Opacity in the Real Estate Index – Important or just a yawn?
Last week Transparency International (TI) put out its new opacity in real estate ownership index. And, yet it doesn’t seem to be something that is either news or important. We expect more from TI, as this index should be considered important and should not be in an area which is understood and known by most anti-corruption advocates and most governments. There has been much information on this as evidenced by books by Oliver Bullough and John Heathershaw and much work and books on this. What would be better, and put everyone on notice, would be an index of countries rating money repatriation and the arrest and jailing of those people who buy real estate using stolen, laundered monies, or funds from other illegal activities. This type of an index would be closer to TI’s Corruption Perception Index, providing governments with something to aspire to as well as remind everyone of the work that needs to occur.
So what needs to be done? We need to not only know who the owners are but what the next steps are and how we will get there. Maybe another index isn’t needed but we should never stop trying to have as much transparency in this area and ensure that enforcement is right next to transparency.
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