Managing Conflict of Interest - Organisation for Economic Co ...

Implementation and Enforcement Tools 93public. Conflict of interest, therefore, can be defined as a sui generiscase of corruption. Essentially, corruption cannot take place ifpublic officials perform their duties without a quid pro quo condition(measured in terms of exchanged benefit to that official) underlyingtheir actions or decisions.If public officials perform their designated duties in exchangefor their public wages and salaries, then no private gain has beenaccrued. 1 However, a conflict of interest exists when public officialsexpect to receive or derive other benefits based on how they performtheir designated duties—in connection with particular actionsor decisions. For example, if a customs officer seizes smuggledgoods as part of his official duty and receives a reward from thegovernment, this reward is not an outcome of corruption, nor doesit involve corrupt practice. However, if the customs officer doesnot seize a certain smuggled good because it is not the type thatwill generate rewards but only attempts to seize smuggled goodswith rewards, then this customs officer has committed corruptionthrough conflict of interest.While there is no universal definition for conflict of interest, mostworking definitions in use globally make the connection betweencorruption and conflicts of interest, and vice versa.• Transparency International (TI) defines corruption as “an actinvolving behavior on the part of public officials in the publicsector, whether politicians or civil servants, in which theyimproperly and unlawfully enrich themselves, or those closeto them, by the misuse of the public power entrusted tothem.” 2 In short, corruption can be understood as the misuseof public power for private benefit.• In Singapore, where the lack of corruption in the public sectoris well known, the word “gratification” is used to standfor corruption in its Prevention of Corruption Act, 1960:Gratification includes (a) money or any gift, loan, fee,reward, commission, valuable security or other property orinterest in property of any description, whether moveable1This is called “fiduciary duty,” or duty that is formally expected from this officialposition.2Quoted in Briscoe and Hermans (2001), p. 5.ADB/OECD Anti-Corruption Initiative for Asia and the Pacific