rePost::Charter Cities: Rules and Culture: Corruption in Hong Kong

Fighting corruption is not hopeless guys, although can’t see how we can implement something like this in the Philippines. I think we need something like No Term Limits for Ombudsman.  How does one find good people ? This is a recurring problem that I fear is really unsolvable, in the sense that we need to first foster a or encourage a culture of honesty and trust and the way I see it if people in government are corrupted in a way that may be called systematic, people from below, need to take honesty from the ground up. For now the top down corruption is winning but I am hopeful that eventually the bottom up idealist will eventually succeed!

The government’s initial attempt to fight corruption relied on a combination of an anti-corruption branch within the police force and a reduction in the prosecution’s burden of proof. For instance, the Prevention of Bribery Ordinance (1971) made it an offense to be in control of property unexplained by past income. However, since the police themselves were corrupt, relying on the police to investigate corruption proved futile.
After initial failures, in 1974 the governor general moved anti-corruption responsibilities to a new elite ministry: the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC). The ministry was independent, directly responsible to the governor, well paid, and recruited from the civilian population. The public, confident in the new ministry’s independence, became much more cooperative in reporting instances of corruption.
via Charter Cities: Rules and Culture: Corruption in Hong Kong.

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