What about Fair Play of International Sporting Events?

Sport games are a wonderful celebration of excellence in sports, excitement and pride. The expectation of sporting events is always high and the questions being raised even higher: Will the event help develop the infrastructure and the society of the host country in a sustainable way? Will all the money be well spent? Huge sport games like the Olympics and the European Cup might be vulnerable to corruption in several ways: match-fixing, corporate hospitality, ticket allocations, sale of television rights, corporate sponsoring (for further information please visit http://snipurl.com/24qh8hy ). Above all they represent a big exercise in construction and procurement. Both stand for classic areas that are prone to corruption. In this article I will focus on these two challenges.

The development of infrastructure for international sporting events involves the mobilization of vast resources, complex logistical arrangements and pretty tight timeframes. These challenges probably became a sincere problem for one of the latest European sporting event. In regard of the Euro 2012 allegations of corruption have been made. Ukraine embarked on a program of modernization for Euro 2012. Stadiums were built or renovated, the airports were upgraded and the roads repaired. All this happened without competitive tenders, since in 2010 Ukraine cancelled the tenders for all Euro 2012 projects. Uefa, the governing body of football in Europe, is now under pressure to investigate claims of massive corruption. Opposition politicians claim that $ 4 billion from the state funds were stolen by officials (http://snipurl.com/24qh8s2 ). But also in Brazil the preparation for the World Cup in 2014 and the Olympics in 2016 face some corruption challenges. In June the government coalition deputies approved a bill that would keep the massive infrastructure budgets secret (http://snipurl.com/24qh96c ). Because of critics the text got changed and the budget will be public but just after the public tender process.

In international sporting events many stakeholders are involved: the organizing international organization, the host country, different governments and last but not least the public - just to mention the very important ones. To enhance transparency, the involvement of all these stakeholders is central. A good way to do this is a multisectoral initiative.

In regard of the construction sector the Construction Sector Transparency Initiative (CoST) could be of help (www.constructiontransparency.org). CoST is a country centered multistakeholder initiative designed to promote transparency and accountability in publicly financed construction. CoST’s core is the belief that the processes involved in the construction of public infrastructure must be more transparent.

As all the mentioned critical aspects are important issues for various stakeholders, pressure will increase to make international sport mass gathering events that cost billions of dollars more transparent for them. Then availability of information to the public is of great importance to hold decision makers to account and to ensure better value for money. In this regard issue based multistakeholder initiative represent a promising solution.

Sabrina Stucki

The Empowerment of a Tiny Shareholder through Blogging

Corruption defines the Russian public live at all levels. In the Corruption Perception Index 2011 by Transparency International, Russia is on the rank 143 from 182 (http://snipurl.com/243n31f). It shares this position with countries like Nigeria, Belarus and Mauritania. Preparing for the Winter Olympics 2014 in Sochi, corruption reached such extremes that businesses involved in preparing the Black Sea resort report having to pay kickbacks of more than fifty percent. A Russian magazine calculated that a road in Sochi is so costly that it could have been paved with three and a half inches of Louis Vuitton handbags (http://snipurl.com/2439t4z)!

Former President Dmitry Medvedev was eager to fight corruption in his country. One measure was the online posting of all government requests for tender initiated in 2008. Nonetheless it is said that the size of the average bribe quadrupled. In 2010 three percent of the Russian GDP disappeared annually on government contracts. On the one hand the increase of corruption can be explained by the growing risk of accepting bribes. As it became riskier the price went up. On the other hand people fear that everything is going to collapse, so they want to grab as much as they can (http://snipurl.com/2439t4z). However, thanks to Medvedev’s initiative the prominent blogger Navalny could launch his latest project, the web site RosPil. With the help of citizens the site collects information on obvious violation within the governmental procurement system.  

In 2007 Navalny’s campaign against corruption began by buying small stakes in publicly traded state-owned companies, which normally have senior government officials in their boards. Through public listings these companies can obtain crucial capital and international legitimacy. In exchange public listings force them to a modicum of transparency that is absent from Russian politics (http://snipurl.com/243apl0). By using his status as a part owner, Navalny harasses senior management with unpleasant and delicate questions for example about suspicious expenses. Navalny publishes all his uncovering of wary acts and his efforts for the rights of minority shareholders in major Russian oil and gas companies, banks and government ministries on his blog (also available in English). With these actions Navalny demonstrates that stock can be more effective in controlling Russia’s ruling class than the ballot box. He earned many admirers in the Russian blogosphere and the independent-minded media. In Russia the blogosphere is a very important forum for free political discussion and gives people an opportunity to become civic activists. Through his blog the stakeholder, who was originally a shareholder interested in a secure investment, became a stakeholder, who is representing the civil society in his fight against the corruption that pervades Russian business and government.  

In December 2010 Navalny launched RosPil.net. The idea for RosPil came up when Navalny heard about the invitation of the Ministry of Health and Social Development to build a two-million-dollar network to connect doctors and patients. The winner of the contract had only sixteen days to develop the site. Navalny was sure that the webpage had already been designed for a much lower sum. He asked his blog followers to send official complaints to the Federal Anti-Monopoly Agency. Nearly 2’000 of them did. The Health Ministry annulled the contract. The idea was born to design a site where people can submit a government request for tender and discuss it. If an associated expert finds the price, the schedule etc. unreasonable Navalny posts the alleged fraud on his blog (http://snipurl.com/2439t4z). Since RosPil started, more than a thousand users and 500 experts have registered to it. According to a tally on the webpage, the project has caused requests for tender worth 6.6 million US-Dollars, to be annulled.  

This example shows that even a tiny shareholder can become an important stakeholder, who can alienate the powerful. Furthermore it demonstrates that things can be changed by enforcing the dialogue between the stakeholders and the companies. By the help of social media Navalny has become a representative of the civil society. We should always keep in mind that Navalny has undertaken all this in a country where a number of people investigating such matters have been beaten or murdered.

Sabrina Stucki