| Corruption – defined as ‘the abuse of public power for personal
ends’ – has always existed. During recent decades, however, it has
grown both in terms of geographic extent and intensity. Since the
mid 1970s, it has infiltrated virtually every country in the world.
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| It was hoped that the easing of political and economic restrictions
that characterized the 1990s after the end of the Cold War would
have gone some way to reducing this phenomenon. Through
increased openness resulting from political pluralism and the
freedom of the press, the process of democratization should, under
normal circumstances, mobilize efforts to overcome corruption.
However, emerging democracies are still fragile and seem to find the
task of tackling established self-interests a formidable one.
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| By reducing state intervention and therefore the opportunities for
corruption, economic liberalization should, for its part, likewise
improve matters. In the short term, however, the opposite would
appear to be true. Weakened state structures, a lack of appropriate
legislation, powerlessness on the part of the judicial system to
combat corruption, the pursuit of easy money – mistakenly
perceived by some as being equivalent to a market economy – all
these factors together contribute to aggravating the phenomenon, at
least in the transitional stages, such a state of affairs cannot fail to
have some effect on those who are involved in and concerned by
development issues. |
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| Needless to say, corruption and its effects can be seen from a
multitude of viewpoints. There is always the ethical angle – but how
can possible presume to preach to countries of the South and East
when bribery is just as rife in the North and when, as far as
corruption within international economic relations is concerned, it is
in fact, virtually by definition, the North , the North who is the
corrupter and the South and East who are the corrupted ? The only
possible reply to such an argument – and one which is morally
disputable even though economically valid – would be that the rich
North can afford the luxury of wasting some of its wealth whereas in
the case of developing countries, their sparse financial resources
need to be used in the best way possible ! Other lines of reasoning
emphasis the distortions that corruption causes in the fair
application of conditions of competition by penalizing successful, yet
honest, undertakings. |
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| The effects of corruption on development and major obstacle in the
path of development : |
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| In my opinion, corruption should be approached from the point of
view of the effects it has on development. I say this because long
professional experience has taught me that corruption is one of the
major obstacles to progress, and that its effects on development are
disastrous.
Some people would no doubt counter this assertion with the
‘cultural’ argument whereby they would have us believe that, in
certain cultures, corruption is quite normal and morally acceptable.
Well I do not know of a single place on earth where growing rich
through taking bribes is considered lawful or morally acceptable! I
should like to quote Olusegun Obansanjo, former President of
Nigeria, on the subject: ‘In the African concept of appreciation and
hospitality, a gift is a token. It is not demanded. The value is in the
spirit of the giving, not the material worth. The gift is made in the
open for all to see, never in secret. Where the gift is excessive, it
becomes an embarrassment, and is returned. If anything, corruption
has perverted the positive aspects of this age-old tradition’. |
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| Then the are the cynics – including renowned professors – who claim
that corruption oils the wheels of progress and enables development
to take place. In this respect again, and putting all ethical aspects
aside, it would be worthwhile distinguishing between the small
baksheesh which ‘helps’ certain administrative procedures along
(‘accelerations fees’) and large scale corruption which perverts the
course of development. This does not of course mean to say that we
should underestimate the destructive effects that even small – scale
corruption can have on society! |
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| Yet other have simply resigned themselves to the situation. For
them, corruption is intrinsically linked to underdevelopment. As
along as a person’s normal income does not provide him with a
decent living, the door will always be open to bribes. It is, therefore,
through development that we should be attempting to eradicate
corruption. Yet this arguments is reminiscent of the debate on the
population explosion. It is only through development, some say , that
the problem of population growth will be resolved. But by then, the
planet will be inexorably overpopulated! In my opinion, the same
argument is just as valid as far as corruption is concerned. We
simply cannot wait for it to be stamped out through development. (
In any case, development is hardly a miracle cure: true, we have the
examples of Singapore and Hong Kong where corruption is
extremely uncommon, but we could also mention Italy, where it was
precisely at the height of the country’s development that corruption
became the norm). We must act therefore, and without delay,
focusing our efforts on eradicating large-scale corruption. |
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| If we analyse some of the effects that corruption has on development,
the first thing we notice is that it increases the costs of goods and
services, and not insignificantly either. Although a 5% reduction in
the profit margin might, at a pinch, be absorbed by the supplier,
corruption levels of 10% to 20%, which have become commonplace,
will inevitably be reflected in the price and will, consequently, be
paid for through the national or foreign (in the case of foreign aid)
resources of a country. It is therefore the national economy that
ultimately suffers the consequences of unjustified surcharge on the
goods or services, with the difference being pocket by some
government officials or politicians who has abused his powers for his
own personal gain. Given that such operations are generally
financed by bank loans or, in the case of foreign aids, by
concessional loans, these assumed that exchanged value of sums paid
out in backhanders makes up a considerable proportion of foreign
debts of developing countries. |
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| However, the damaging effects of such practices do not stop there.
