She was referring to the comment that private compani=
es
could play a role in rewarding transparent and low corruption countries whi=
le
leaving high corruption ones at the Delivering a Governance Dividend for As=
ia
session.
The session focused on the issue of transparency and
corruption cost to
Former prime minister of Pakistan Shaukat
Aziz said a new electronic tax filing system had
doubled government tax revenues while reducing complaints of corruption.
“When I was implementing this, there was great
resistance of course from the tax department. They said, ‘We have
invested so much in this tax tsar, and now you want a computer to assess
tax?’ We still have some problem with the auditing but now tax revenue
has doubled,” he said.
On whether democracy was important for transparency, =
Aziz felt that the question should be whether people
believed “they have a true democracy with transparency?”
A factor was the reduction in interaction between
government officials and the public in such situations. However, he warned =
that
the same system might not work in another country.
Mayor of
Former member of the House of Co=
uncillors
and former minister for foreign affairs of Japan Yorik=
o
Kawaguchi said apart from government transparency, corporate demands must a=
lso
be transparent.
Also, while it was all and good to say that companies
could withdraw investment from a country, “some countries are not eas=
y to
get out of once you are in,” she said.