Bierzynski:
By : Juliet D. Golden
In recent years, international organizations have called corruption in Poland a key challenge facing the country as it enters its next decade of economic transformation. The problem here pales in comparison with Russia, but that's little consolation to businessmen like Jakub Bierzynski, CEO of media house OMD Poland. After being asked for bribes to win large contracts, Bierzynski contacted Antoni Kaminski, head of the Polish branch of corruption watchdog Transparency International (TI), to look into ways to fight corruption. It turned out Bierzynski was not alone; businessmen like Richard Lucas had also contacted TI with their own suggestions for curbing illegal business practices. Earlier this month, the three launched Manus Puris, an organization for businesses that don't give or take bribes. In the first few days, more than 150 firms rang up Manus Puris' hotlines (0800-111000 or (22) 545-4455), and TI estimates that Manus Puris will have more than 1,000 members by year's end. Last week, Bierzynski spoke to the WBJ's Juliet D. Golden about his contact with corruption and why he decided to speak out publicly against it. The following is a translated and edited version of their conversation.
Q: Is Manus Puris the next in a line of anti-corruption initiatives bound for the graveyard?
A: That question is justified because a lot of social initiatives end up in the cemetery. I would like to point out, though, that this one is different from several points of view. It's the first movement that has a very clear goal, is thought through in an operational sense and appeals to a sense of interest and not a sense of decency. The anti-corruption measures that I know about are government (sponsored) and aimed at cracking down on corruption and making the laws harsher. Usually, they were less effective because they involved the creation of new instruments of repression. Those instruments were relatively ineffective because of a lack of good laws so that expanding the tools of repression didn't yield much. The next problem is connected to fighting crime and the inevitability of punishment rather than its severity. But with corruption, it's very hard to catch someone in the act. It's hard to point your finger at someone and say that he or she is corrupt.
Q: So what will make this initiative a success?
A: I'll put it this way, I don't know if this initiative will end in success. Nobody knows that. Nobody in Poland has done anything like this before; it's foreign to Poland's legal traditions. Polish legal tradition and national tradition are the complete opposite of American tradition. The American tradition is based on thinking about law as an instrument to implant socially acceptable behavior and set against unacceptable behavior. The Polish legal system and attitude is based on a penalty system. Generally speaking, the thinking goes that if you want to improve the world you have to punish rather than take preventative measures. Appealing to people's sense that crime doesn't pay is completely foreign to the Polish way of thinking.
Q: How is this program supposed to work?
A: First of all, our goal is not to fight corrupt behavior but rather to slow down the spread (of corruption) to new companies and to non-corrupt sectors (of the economy). I don't contend that the whole economy is corrupt. That's not true. But I believe that the conviction that corruption is everywhere fuels the development of this phenomenon. If everyone is convinced that everyone else is taking bribes, (people tend to think): 'Since everyone is taking them, I might as well.' The fact that people are convinced that bribery is universal is one of the main reasons that it is spreading. We want to make people aware that it doesn't have to be that way, that business can be done without giving a bribe. (We also want to) show that there are an enormous number of companies that don't pay bribes.
Here, American companies are our biggest allies. All international companies in a corrupt investment environment lose out. Expats working in Poland don't know where, when and how to give a bribe. They can't cope in a corrupt business environment. International companies cope well in an environment where the rules are clean. They have the technological edge, money and investments, know-how and scale. Their drawbacks are that they don't know the local market and local connections. The lack of knowledge of the local market is O.K. because you can learn that, but when it comes to giving bribes, that's different. So we want to show Polish companies that there are a lot of companies with enormous turnover where bribes are excluded. It will be easier to try for this money, these contracts and contacts if they have clean hands.
Q: It's almost like an ISO 9000 series certificate ...
A: It's not ISO 9000, but in some ways, yes, it is similar. We don't issue certificates that someone is clean. It's not that someone writes to us and we give them a clean bill of health. (We decided) to create a program that does not give orders. We don't give certificates of morality. We place some formal requirements on our members. To join Manus Puris you have to do four easy things: sign a membership declaration; change labor regulations according to models that require naming corruption and threatening workers with immediate dismissal if they take or give a bribe; and require employees to inform the company and Manus Puris of corrupt behavior in the workplace. The fourth thing involves imposing fines on employers for firing workers who are whistleblowers. Members of our program have to pay compensation set at five times the employee's monthly salary.
