The idea of the BRICS Bank was to end the subordination to the Western institutions and economic thought that was being propagated by the likes of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The liberalisation policy was pushed down the throats of developing and poor countries, in the name of the ‘only solution for weeding out corruption and to achieve high growth’, have already taken its toll on numerous countries in Africa. The responses of the World Bank in helping East Asian countries through the financial crisis of the 90s, or even Latin American countries and Mexico in tiding over their economic crises blew the lid off the West’s agenda to force these countries to liberalise their economies – a single panacea without diagnosing the different ailments.

When this liberalisation policy didn’t win the war against corruption and growth rates continued to slump, the Bank changed its stance. With that came a marked shift in its fight against corruption and it introduced its ‘good governance’ agenda. Now, the Bank said that it will fund projects only when the given government shows some serious thought in tackling corruption which is holding the countries back. It urged countries to clean its public institutions. The conditions for lending, thus, became stiffer. The Bank made it clear that good governance is needed to kill corruption which, in turn, will guarantee high growth rates.

The result wasn’t as expected. Humans have this ingenious ability to find a way to subvert the laws of the land. Many governments, to satisfy the good governance policy of the World Bank and the IMF, began setting up hollow commissions to tackle corruption and implement good governance policies. The idea of these commissions wasn’t to clean up the institutions but to only show to the Bank that they are working towards it.

While developed countries show lesser corruption levels than developing countries, it remains unclear whether they first achieved low corruption which catapulted them to the developed stage or whether they first reached the developed stage and then cleaned their public institutions – i.e. did they implement good governance while they were developing or after.

The waters wedged between corruption and growth remains murky. Countries with one of the highest GDP rates currently also continue to top corruption billboards.

Although, there are no two ways that lower corruption does help in posting better growth rates but is it a necessary precondition to achieve growth is the question. Hence, it remains to be seen that whether BRICS have decided to form this bank to bypass the World Bank with a genuine grudge against its policies or whether they are trying to protect its corrupt institutions?

Shubhashish is a journalist who is now pursuing a Masters in International Studies and Diplomacy at SOAS, London. He can be reached at shubhashish@msn.com.