, the question of how to convey data arises. I create it to achieve a goal, monitor it to see if it improves, and learn how to communicate it so that concepts are understood. This is where we improve; institutions like Istat improve their ability to provide data, but the press improves its understanding of data and ability to read it. In this sense, if the country-system acts, it acts as a whole or a goal. Some fundamental points about corruption have undoubtedly been critical. The SDGs are undeniably a watershed moment, and both the UN and the OECD are constant stimuli for measurement, as is the resolution’s adoption in 2019. What exactly does the resolution demand of us? Giovanni Tartaglia Polcini has already raised many points, so let us take a closer look at what it all means. It implies a request for objective methodologies and reliable data – specifically, to assess corruption more comprehensively – and we begin to see something very concrete. A wide range of statistical-administrative sources of response to criminal justice is mentioned early in the resolution. A wide range of data from business and household population surveys and risk and vulnerability indicators are used to generate experience-based data. Again, it appears that the idea that a system for measuring corruption is unquestionably useful in combating it is gaining traction, and in some ways, it already lays the groundwork for international collaborations. Countries require assistance in some form or another, and the United Nations, the OECD, and several international organisations and individuals are doing a lot to help. How are the levels of corruption in the G20 countries assessed? The Italian Presidency had a lot of work to do when we sat at the table with the G20’s countries because no country, or almost no one, opposed the idea of this exercise. What does this mean exactly? It means that the time was certainly ripe for such a measurement exercise, and because the countries cooperated, they opened the door to say, “we’ll tell you what we’re doing”, which is also an important factor that leads us to believe that there is a strong desire to move forward on these issues. The main question was related to corruption’s measurement, which we included in the first questionnaire we proposed to the various countries, on which they commented and expanded by suggesting additional elements and new arguments. So, how is corruption measured, what national experiences exist, and are good practises in place? This was our common goal: to understand. Which stakeholders, such as ministries, national agencies, statistical offices, research institutes and associations are involved in the measurement process? Which sources are used, and what methodologies are used? What emerged was the idea that a multidimensional approach was required, mirrored in the requests made to countries to capture the versatility of corruption. As you have repeatedly stated, there is a problem with defining corruption and determining the best way to capture specific aspects. Because each country has its own definition, some offences, such as extortion, which is included in the definition of corruption in Italy, are not defined the same way in other countries. International data classification experience, which provides a common background, has undoubtedly aided in this regard. On the other hand, corruption is a phenomenon that is largely underappreciated. Hence, it is critical in this case to go and directly interview companies, populations, and to understand which sectors are more vulnerable to the risk of corruption, as well as the methodology of the surveys and the indicators provided. One of the most important sources in this field is population surveys on corruption and corruption in the business sector. True, we are discussing petty corruption rather than grand corruption in some cases, but it is clear that a path is being taken on these fundamental aspects. The other aspect is research into the obvious part of the corruption phenomenon, namely the phenomenon’s law enforcement or judicial path. We attempted to comprehend what surveys on crimes, people arrested, investigated, prosecuted, convicted, and detained are, as well as, in this case, how the International Classification of Crime for Statistical Purposes (ICCS) is implemented, which is the first step toward country comparability. Furthermore, another critical and emerging aspect in this period is the identification of corruption risks, which includes data, studies, methods, investigating corruption, and all related issues that can be indicators of what may happen in the world of corruption (public registers and Big Data on procurement, beneficial ownership, administrative sanctions, asset or client declarations, standard costs and so on). In terms of measurement, the G20’s goal was to create this compendium where we could collect experiences from countries and try to give on the one hand the existing point of view, but also find good practices. Therefore, the compendium was made just to be able to look for, for each situation, the answer that the country gives us. As previously stated, the countries were deeply collaborative when we presented the study proposal, and they were also collaborative in the response because as many as 18 countries collaborated and a database of these responses was created, and the datasets were analysed, including from a qualitative standpoint, until a compendium was drawn up. All of this was made possible through close collaboration between ANAC, the OECD, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and ISTAT, but most importantly through the G20 countries’ deep cooperation and willingness. Good practices were collected even when commenting on the compendium. These are some statistics that I wanted to show you to understand how widely these are used – I hope I translated the crimes of the International Classification of Crime for Statistical Purposes correctly. What does this mean exactly? Some countries claim that administrative, judicial, and penal surveys are used to detect these crimes (so-called police statistics on proceedings, convicted persons, prisoners). However, you can see that there are far more correspondences with the ICCS for some crimes, such as embezzlement and abuse of office, whereas there are far more critical situations in terms of active and passive corruption; or the column concerning illicit enrichment clearly shows that this is a type of crime for which countries have fewer data available. This connection between the generation of statistical data and the ICCS-guaranteed alignment with international comparability is something we have also attempted to capture in the various surveys. From both police and prosecution sources, surveys on legal persons are