Corruption in maritime industry, other sectors costs $1 trillion in tax revenue globally

The International Monetary Fund(IMF) published a report resulting to the fact that curbing corruption could generate about $1 trillion (760.23 billion pounds) in tax revenues annually across the world.

In addition to increasing government revenue, fighting corruption can also reduce waste and even help to lift test scores among public school students, while also improving overall public trust in the government.

Corruption—the abuse of public office for private gain—distorts the activities of the state and ultimately takes a toll on economic growth and the quality of people’s

Less corruption means lower revenue leakage and less waste in expenditures, and higher quality of public education and infrastructure.

Moreover, the pattern of lower corruption perception and higher revenues is maintained across developed, emerging and low-income countries.

Paolo Mauro, deputy director in the IMF’s Fiscal Affairs department commented that the expectations were that transparency would be in line with good fiscal results. On the contrary, the effect of transparency is much stronger in countries that have a free press or a (strong) civil society.

Yet, Paolo Mauro pointed that

And when you have those two together the effect is even more.

In addition, the report supports that technology can help fight corruption.

Generally, corruption and “greenwashing” show rising trends in most sectors in year 2018 with shipping industry not being excluded.

Ship owners, Port officers, Ship Registries, Classification Societies, recycling yard owners and scrap dealers are said involved in “Greenwashing” operations, trying to circumvent the international maritime legislation to their own benefit.

A striking example was a recent corruption incident, when Croatian authorities arrested 12 corrupted Uljanik shipyard executives.

As John Sypnowich, Chief Legal and Compliance Officer of The CSL Group Inc & Chair of MACN, has previously stated

Regulation is vital to tackling corruption. But action must go beyond writing new or more laws.
MACN has developed an anonymous incident reporting system which has collected over 19,000 reports of corrupt demands globally.

Concluding, corruption plays an important role in providing a negative image for the shipping sector and spreading uncertainty.