Ethics, Scientists, Engineers and the Military - Ethical Engineering for International Development and Environmental Sustainability - page 339

The features of the arms trade that encourage corruption include the following
(Feinstein et al. 2011 ):
1. Secrecy relating to national security and commercial confi dentiality. This
reduces transparency, makes arms deals secretive and protects participants from
scrutiny.
2. The close relationships and blurred boundaries between arms trade fi rms and
government agencies resulting from the importance of the arms trade to national
security. This gives the arms trade access to inside information and enables it to
shape policy.
3. The global nature of the arms trade and the complex and opaque nature of trans-
actions and the various parties involved in them. Many arms deals involve both
offi cial and black market trades.
4. The technical specifi city of the trade, often involving high-tech equipment and a
very small number of knowledgeable experts who infl uence the fi nal decision.
Together with the few politicians and offi cials involved, this means that potential
corrupters only need to unduly infl uence a few people.
5. Pressure to obtain arms rapidly in situations of active or imminent confl ict.
6. The enormous monetary values of a small number of contracts each year, leading
to high levels of competition.
While some of these features are present in other types of trade, they are generally
all present in the arms trade, increasing the likelihood of corruption. In addition,
considerations of national security mean that investigations or legal proceedings
rarely occur and are often halted when they do. Transparency in arms transfers may
be decreasing. The number of states reporting their arms imports and exports to the
UN Register of Conventional Arms decreased by 40% from 86 in 2011 to an all time
low of 52 in 2012. However, an increasing but still low number (35 as of January
2013) of governments, have published at least one national report on arms exports
(Holtom and Bromley 2013b ).
In addition to the fi nancial costs of corruption, there are the costs of resources
lost to health, education and social services and the undermining of justice and
oversight institutions (Feinstein et al. 2011 ). A particularly unfortunate example is
the purchase of BAE/Saab jets by the South African government, involving the
payment of £115 million in 'commission' to 'overt' and 'covert' advisors (Feinstein
et al. 2011 ). This was despite the fact that the jets did not meet the technical require-
ments and cost two and a half times as much as the aircraft preferred by the Air
Force Technical Committee. In addition, there was no real need for them, since the
air force had at least 15 unused jets. To stop the investigation of corruption, the main
anti-corruption body was excluded and then closed and investigation by the other
bodies was limited. This corruption and its cover-up has had a devastating impact on
the South African parliament and resulted in conditions in which corruption is
increasingly pervasive. In addition, there was the unnecessary expenditure of £8
billion on weapons at a time when the country allegedly could not afford life-saving
antiretroviral medication for fi ve and a half million South Africans with HIV and
AIDS (Feinstein 2010 ).