The corrupt decisions-maker may well be tempted to accept a
substandard quality of service which will make his personal profit
all the greater. Thus, with a road – building project for example,
complicity between government departments and contractors may
result in corner-cutting with regard to agreed standard of quality so
that the savings made may be shared out between the two parties. |
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| At their very worst, the disastrous effects of corruption mean that
the conception of a project, and ultimately its very choice, are
determined by corruption. As far as conception is concerned, a good
example would be the purchase of a technology which is wholly
unsuited to the particular needs of a country or the choice of a
capital – intensive project – more lucrative in terms of corruption –
rather than a labour – intensive one which would nevertheless be far
more beneficial to that nation’s development. |
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| The absolute peak of perversion, however, is when the very choice of
priorities – and therefore of projects – is determined by corruption.
What we are referring to here are those situations in which the real
development priorities of a country are neglected in favour of
operations which generate the greatest personal gain for the decision
– makers. At this point I would like to quote Remi Godeau, written
in Jeune Afrique: ‘These currency – guzzling abortive projects have
become a graveyard of white elephants. Africa is littered with vast
deserted motorways which are being eroded by the savannah, with
fully functional but empty factories which have been left to fall into
ruin only a few years after they were opened, with railway lines
which are now impassable through a luck of maintenance, and with
hydroelectric dams abandoned because the cost too much to run’.
Let us pick up on the point about empty factories. These ‘follies of
development’ are to be found in many developing countries and in
Africa in particular. Some have never produced, others have failed
to reach full production capacity while other still face such
prohibitive costs that big state subsidies are needed to keep them
going. If we follow the thread right back to the beginning we find,
more often than not, that factories have been sold without ensuring
real competition between suppliers. Admittedly, such projects
usually have only private sector backing ( they are rarely financed
through official aid ), but the finding is nonetheless backed by state-
controlled bodies. The existence of corruption in such cases must be
more than mere presumption – what other reason could there be for
making decisions which run so counter to the interests of
development? In his work ‘Grand Corruption in Third World
Development’, George Moody-Stuart identified those areas which
are especially vulnerable to corruption. These are most notably, the
procurement of military and other technically sophisticated
equipment, and large-scale works (in other words, any major,
capital intensive project and any scheme where objective valuation
and comparison is hampered because of technical sophistication
involved). |
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| It is worthwhile mentioned at this point that a country which
borrows money to finance projects that do not satisfy its real needs,
and which may indeed be considered economically futile or absurd,
will see its debts burden increase – and not simply by the 10% to
20% that is used to fund ‘backhanders’. The loss will ultimately be
100% if one views it in terms of the cost of the unproductive
investment to the national economy. Discussions about the debts of
developing countries rarely focus on the mechanisms which have
produced these debts. Yet in most cases, they have become
unserviceable on accounts of the ineffective use of overseas aid – the
sort of bad management to which corruption contributes
considerably. |
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| What is more, by deflecting the sparse resources which do exist
towards non-priority or low-priority areas, corruption contributes to
a large extend to ensuring that fundamental needs such as food,
health and education, are not met. It is therefore one of the causes of
underdevelopment and poverty in general. Needless to say, official
aid is often called upon to make good the deficit left by the
irresponsible management of otherwise available resources. Is it any
surprise if, in the long run, public opinion in the countries of the
North begins to grow weary of bridging gaps which efficient
management of resources should never have allowed to appear in the
first place? How are we to convince European taxpayers that it is
they who need to provide the money to fund bush clinics in countries
which invest their funds in prestige projects, if not directly into Swiss
bank accounts? |
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| A vicious circle that must be broken |
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| Effective, we find ourselves in a ‘catch-22’ situation. Corruption is
one of the causes of underdevelopment and poverty, yet poverty is in
part responsible for its continuations. If a person cannot earn an
honest living for himself and his family, then he is more or less forced
into earning it by less honest means. Hence corruption is both the
cause and the consequences of underdevelopment. In order to break
the pattern we must therefore combat large-scale corruption
inasmuch as it is a significant cause of underdevelopment and we
must gradually to eradicated the reasons for its propagation in
society, and in particular to remedy the notorious lack of adequate
income to ensure a decent standard of living.
