Think of an individual or a group of people, who can afford to offer lakhs and crores in the Hundi in temples or places of worship or donate huge money for charity etc. Perhaps, the individual/the group could be doing it as a ‘corruption offsetting! Surprising! May be that is the ‘dharma’ of corruption in our country! Nevertheless, unfortunately for them, these ‘corruption offsets’ cannot be converted into a ‘governance credit’!
Yes, if carbon credit could be awarded for bringing down the level of emission of carbon-di-oxide or other greenhouse gas emission, then why not ‘Governance Credit’ for enhancing the level of governance in a society or corporate governance in the corporate sector? This has not been tried so far anywhere in the world.
A ton of carbon-di-oxide or its equivalent gas emission is equated to one credit. Similarly, the extent of governance or corporate governance could be measured and a definite improvement within a stipulated time frame could be termed as ‘one governance credit’ or ‘one corporate governance credit’.
However, the ‘corruption footprint’ should also be brought out while declaring the ‘governance credit’, till the time it reaches the level of ‘zero corruption footprint’. Otherwise, the whole idea of ‘governance credit’ would be hijacked and it would become yet another exercise like the ‘outstanding’ rating given to almost all the employees in the annual performance report, which in reality is not.
It would be a good idea to have a system of ‘Governance Credit’ and ‘Corporate Governance Credit’. Perhaps, the government may consider setting up an independent agency on the lines of IRDA / TRAI under the aegis of Central Vigilance Commission (CVC), perhaps named like Governance Monitoring Authority (GMA). The GMA could take up the issue of measuring and awarding ‘Governance credits’ and ‘corporate governance credits’. Needless to say that such credits should not only be based on the perception but also on the actual performance and also the ‘governance credits’ should be given due weightage wherever possible, so that there are takers for getting ‘governance credits’ or ‘corporate governance credits’. After all, we are living in an age, where one has to be told about the need for being good and the inherent advantages of being so!
