Indian government has done "a lot" on the issue of tackling corruption but still needs to do more especially in the private sector, head of a UN anti-graft initiative said today.
Olajobi Makinwa, who leads the Anti Corruption and Transparency (NY) wing of United Nation Global Compact (UNGC), said the government has signed the UN convention on corruption which gave a "major boost to our fight against this evil and also displayed India's seriousness" on the issue.
"On the issue of handling corruption, the government has done a lot, though it still needs to do more of it. There are so many things that this government has done. You take the example of the 2G scam, so many people were arrested and ministers are in jail", Makinwa told PTI.
The United Nations Global Compact is a UN agency that works for responsible corporate citizenship aligned with 10 principles in areas of human rights, labour, environment and anti-corruption.
Makinwa, who has arrived here for a two-day working group meet on the issue of corruption, stressed on the need to deal with private sector corruption with the same urgency as with corruption in government.
"In the fight against corruption, you don't just have to focus on the government alone, you also need to look at the corruption in the private sector. Private sector needs to play a greater role as it is not just part of the problem, but also part of the solution," she said on the sidelines of a seminar.
Vigilance Commissioner Sreekumar Ramanathan, who was one of the panelists, stressed on the need for a joint effort by the political class, judiciary, NGOs and the private sector to check corruption.
Expressing difficulty in discharging the Vigilance Commission's routine duties, he said, "There are only 300 sanctioned staff in the CVC Commission and for an organisation of this wide scale, 300 is not the right number."
"There is no provision what the CBI will do when the CVC asks it to act against a person while the government tells the opposite. Today when the CVC decides to act against a joint-secretary level officer, it has to seek permission from the government," said Kumar.