In general terms, we can say that corruption also kills off the spirit of
development. Nothing is more destructive to society than the pursuit
of ‘a fast and easy buck’ which makes honest people who work hard
appear naïve or foolish. That is why, in the context of economic
reforms under the heading of ‘structural adjustment’, it is vital that
the model advocated be one of a market economy based on sounds
framework of legislation and on an efficient state. It should not allow
free rein to the sort of ruthless capitalism which is aimed at
immediate profit at all costs. The example of certain transition
countries in the East, where a market economy has becomes
synonymous with the law of the jungle, the Mafia and corruption,
really should make us stop and think. |
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| In the final analysis, an economy undermined by corruption has the
effects of discouraging potential foreign investors and public donors.
Yet if development is to succeed, countries have to be able to attract a
flow of capital. As Serge Michailof put it: ‘Success attracts money.
Waste, failure and chaos drive it away’. And although investors are
very keen to do business, with the exception of a few opportunist,
they all look for host countries that have a stable and predictable
climate. Entrepreneurs have been known to withdraw from certain
Africa countries – which are nevertheless rich in resources – because
of the constraints imposed on them by corruption on a scale which
they considered to be unacceptable. As for public donors, they are
increasingly reluctant to offer financial aid to those countries that
manage their own resources poorly. It is precisely this failing which is
one of the causes of what we now refer to as ‘aid fatigue’. Financial
aid institutions should go as far as suspending their cooperation in
blatant cases of corruption and bad management, just as they do in
cases of serious violation of human rights. Conversely, ‘good
governance’ should be the determining factors when allocating aid,
and it would appear that Article 5 of the revised Lome IV
Convention does in fact foresee such an approach. |
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| In conclusion, far from reserving the foregoing criticism for countries
of the South, I believe that the partners of the North have their part
to play in the ravages wrought by corruption, be it only as a result of
the inconsistencies between their development cooperation policies
and their export promoting policies. Basing our assumptions on the
principle that cooperation efforts are genuinely motivated by
concerns for developments – and I can attest that this is precisely the
motivation behind the policies of the European Union, which I have
served for great many years – we should not forget that Western
countries have a tendency to promote exports, by other means,
without any consideration for the effects this has in terms of
development. They thus contribute to the dishonest practices which
we have been discussing. The fact that they tolerate, or even go as far
as to encourage, corruption as a means of promoting exports –
restricting the application of the criminal law to acts committed on
their own territory and allowing corruption to be tax-deductible
under the heading of ‘necessary expenses’- seems to me to be
absolutely scandalous. In the North too, the battle against the canker
of international corruption is a formidable one. But is a fight to
which we are committed in the context of ‘Transparency
International’. This NGO - ‘International Anti-Corruption Squad
Organization / Network ( Inacoson )’, which was founded in 2007 by
this Great Thinker Comrade Brown C. Kapika, in The Hague
Netherlands, makes its services available to any country which
genuinely wishes to eradicate the scourge of corruption. |
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| As Comrade Brown C. Kapika put it: ‘ that corruption is a virus
infection for mad people who can not think for others, politicians in
powers are the most worst dogs, they are mentally too sick, the are
dogs under pigs, they are idiots and stupid, they are selfishness and
greedy, and victims are their own people, the needs bullets in their
heads but to stop them. Corruption is the causes of all this
disastrously impacts to Human Being including ; hiv-aids,
tuberculosis , malaria and malnutrition. All dictators should be just
moved out from powers by force using all means by victims among
nations without killings or causing wars – killing one person is
enough’. |
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| Over viewing by Inacoson on Corruption |
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| International Anti-Corruption Squard Organization / Network –
( Inacoson ) , - stands extremely firmly to fight Global Corruption
within Nations, no matter how long it will take Corruption must be
completely disappeared from this Planet as a result to save Innocent
Human life’s and Other generations to come. |
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| We trust that, All Government Judiciaries Organization, Police
Forces and many Attached Investigation Units, People of the
Nations, Militaries and may other Organization togetherness must
work hard to combat Corruptions Practices within their Own
Nations though out the World. |