less common and thus are not limited to reported people arrested by the police. Many, however, lack ICCS, so there may be surveys, but they are not necessarily comparable across countries, and in these cases, it is very useful in the compendium to go to understand which countries have done this great work of aligning their codes to the International Classification and which are still in the process. However, many countries are gradually aligning their codes, so there is significant progress toward statistical awareness and harmonisation even from this perspective. The fact that situations differ greatly between countries emerges, and numerous institutions collect data. Surveys on “detained and convicted persons” are conducted not only by the Ministry of Justice and judicial authorities but also by the corresponding National Authorities Against Corruption, various Statistical Institutes, and the Ministry of Interior (Police and Law Enforcement. In 50% of the countries, the data is managed by more than one Institute when we speak about reported crimes, there is a plurality of information that is not necessarily continuous, it is not necessarily said that it gathers so much information, so many variables. However, there is a data’s guarantee that can be used between the Countries and begin to reason also on the comparisons, because of course it is not only the definition that makes data comparable but as we know the collection methodology also differs considerably in the various institutes. The areas where we lag the most are population surveys and business data. There is also a diversity of institutions here; 11 countries conduct this survey, but some countries conduct more than one, and more frequently, so they are the best practice. Some countries lead the way in this regard, and there are many topics covered; consider that there are 11 countries, but as you can see, there are many topics covered. Besides perception, there is the direct experience of corruption, personal experience of the request of taking bribes in the public and private sector, and perception of the quality of public services. What is a vulnerable industry? To help us understand, I have included a figure from the 2016 Istat surveys. This is an example of the citizens’ survey, who also answered for a portion of their professional life and personal life; we can see some proposed indicators and risk sectors here directly (in this sense, the risk sector is essential). The vote on exchange was highly significant for Italy. There are questions about recommendations, such as whether they were used and whether the person was asked to recommend someone, as well as indirect corruption, such as knowing someone who was asked to pay or give gifts in exchange for goods or favours, whereas these 7%,9%, 2%, 7%, 1%, 2% are indicators of people who were directly asked for paying bribes. As a result, even within a survey, various aspects can be investigated (the next survey is in 2022). Instead, the following types of questions arise concerning the corporate corruption aspect that you observe: Personal bribery experiences in the public sector; perception and indirect experience of corruption; and the effectiveness of corporate integrity in combating bribery cases There are nine countries (or even fewer) that conduct these types of surveys; some conduct them on all companies, while others only on potentially vulnerable companies. When each of these surveys was conducted in these countries, they asked for regularity, information on the dissemination of the results, and the guarantees offered to the respondents to get a snapshot of the institutions conducting them and the surveys. What other sources did you have? We presented a risk factor analysis discussion. Allow me to elaborate: Look for contexts and areas, as well as sources that can assist you in understanding which contexts can lead to a corrupt situation. For example, 78% of countries conduct public procurement surveys unrelated to corruption, with 14 countries in particular, and what questions are asked about them? They inquire about the tender procedure or whether a tender was issued, the number of days, the number of bidders, the price paid, and the characteristics of the bidder. There is a plethora of studies that can be conducted on this subject. We have experience with ANAC data, which is widely analysed nationally and internationally. However, in recent years, for example, an ISTAT-ANAC agreement has linked the characteristics of the company and whether or not the company has won a contract, and I must say that very positive data has come out, in the sense that it appears that companies with good profits win contracts, and thus particularly solid companies. These are fascinating data that can also link the contract’s criticalities to the type of company, but as you can see. At the same time, many countries work on standard costs for goods and services, data analysis on the transparency of public administrations, or penalties for illegal behaviour. Very few countries work on the Court of Auditors procedure, the actual ownership of companies, conflict of interest registers, and so on. In some countries, there is no definition of these types of situations. In some countries, however, these same activities are carried out by multiple institutions for which multiple stakeholders are responsible, and they are also continuous in time or resulting in a persistent annual frequency. As a result, a thorough investigation and data collection are underway. To summarise, there are bright spots and dark spots, but the positive aspects that emerge are significant: There is certainly a greater awareness of the importance of statistical data; a focus on international comparability – which is not satisfactory but is pointing in the right direction -; a good inter-institutional approach to measuring corruption within countries; and many studies that analyse the problems associated with corruption situations are emerging. Some countries experiment in various ways; they do not just plan one survey, but several; they try to understand the goal and then try to measure it. Among these, I must single out Mexico, which is excelling on almost every front. Thus, the goal is to go and create complex measurement systems, which is not an indicator, but the diversity of sources ensures me a good measurement. All of these are ongoing challenges, and there is a lack of consistency in statistics, a lack of development, particularly of evidence-based surveys (partly because they are expensive, partly because there are several prejudices and stereotypes about these sources), and, as a result, a lack of an integrated system to measure corruption at the international level. Only a few countries are working on this at the national level.
