Annex. A Plan Against Corruption. Suggestions for a regime of transparence.

Democracy loses its legitimacy when the lawful State totters. And the lawful State totters when the judicial system is not independent enough from all sorts of pressures and does not have available reliable information to support its judgements with evidence in order to avoid impunity of crimes and offences. But democracy becomes weaker also when politicians do not know how to get rid of corruption and when public administration is neither transparent nor effective.

In our book «The power of money. Monetics against corruption» a number of steps are suggested to ensure a consistent and democratic introduction of monetics (electronic money). These steps would endow Justice with an effective information system which would ensure the intimacy and privacy of citizens against illegal interferences and at the same time would provide the necessary documented transparence which the lawful State needs.

The book is a contribution to the discussion on which information must be gathered and which not, who must have access to it and for what. One of the main theses is that through monetics, in some very well defined conditions, society may have available a system to foster freedom (beyond the constrictions of bureaucracy) but also to foster self-responsibility, so that free actions leave the necessary footprints to allow the follow-up and clarification of criminal conducts (terrorism, drugs, arms, bribery, frauds, robbery...).

This is not the time to explain in more detail the technical features and the legal conditions which may make feasible in the short term a system of social self-responsibilization. But it seems convenient to point out the coincidence between the publication of this book and the public request made by politicians to find suggestions to make corruption impossible. I therefore take this opportunity to publicly propose for discussion some items of a possible plan against corruption. This plan starts from the gradual application of what might be called a «transparence regime».

The «transparence regime» is based on the hypothesis that the person or organization adopting it commits itself to make all payments and collections by means of special cheques through bank accounts, it therefore commits itself to effect all operations with nominal and informative cheques. Nominal, because they will only be valid if they show the names of the two persons carrying out the operation. Informative, because, besides its function as a cheque, it will also have a function as an invoice: it will show the goods or services which have caused the deal to take place, with their prices and features. The people under the transparence regime -because of their public function- or resorting to it voluntarily, will not be able to use cash (anonymous bank notes) under serious penal sanction. In order to improve the system and avoid bureaucracy and paper work, this system of cheque-invoice may become very agile and reliable taking advantage of the latest possibilities of monetics (electronic transfer of funds activated by intelligent money-cards).

For a democratic use of the «transparence regime» it will be necessary to state very clearly who will have access to this information, and how. The information concerning the operations of public institutions will be freely accessible to all citizens and will have to be submitted in a form easily understandable by the different kinds of people who look them up. On the contrary, the information of personal operations, and even those of politicians and public officials, will only be accessible to the person concerned and to the judicial system when it becomes necessary to start an inquiry or to gather documentary evidence for a sentence.

On the other hand, as this regime becomes more popular, the non-personalized information of the cheque-invoices (goods, services, prices, date, place,...) will supply very exact and thorough information to improve economic theory (with an increase in the quality of statistics, indicators, and so on) and to make economic policy more operative (optimization of the fiscal and financial system, budgetary control, separation between actual and speculative economic activities...). It will also help to radically improve control over the monetary mass (for every movement of money there will be a parallel movement of goods or services: it will not be possible to move money without reason), with a favourable influence on the control of the monetary inflation. An important part of present day social problems will have to be re-focused as a consequence of the new emerging framework: some solutions will become obsolete and, on the other hand, it will be necessary to face new challenges.

As concerns the safety of the data bases handling the information, it will be possible to increase very much the system's selfcontrol if the processing and storage of data are carried out simultaneously through three parallel networks (with different hardware, software and human teams), with extremely personalized and specified access keys. There are self-control systems already in use for high security sectors, which, when started, make manipulation statistically impossible. It would be necessary to guarantee the complete independence (political and financial) of the body having in charge the information. This independence would not be dangerous as it would have no effective executive power.

The application plan of the «transparence regime» takes into consideration different suggestions for the four main social groups where it could be applied: politicians, public institutions, private concerns, and citizens. The idea is that the plan should start to introduce compulsory mechanisms of transparence and responsibilization in the first two groups: politicians and public institutions; and voluntary mechanisms, with fiscal advantages, in the other two: private concerns and citizens.

Suggestions of transparence for politicians.

Most of the corruption problems come from the financing system of parties and elections. Citizens know little the whole of laws and mechanisms regulating, with little efficiency, the financing of the agents and of the mechanisms of political renovation. We shall not start now discussing the complex debate which must be carried out on the system of parties and elections. In any of the present-day or future possible models it would be necessary, however, to introduce a total transparence as a condition which can be demanded from those who say they are serving the common good. The game must be outspokenly clear. But in order to carry on this game it is necessary for all the players to be under the same condition of transparence. The main idea of the plan, in this case, is that the transparence regime should be fully applied to political parties, their staffs, elections candidates and elected charges. That means that any public or private contribution and any expenses of the party or of its officers should be under the «transparence regime». And that the judicial system -as we shall see, also submitted to transparence- should be able to clearly verify the lawfulness of the operations. Those who think that, under these conditions, nobody will be willing to go in for politics, forget that, perhaps, the lack of transparence is one of the many factors which stops many citizens from going into active politics, as long as the price be the dark game where not always it is the best who make progress.

Suggestions of transparence for public institutions.

