Signals emanating from different quarters indicate that both the developed and developing countries have to cover a vast ground in tackling the menace of corruption.

The entities that have voiced their concern over anti-corruption deficit across the globe include The Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the World Bank, G20, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and The International Chamber of Commerce (ICC).

A glance through their latest documents as well as recent developments in countries such as India suggests that the governments are going easy on corruption in their respective countries while their collective rhetoric at forums such as G20 is becoming louder.

Take a look at the latest efforts of OECD, which is busy evaluating the implementation of the OECD anti-bribery Convention in its member countries. And the evaluation reports are disheartening. Releasing its Report on Australia on 25 th October, OECD observed: " Australia's enforcement of its foreign bribery laws has been extremely low, with just a single case leading to prosecutions out of 28 referrals in 13 years. Cases may have been closed prematurely. Australia must vigorously pursue foreign bribery allegations."

OECD sounded similar concern two days prior to this while releasing a similar evaluation report on France. As put by an OECD release, " France should intensify its efforts to combat the bribery of foreign public officials. Only five convictions – of which one, under appeal, involves a company – have been handed down in twelve years. The OECD Working Group on Bribery is concerned by the lackluster response of the authorities in actual or alleged cases of foreign bribery involving French companies. The Working Group finds that sanctions are not sufficiently dissuasive and expresses concern over the lack of confiscation of the proceeds of corruption."

One wonders what would be the conclusions of a similar evaluation of countries such as India that enjoy dubious reputation of figuring high in the all global rankings of perceived corruption countries. India is a G20 country but not a OECD member. It is woefully wanting in legislative and autonomous institutional mechanism in the area of anti-corruption.

In India, politically influential persons are rarely booked for corruption, leave aside launching prosecution against them. It is no wonder then that Robert Vadra, the son-in-law of the President of India's most prominent Congress Party, Sonia Gandhi, has got clean chit overnight from several central ministers for amassing huge wealth through suspicious real estate dealings that should normally require probe under laws such as Prevention of Money Laundering Act and the Companies Act. The clean chit was given without initiating an iota of casual or informal study of the allegations.

Money laundering and corruption often go hand in hand but are rarely investigated for anti-corruption deficit in several countries.

It is here pertinent to ponder over the conclusions drawn by an Experts Meeting on Corruption convened by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) in collaboration with the G20 Anti-Corruption Working Group on 13 October 2012.

The expertsnoted that "In practice, suspicious transaction reports (STR) have uncovered corruption activity, triggered corruption investigations, and been used to support ongoing financial investigations of corrupt activity. STR's can provide a valuable source of financial intelligence for investigators in both the identification and tracing of the proceeds of corruption."

The meeting concluded that "there is a growing recognition that, even though anti-corruption and AML (anti-money laundering) efforts are mutually reinforcing, they have not always been brought together effectively."

Forget probing suspicious transactions, many developing countries are loathe to pursue the anti-corruption leads given by multilateral financial institutions and foreign law enforcement agencies.The World Bank's experience in this sphere is enlightening.

"We expect national authorities to give proper attention and consideration to the Bank Group's referrals of investigative information. Ideally, this should lead to their undertaking competent investigations, prosecutions, and adjudication within the country-but it often has not," says the World Bank President in Robert B. Zoellick in its latest anti-corruption initiatives annual report for 2011.

The report pertains to ‘Integrity Vice Presidency', which is an independent entity within the World Bank Group mandated to investigate and pursue legal action involving allegations of corruption and fraud in the Bank-funded projects.

On 10th October 2012, The International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) lent its voice to anti-corruption resolve aired at G20 where passing resolutions is a matter of routine.

ICC stated it has unveiled the latest addition to its suite of tools to help business stamp out corruption -the ICC anti-corruption clause.

"Designed for inclusion in any contract, the clause is part of ICC's commitment to supporting implementation of the United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC) and more active engagement with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Anti-Bribery Working Group," says ICC release.

At the last summit meeting of G20 Heads of State held in Mexico in June 2012, the summit, for instance, "Reiterated the G20's commitment to the ratification and full implementation of the United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC), and to more active engagement with the OECD working group on bribery on a voluntary basis." The leaders also resolved that "We commit to enforcing anti-corruption legislation, and we will pursue those who receive and solicit bribes as well as those who pay them in line with our countries' legislation."

It is one thing for a head of State or another representative of a State to lend support to a joint global or regional resolution. It is quite another thing for a Head of State to implement the same resolution against corrupt members of the ruling alliance in their own backyard. This is best illustrated by latest developments in India where Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh has coolly overlooked corruption charges hurled by civil society against certain ministers, leave aside ordering any impartial probe into any allegation that was backed with some evidence.

Way back in December 1998, a Staff Paper published by International Monetary Fund suggested a four-pronged strategy to fight corruption. The strategy is as much relevant as in the past.The paper captioned ‘Corruption Around the World' stated: "In any case, any serious strategy to attempt to reduce corruption will need action on at least four fronts: 1. Honest and visible commitment by the leadership to the fight against corruption, for which the leadership must show zero tolerance; 2. Policy changes that reduce the demand for corruption by scaling down regulations and other policies such as tax incentives, and by making those that are retained as transparent and as non discretionary as possible; 3. Reducing the supply of corruption by increasing public sector wages, increasing incentives toward honest behavior, and instituting effective controls and penalties on the public servants; and 4. Somehow solving the problem of the financing of political parties."

Would the next G20 summit resolve to commission a study on these parameters for all its member countries?