Business Ethics and Sustainability for Corruption in Brazil

Question: Discuss about theBusiness Ethics and Sustainability for Corruption in Brazil. Answer: Introduction All around the globe corruption has become a very important issue (Funderburk, 2016). It is increasing day by day and is affecting the system of the nation. This is present in the bureaucracies in many parts of the world and is acting like a termite to the nations. Corruption is highly prevalent in the developing nations like Brazil. This country is one of the fastest developing nations all around the world but is highly affected by the corruption. There are many forms of corruption and governments in these countries are trying hard to remove it. This is not an issue that is related to any specific departments rather it is present at every level of organisation. Larger part of the population is affected by this problem and is hampering the development of the nation. This report highlights the various forms of corruption present in Brazil. It also showcases the strategies that can be adopted by the government to eliminate this problem. Corruption in Brazil Corruption is understood to be as the form of dishonesty undertaken by the individuals provided with the responsibility or position of authority. This is done with a motive of using their authority to acquire some kind of personal benefits. The definition of corruption varies in various regions of the world. Corruption is highly prevalent in oligarchies, kleptocracies, mafia states and mafia states. In Brazil corruption exist at every societys level from the higher officials in the government to the lowest municipal level members (Power and Taylor, 2011). Operation car wash revealed that the central government officials take use of their public offices prerogatives for activities for rent. It ranged from political support to illegal funds from state owned organisations for individual gains. Mensalao is practiced in Brazil in which taxpayers fund is transferred as monthly allowances to the congress members from different political parties for their votes and help in congress. It was found in the operation that politician were using state-owned and state run oil company Petrobras to earn hundreds of millions of reais for themselves as well as political campaigns. In this regard there was a huge protest that conducted back in the year 2013. Almost all the kinds of corruption exist in Brazil namely cronyism, nepotism and clientilism. Even the judiciary did not remain unaffected as m embers of Supreme Court were found to be mingling with politicians. Bribery is a common form of corruption in the police system throughout the Brazilian bureaucracy (Power and Taylor, 2011). Popular form of corruption that exists in Brazil is embezzlement of public funds through overbilling. This is highly seen when the contracts is given to the private companies. For example in the infrastructural construction like building roads etc. this is the most common form of corruption. The president of Petrobras estimated that company has lost $2 billion US. Scale of corruption is very high, but is not reported in the media very often and many a time it is not even investigated hence most of the people doing corruption do not get punished or prosecuted. Hence estimating the extent of corruption could be vague. It is estimated that approx. 16.1% of its GDP gets wasted due to corruption. In 2016 Transparency Internationals Corruption Perception Index rank gave Brazil 79th place out of 176 nations. Different forms of corruption in Brazil Brazilian law defined corruption as a crime that got divided into three modes namely passive, active and both passive and active. Passive corruption occurs when public officials asks for bribery in any form for doing or not doing something (Timmons and Garfias, 2015). Active corruption happens when anyone gives money for doing something that he must not do. This happens when both the sides are involved in it like one side offering bribe and other side accepting it. There are basically three types of corruption namely white, gray and black. All of them are as follows: Gray corruption: This type of corruption occurs when social actors analyse a determined behaviour in a way that can be controversial. This form of corruption exists deep in the bureaucracy. White corruption: Such kind of corruption occurs when a social behaviour is reproved by law. This kind of corruption is approved by the population who sometimes does not even recognise the behaviour as mutually questionable. This is not understood as a major form of corruption. Black corruption: This is a corruption which is not acceptable both in the case of law and social norms (Nur-Tegin and Czap, 2012). By both means it disapproves the behaviour. In other words it means that the law punishes them and law punishes them. Society never accepts this corruption as it is done citing their personal benefit. This kind of corruption is highly unethical and destroys the business environment. These corruptions are further categorised into three parts. They are as follows: Political corruption: This is a corruption that is done by the people in the government authorities. In Brazil there are many corrupted politicians that exist in the society (Ionescu, 2014). All these politicians have links with the business association. Politician helps them for providing the benefit to the company. This puts the resources of the nation on stake as they sell these resources on lower prices to the company. Administrative corruption: This is the form of the corruption that includes persons like officers, higher authorities, clerks, peons etc. They do not do work without being bribed. This corruption directly deals with the welfare of the society and exists in grass root levels. For example even for making the driving license, it becomes crucial that bribe needs to be given. People directly face such kind of corruption. Professional corruption: This is the corruption that is associated with the jobs that is done by the people sitting at any position. This may include doing any kind of fraud, theft or mixing anything for increasing their profits (Matheus, et al., 2012). This form of corruption generally does not get noticed but affects the life style of the people. This is dangerous as it hampers the social well-being of the society. All these three types of corruption are present in the country like Brazil and since it is the developing nation hence it affects the growth rate of the country. All these type of corruption degrades the image of the Brazilian society and is not understood as a place for sustainable business (Bologna, 2016). There are major loses to the business of the country. This demotivates the multinational companies to invest in Brazil since they have to invest a whole lot of money in lobbying. Effects of corruption Corruption has a very severe effect on the society as it hampers the development of the country. This directly or indirectly degrades the wellbeing of the person living in the society. The first and foremost loss is the loss to the GDP of the nation which is the indication of the growth rate of the country. Alone Brazil loses 16% of the total GDP of the nation (Olken and Pande, 2012). It can be seen that corruption in Brazil had affected the health infrastructure of the nation as the governments are not able to give funds to the health sector. The biggest thing that corruption does is that it creates economic disparity as rich and powerful starts getting richer while the poor get poorer. This is due to the fact that all the resources within the nation get into the hands of few who utilises their powers for their personal benefit. Strategies implemented by the government of Brazil for eliminating corruption There are several strategies that are taken by the government of Brazil for eliminating corruption. Some of them are as follows: Policies and laws: There are many laws and rules that are made by the government of Brazil in order to control the amount of corruption that exist in the society (Ayres, 2016). Since there are no single laws that can prevent from corruption hence the government is making many smaller and bigger laws so that such practices can be stopped. Brazil passed a new anti-corruption law in August 2013. Numbers of cases in which the people are convicted have risen to 133% (Bologna and Ross, 2015). Transparency: Government is trying to build a system that is more transparent. Digital mediums have started to act as one of the best methods for bringing transparency in the system. Access to the information law has been increase so that common people can also know about the working of the administration. Transparency portal was made in the year 2004 where all information about the spending of the federal government can be obtained (Adorno, 2013). Information exchange: The government has made platform for the officials at the local, state and foreign levels to exchange data easily. It is a method that helps them in exchanging of information between all the social actors. Conclusion From the above based report it can be concluded that in Brazil corruption exist at every levels. From top parliamentary officials to the workers at the ground levels all are involved in such unethical works. This has created a lot of the problems for the development of the country. Different forms of corruption exist in Brazil. This has resulted in a heavy loss to the company as well as to the GDP of the nation. Government has made many rules and policies so as to make sure that they can fight with the corruption. They have also made the platform where anyone can get the information about the spending of the governments. Referrences Adorno, S., (2013). Democracy in progress in contemporary Brazil: Corruption, organized crime, violence and new paths to the rule of law.International Journal of Criminology and Sociology,2, pp.409-425. Ayres, C. (2016) Understanding the use of technology in organisations: A systematic approach. [Online]. Available at: https://aisel.aisnet.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1028context=acis2008. [Accessed on: 12th April 2018]. Bologna, J. and Ross, A., (2015). Corruption and entrepreneurship: evidence from Brazilian municipalities.Public Choice,165(1-2), pp.59-77. Bologna, J., (2016). 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