Corruption doesn't happen because people have less money. If that was true, the poorest would be the most corrupt and the richest would be the least corrupt. This is definitely not the case. It happens when there is no downside to it.
> higher accountability of the funds allocated for government projects
How? By having more government employees to monitor the existing ones? This is the exact kind of solution that would come from a seasoned bureaucrat. It serves the purpose of looking like a solution while adding to the problem.
What should be done is to remove most of the government employees and hire firms to do the job instead. That way, the individual activity and performance is the responsibility of the firm. Will some of these private firms be corrupt? Yes, but they can be monitored and replaced much easier than you can do with millions of individual government employees. Corruption can be reported directly to the firms and they will have incentives to sack the corrupt employees because of the fear of being investigated and sacked by the government.
One Dalai Lama had created a "reverse secret police" whose job it was to spy on officials.
India's approach is technological, like the Aadhar biometric system to ensure financial aid payments are not embezzled by corrupt officials. Some cultures like Scandinavia have managed to develop a zero-tolerance approach to corruption, like the minister who had to resign because she used her government credit card to buy a chocolate bar.
What ComradePhil means is: If poor countries' police are corrupt simply because they're so poorly paid, shouldn't the poor countries' police chiefs be honest, as they're paid more? And yet the police chief probably makes much more bribe money.
As I understand things, highly corrupt countries have a sort of 'bribe pyramid' where the police chief remits a certain amount of bribe revenue to his boss in order to keep his job, who in turn gives a portion to his boss and so on, so the police chief sees a lot of money, but will be replaced if he develops a conscience.
That is a bit simplistic. The penalty for corruption could be death, definitely a downside, but an official will only be singled out for punishment if they displace someone more powerful. Corruption as such thrives in countries without strong rule of law (where laws might be harsh but are applied arbitrarily).
Corruption happens because the bribe is high compared to the receiver wages.
Most people wouldn't accept a bribe that would be just pocket money (unless they're so corrupt they get as many as tips), but having a bribe offer equivalent to a month salary (or 2, or 3) really makes you think.
Privatization is clearly not a solution I have seen what it did in housing in Germany and for the locomotives in the UK it is fairly clear firms can be worse or just as bad
Corruption doesn't happen because people have less money. If that was true, the poorest would be the most corrupt and the richest would be the least corrupt. This is definitely not the case. It happens when there is no downside to it.
> higher accountability of the funds allocated for government projects
How? By having more government employees to monitor the existing ones? This is the exact kind of solution that would come from a seasoned bureaucrat. It serves the purpose of looking like a solution while adding to the problem.
What should be done is to remove most of the government employees and hire firms to do the job instead. That way, the individual activity and performance is the responsibility of the firm. Will some of these private firms be corrupt? Yes, but they can be monitored and replaced much easier than you can do with millions of individual government employees. Corruption can be reported directly to the firms and they will have incentives to sack the corrupt employees because of the fear of being investigated and sacked by the government.