We basically say that the company has to inform all their suppliers and customers and potential customers about its membership, and hang up a large logo in front of the door. We can only exclude a company if we get regular signals that there is corruption and that our logo is serving as a morality certificate that's covering up dirty interests.
Q: Have you had direct contact with corruption in your business?
A: Yes. This program was created based on my own personal experiences. This year ... I had two contracts where winning or losing them was hinged on bribes. For the first time I was faced with the dilemma of whether or not to give a bribe. I thought up this program because I don't want to be faced with this dilemma again. Firstly, I want to it to be clear what side I stand on. Secondly, I don't want people coming to me with such a proposal. Thirdly, I realized that corruption is spreading really quickly; it's no longer isolated to the relationship between the public sector and private enterprises, but it has spread to the relationship between private businesses themselves. If we don't do something to stop the spread of this kind of practice it could turn out that in five years, running a private business could end up not making sense at all in terms of it not being worth training employees and investing in computer programs, infrastructure, products or in the quality of what they do because at the end of the day what really counts is the amount of bribes I pay. I will always lose; someone will always give more (bribes). So in short if I agree to these kinds of rules, I am condemned to failure. I can't function on a market that is not led by a visible market hand but by connections and bribes.
Q: What you're saying then is that an anti-corruption stance impacts the bottom line?
A: Generally, we are not appealing to morality. We appeal to the business interests of companies and businesspeople. Bribes are always costs. I always have to pay out from my profit, regardless of whether I am paying a bribe to get a contract, so then I have to lower my profit margin because I have to get the money from somewhere. It just doesn't make sense for an owner to take a bribe. It's like taking money from yourself. What does it mean for a business owner if his employees are corrupt? That means that (employees) aren't making rational choices. They don't take the cheapest offer for the best quality. A corrupt employee always represents the interests of the corruptor. He never represents the employer's interests. That means that he is a cost for me. What he gets in his hand, I should be getting in the form of profit. If a supplier is able to give 10% (of the value of a contract) to my worker as a bribe, that means from my way of thinking that supplier could be 10% cheaper for my company. So that 10% paid to my employee was stolen from my profit, the company's profit. Businessmen always end up paying for bribes, just like taxes. It's not strange that the World Bank compares bribes to an additional tax. In Poland that is assessed at 2% of the turnover (of an average company). Those are costs that business owners are bearing in the form of payouts.
Q: Does the average businessperson come into contact with corruption on a daily basis?
A: Yes, it depends on what sector of the economy. Up to now advertising and marketing were relatively free from corruption, but I have started coming in contact with corruption. Certainly, those who deal with public institutions have contact with corruption, (as well as) those in such corrupt areas of the economy like the computer industry or the construction sector.
Q: Do you have a goal for how many companies will join Manus Puris annually?
A: Nobody knows that. No one has ever created a similar thing before. Each of our members has to inform all of their customers and suppliers (about their membership). We believe that will create a snowball effect, and each member will bring in five new members, etc. One thing is for sure, the topic is really hot, a lot of businesspeople are really frustrated, and they have had enough. In the past year, in the past few days, a lot of companies have contacted us, from a large producer of sanitary equipment to a hairdresser in Kielce. That's what it's about. It can be anyone from a hairdresser to Pepsi Cola, so long as the company completes the formalities and states that it isn't going to pay or receive a bribe and wants to display opposition to corruption.
Q: Corruption in Poland is increasingly highlighted in reports prepared by international organizations. Does Manus Puris attack the source of the corruption that these reports are talking about?
A: This program doesn't attack anything. This program says let's create an association of businesspeople who don't want to bear the costs of bribes. This is a program by the frustrated for the frustrated, those who have had all they can take, those who are being forced into bribes and don't want to pay them because in the short term (bribes) lower profits, in the long term (they) destroy companies. In my opinion, corruption is one of the major dangers facing the Polish economy because it destroys the driving force of any economy, which is the dynamism of individual businesses.