Paolo Mazzanti: Thank you so much, Mrs Muratore. This analysis piqued my interest because it provided a synopsis of what we discussed this morning. I was particularly intrigued by the figure for households affected by corruption: 7.9% of those interviewed if I understand correctly. If we project 4.7/8 million citizens onto the population, this means that corruption has affected 1.5/6 million households. Each person can decide whether these are large or small figures. Industry sectors with the highest levels of corruption are also very interesting. I believe it is the health/care sector on the one hand and the labour sector on the other. I was the head of the Ministry of Health’s press office for a year, and I suggested to the Minister that he recommend to the regions that they appoint Carabinieri officers at the head of the ASLs to receive suppliers in uniform and with a gun on their lapels. That would be fine if we could go around the table briefly to gather some suggestions before ANAC President Busia’s final speech.
Giannakopoulos: I will try to keep it short. I appreciated the statistical effort of the data collection agencies because, many years ago, I conducted the first statistical study on corruption in Switzerland, which resulted in a complete rethinking of how the Federal Statistical Office collected and organised data to understand what the phenomenon was. This was roughly 20 years ago; now, I see that all countries are attempting to cooperate; they are on the right track, though there are still many differences, even among anti-corruption agencies. Indeed, in today’s world, it is common practice to establish anti-corruption agencies in all countries, but from my personal experience, these anti-corruption agency heads occasionally use their positions to commit corrupt acts. This must be comprehended and brought to light. There is a desire in Italy, among Italian institutions, to bring a methodology to the European level. Italy is a member of the European Union, and it has been attempting for many years to bring to the European level the methodologies and administrative structures that it has been developing for many years (which bring data and results). However, some European countries do not want to hear about it because there is a custom that if you do not talk about corruption, there is no corruption, and thus you are ranked higher. This is the other side of these indices, favouring countries that do not discuss corruption. However, every cop, every judge understands that when you fight a corrupting phenomenon, you invariably bring it to the surface. As a result, at the international level, international investments must be intelligent enough to recognise that the phenomenon or data do not imply a more significant presence of corruption. Hence, it would be best to consider reintegrating these facts and perceptions to balance your rankings.
Ferrario: I would also like to emphasise this crucial point, which emerged both from Muratore’s data and Tartaglia Polcini’s speeches about his multilateral experiences. In my opinion, the multilateral component is critical to making progress in measuring corruption as objectively as possible. It is also, in my opinion, the responsibility of the most advanced countries to decide which methods and best practices, no matter how simple or limited, should be pursued at the European and G20 levels. Of course, discussing with 180 or 190 countries is extremely difficult and not feasible in the short term. We would have to rely on perceptual and thus subjective elements with all of the aforementioned problems for the time being. However, if we begin to establish, implement, and demonstrate how it works in a replicable and straightforward manner in other countries that lack the advanced infrastructure of these countries, we can begin to compensate by integrating subjective data with these indices. This, I believe, is the most attainable and objectively beneficial goal that can be accomplished in a relatively short period.
