China looks to Hong Kong graft buster in anti-bribery fight

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[Facilitator's note: Thank you to Tony Kwok, former deputy commissioner, Independent Commission Against Corruption, Hong Kong, and adjunct professor, Hong Kong University School of Professional and Continuing Education, for sharing this story.]

Tony Kwok, 67, the former top civil servant at Hong Kong's Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC), has traveled to 30 cities in China as a regular lecturer to China’s own graft busters and in some 50 other countries. His views reportedly are tracked by China's most senior leaders. “[The ICAC is] the best,” said one adviser to the Hong Kong government. “From Macedonia to Nigeria, many states have tried to replicate [it].” Among the countries Kwok has traveled to are Indonesia, the Philippines, and Botswana, which he says is one of the few places where it has worked because the leadership has the political will to go after wrongdoers. The ICAC was created 40 years ago with broad powers to investigate and arrest anyone, and answers only to the territory’s top official. The commission won convictions in 84 percent of its cases in 2012, the latest year for which data is available.

Read the story by Shai Oster in Bloomberg Businessweek.

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