Most of the faulty management of public funds and of the ineffectiveness of public administration comes from its excessive bureaucracy, which demands many formal controls which, in fact, not only do not prevent a faulty management but usually are a factor which increases it: tenders, auctions, awards,... restrain quick and responsible decisions, put up the price for works and services, and conceal inefficiency and maffias which, in short, harm the citizens and the country. The «transparence regime» gives consistency to what some administrations say they do as a rule, but which is not always carried out: that all cheques be nominal. The system would then imply that this should be compulsory in the whole of the public administration and, besides, cheques should indicate the reasons of the operation (invoice). To complete responsibilization of institutions and their officers, the transparence regime should include all those receiving public money (politicians, judges, army, public officials) so that the controllers may also be legally controlled under suitable judicial protection. It would then be necessary to consider if the transparence regime should be applied to those citizens and bodies that receive public aids and grants: both to know if the awarding systems are fair enough and to know if the right to get them and their use are legally correct. Public and mixed concerns should also be submitted to the «transparence regime»: not only because it is through intermediary companies -much less controlled- that not very clear operations can be carried out, but also because, through this system, almost half of the economic activity of the country (which should give example of a responsible management) would clearly inform of its management operations.

Suggestions of transparence for private concerns.

Most of the great companies and some of the small ones have today systems of inside information which allow them to have a very clear view of their movements and operations, both their own and of those carried out with other companies. Electronic invoicing and payment are asserting themselves in wide sectors. But, because of the mistrust produced by the public sector and thanks to an unfair fiscal pressure (the honest ones who pay, pay for themselves and for those who do not pay: the result is that honesty spells ruin), it is not easy to impose the «transparence regime» if the companies and citizens are not first convinced that the public sector sets the example and that an effective public management justifies specific taxes. But the path to a transparence with guarantees seems democratically unavoidable, and it should be fostered by rewarding companies and private bodies willing to take up the «transparence regime». In this case a number of fiscal reductions and diverse incentives should be established to clearly favour transparent companies, granting them competitive advantages with respect to the others. The public cost of these reductions not only would be compensated by the reduction of costs of uneffective inspections and controls, but also by the increase of sure incomes and the higher enthusiasm produced in honest sectors, up to now disheartened by the unloyal and illegal competition.

Suggestions of transparence for citizens.

The technical difficulty of introducing a cheque-invoice system (paper or electronic) for the public administration or companies is no good excuse for not trying. It is technically feasible in the EEC. For the small companies and shops, however, and for many citizens, a short-term introduction of a general system of cheque-invoice may not seem so easy. It must also be considered to what extent citizens are willing to be submitted to a «transparence regime» without being sure, not only that institutions will set the example, but also that they will be in a position to stop a fraudulent access or with a totalitarian goal. It is therefore necessary to give time so that the results of the introduction of the «anti-corruption plan» in the public sector are clear enough. In the meantime, it must be kept in mind that the technical difficulty of introducing a cheque-invoice system for consumers becomes smaller and smaller. Intelligent cards (cards with a chip able to store information and to avoid a fraudulent access to it) are quickly gaining ground. In France is soon to be introduced an «electronic purse». With only one personal card, where each one puts the money of his bank account, it will be possible to make all sorts of payments: transport, services, shops,... The French banks and «la Poste» appear to be interested in this because it implies a reduction of costs for everybody: for the banks (to compensate a cheque is much more expensive), for shops (reduction of costs of management of cash-flow, stocks and accounting) and for customers (only one card much surer than the magnetic band ones, protection against theft or loss, protection of privacy).

Suggestions for the «transparence regime» within the framework of the European unity.

The ECU (European Currency Unit), the European currency, is a practically electronic pure Unit of Account. Paradoxically, the European Parliament has summoned a competition de design the future ECUS bank-notes, an anachronism contrasting with the quick advance of the networks of telematic money all over Europe. In the next few years will converge both the agreement to introduce the ECU and the total compatibility of intelligent cards in all the automatic cashiers and sales terminals all over Europe. Wouldn't it be advisable to think of a consistent and democratic application of monetics, which would convert the future ECU into a monetary instrument to foster transparence and participative democracy? The ECU-CARD would be the card of the EEC citizens, which would help to a good construction of Europe, improving the control by citizens of institutions, simplifying the participative systems of election and decision (in Norway the CIVIS card will allow to vote electronically) and optimizing the fiscal management and the distributive policies.

Proposals in the framework of international relations.

In the last months the organization International Transparence has been created, as a result of an alliance among several organizations and Governments, to end with corruption in trade relations. This organization, whose head office is in Berlin, is preparing behaviour rules, and agrees with the importance of starting to control the activities funded by public money. These «behaviour rules» stress the need to avoid the existence of «parallel book-keepings» and the introduction of inner and outer control systems to ensure the enforcement of the «rules». The «transparence regime» contributes a powerful control system for the execution of the «rules» on level with the challenge proposed by the electronic world operations.

The gradual introduction of the «transparence regime» must not make us forget that national and international corruption cannot be effectively fought while the dominating monetary system be based on the legal tender of anonymous currencies which instrumentally foster the double accountancy and impunity of corruption.

Social innovation must modify the rules of the social game as technical innovations unveil new dangers, but also new possibilities.

Democracy will lose ligitimity little by little if it does not find a system to ensure at the same time a lawful State, avoidance of corruption, protection of privacy, and a clear and effective public administration. The loss of democratic legitimity leads always to totalitarianism. This Plan against Corruption wants to open a discussion on the best way to foster a deeper and responsible democracy. Those citizens, managers, officials or politicians who want to play fairly, have a trail to follow.

Barcelona, 24th February 1992 (First). 7th April 1993 (Second).