Polcini Tartaglia: The work is half completed but not completed. Our Presidency, which I had the honour of chairing, ended with the adoption of an action plan. This is one of the G20 Anti-Corruption Working Group’s cross-cutting issues to which it can contribute. The first item on the list is dedicated to measuring corruption to raise awareness of the importance of promoting a collective discussion on improving corruption measurement in both the public and private sectors by focusing on reliable, evidence-based indicators. We should avoid duplicating previous work, instead improving existing indices to make them more reliable. We also took the liberty of translating the G20 documents, which were all in English, and will make them public via a publication of the interinstitutional coordination table. The problem is one of definition, which is why comparing and rating is tricky. Let me give you an example: I recently read a booklet written by a Carabinieri officer that defined the level of exportation, and thus of presence, of the ‘Ndrangheta’s international projection on a global scale. If we consider infiltration corruption rather than petty corruption, the modalities of ‘Ndrangheta infiltration worldwide are identical; they do not differ from one country to the next. It is just that they give rise to a slew of juridical institutes and legal actions that are unique to Italy. The book is titled “The canon and the international projections of the ‘Ndrangheta” It is obvious that if we become aware, officially, through judicial channels, of the existence of a true infiltration of a person belonging to a mafia-type criminal organisation into an Institution, we have many tools at our disposal, ranging from the dissolution of that local government to a variety of other activities, including personal and patrimonial prevention measures, and so on. Are we certain that countries where this type of infiltration occurs, whether by our export organised crime or their indigenous criminal organisation, are perfectly capable of doing the same because the methods are identical? Is it obvious, and how is the phenomenon measured? Reading the numbers obviously scares people (millions of people or families), but it is critical to understand how the statistics are gathered, and the question is posed. I recall trying to translate from English the questions in the questionnaire or during data collection as part of the research when I first started doing this type of work. And the question changes if you say, “do you have direct experience of corruption” or “in your family, there have been experiences (direct or indirect) of corruption” This is essential. Similarly, the size of the temporal reference is critical because shrinking the time frame sometimes yields the picture. When asked, “in your life, have you ever had an experience of corruption”, the answer paints a picture of reality; when asked, “in the last six months,” the picture paints an entirely different picture of reality. If those statistics are then used for comparative purposes in an annual survey, there is a risk of distortion.
Mazzanti: Because that statistic appears to have included bargaining, and we will broaden the scope of cases. Mrs Muratore, please.
Muratore: There are only 250 thousand families in which at least one instance of corruption has occurred in the last 12 months, so they are few. There have been 597 thousand in the last three years, with a lifetime total of 1 million 642 thousand. And it is found in a variety of industries. Clearly, this is direct corruption; those who have witnessed it may have done so more than once. I invite you to examine that data because, if direct corruption is an area in which we asked precise questions like “I would like to know if you were asked or perceived a situation in which they were asking for gifts or money and so on”. However, other situations can be added (for example, bribe voting if it did not happen to you but to family members). Obviously, it depends on how you define corruption. We note, for example, a behaviour that we have not counted but that is considered corruption on an international level: for example, a doctor who works in a public facility, “come and see me privately, then I will operate on you in public” In our opinion, this is not corruption; however if we were to make international comparisons, we would need to include this component as well. Evidently, we are dealing with a complex situation that should not frighten us, but we must recognise it.
Paolo Mazzanti: Thank you very much; I will now turn the floor over to Giuseppe Busia for his closing remarks. I want to ask you a couple of questions. The first question is, what positive actions can be taken to promote virtue? Is it even possible to include a financial incentive? With all of the risks involved, it is understandable that one would be tempted to file unfounded complaints. The second point is that, with Tangentopoli, it is frequently asked whether corruption has increased or decreased. According to my experience as a journalist, it has slightly decreased, in the sense that it reached the highest levels, the very highest levels, during Tangentopoli – we remember the suitcases of money deposited in Craxi’s or Forlani’s offices. However, these things do not appear to occur today; the phenomenon appears to be more endemic, occurring at lower levels, and in any case, being very widespread.
Giuseppe Busia: Thank you for inviting me to take part in this discussion. In my opinion, key elements about what we can do and where we can go have emerged. The first point on which I believe everyone can agree is the significance of measurement in both preventing and combating corruption. That is, we are all convinced that measuring corruption helps us understand what it is and identify the best strategies for preventing and combating it (both organisational strategies – how Administrations organise themselves to respond to corruption – and operational strategies). Corruption measurement is a prerequisite; it is a measure in and of itself for preventing and combating corruption. It is critical to state and explain this because once measured, and one begins to act consistently in this direction. Measuring corruption pays, and this is yet another thing we must learn to say. We are all aware that corruption is costly and having good tools to measure it saves money and pays off. We see this particularly concerning public contracts, where the risk of corruption is higher: a good thing that the legislator did was to combine the activity of preventing corruption with the activity of regulating and supervising public contracts; it is a good intuition because there is money there for which a bribe is worth paying. Putting them together is beneficial and saves money because if there is good competition, transparency, and companies compete legally, you save money because you spend public resources more efficiently, and since measuring correctly helps you fight, investing in measurement makes sense save money. So, first and foremost, measurement is a form of prevention and combat; secondly, measurement is worthwhile because good measurement affects the country’s image and international investment, and it is proper that the country have a true image. We must not try to sugar-coat the image or return a negative image. We must aim to present a correct and shared image, and this is the responsibility of the most advanced countries. I will now move on to two more important elements to the overall measurement. The first is that corruption is a difficult, elusive, and ill-defined element. Even on a global scale, there are far fewer briefcases and far more phenomena in which advice is given, parallel contracts are made, and far more means are available. Corruption has become more complex, and measuring corruption is a complex phenomenon in and of itself, so we must arm ourselves with more complex tools. We have seen, and we all know, the merits of Transparency International’s perception-based measurement: as stated, it is a method that has guaranteed a certain universality, conformity, and ease, but also the limits, which have been indicated today, which are those that obviously can be influenced in a country with greater freedom of the press, with greater attention to anti-corruption action. I have come up with another solution: how corruption is perceived. I can give you my opinion: I am convinced that it is different because it has undoubtedly changed since Tangentopoli, but I would add a subjective impression, and for everything we have said about the question, I prefer to try to work on the objective perception. Measurement is a complex phenomenon, but today’s measurements necessitate using as many objective elements as possible. As a result, we must all work together to fill it with objective elements and provide us with as much feedback as possible. This relates to what I was saying earlier because we need to share it and bring faithful photographs of that reality to Italy and the rest of the world (obviously with the difficulty that corruption as a complex measurement phenomenon entails). Anac is collaborating with Istat, Universities, and Institutions on the project “Territorial measurement of the risk of corruption and promotion of transparency” funded by the European Union’s Operational Programme Governance and Institutional Capacity 2014-2020. We have enlisted the assistance of various actors to ensure and identify corruption risks to collaborate. From the standpoint of those who want to prevent corruption and have good measurement based on objective elements, what we are interested in and require is a great infrastructure of the country, which is the National Database of Public Contracts. We collect all data on public contracts signed for works, services, supplies, and purchased goods; we collect all of this data and are constantly improving and investing. We successfully incorporated the critical component of tender digitisation into the PNRR, which speeds up, enforces adherence to procedural timeframes, and allows for the expansion and simplification of information collection. Quantifying information is possible. The following are some examples: the number of people who take part in tenders, the length of the tender, etc. It is essential to have a proper infrastructure, such as the National Database of Public Contracts, an award-winning European best practice that other countries envy and that we must and are proposing to other countries as a model. In our project, we not only involved and collected data from our database, but we also asked Istat, the Ministry of Justice, and several subjects to cross-reference their data with ours precisely to have as much objective data as possible combined together and united through experts, Universities, who have identified which are the broadest indicators to arrive at indicators that tend to be objective based on scientific literature. During Italy’s presidency, we proposed this work to the G20. So far, we have 71 measurement indicators divided into three thematic areas, including context. The results of this study will be presented soon. It is a significant project, and I would like to emphasise that it will result in the development of a dedicated website where people will interact, use the data, and obtain the data. These four points – indispensable measurement; measurement against corruption itself; convenient; complex element to be also enriched with objective elements while safeguarding the importance that perception has had anyway – help us understand how important it is to converge on a great alliance for corruption measurement, which is a way to achieve an essential, important piece to prevent corruption. It means that we must join forces, as we are doing in part, ensuring that there is no competition, but rather complementarity, to find the best practices. This is an internal alliance formed to propose a good method, a good practice to the outside world, to become universal. We must identify objective elements that can be measured elsewhere, elements that ensure universality in the sense of implementability, in the sense that we must achieve global uniformity. Since I arrived at Anac, one flaw has amazed me: Europe lags in these areas. The European Union, the highest point of aggregation, is lagging behind, and we are collaborating with sister authorities, including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, to develop a European regulation and demonstrate good practices, especially now that Europe has made an extraordinary effort with Next Generation EU and needs to balance the trust given to countries, including and especially our country, with tools to verify corruption and hoarding. Here I return to what I was saying earlier, namely the importance of the National Database of Public Contracts, which must become a good practice, a national and European infrastructure. As a result, we must form an internal alliance and advocate for it externally, enriching this measurement with objective elements. If we can accomplish this, we will have made significant strides in scientific advancement. It will give us a true picture of Italy and place it properly. ANAC is available and widely used in the academic community, so thank you again to Eurispes for this opportunity.
Paolo Mazzanti: President Busia, thank you very much. If I may add, there is also a public communication aspect. I believe we should also make more significant efforts to communicate with the rest of the world. My agency and I are available to investigate additional forms of external communication that can make the most of what has been said today.
