There is a growing concern about corruption. It is understandable because corruption is normally a reflection of the malaise in a country’s public life, which in the end, is likely to retard its development. Corruption and poverty go hand in hand.
Corruption occurs where private wealth and public power overlap, and tends to flourish where institutions, both public and private, are non-existent or inadequate to the task of combating it. In effect, the struggle against the vice can only succeed if good policies and effective institutions are put in place. Poor countries are more vulnerable to corruption since, in most cases, their institutions are still young, susceptible and dysfunctional. In order for policies and laws to succeed, both public and private institutions must be committed to fight corruption.
Since corruption involves at least two people – a corruptor and the corrupted – it can be said that an action is only corrupt when it has a corrupting effect on a person’s moral character or an institutional process. Among the causes of today’s corruption which experts have identified are low salaries for public officials; a gift culture in which it is traditional to give a small gift for services rendered; an absence of rules and regulations that guide acceptable behavior; wide discretion given to public officials to make decisions without having to account for them; and the absence of effective watchdog institutions.
These causes must be tackled through the public services act, which should define the range of corrupt practices in public services punishable by fines or dismissal and the anti-corruption act, which should specify the number of different corruption offences for the public, as well as their punishment. It should also set out preventative measures.
The consequences of corruption are dire. The World Bank estimates that worldwide, corruption totals US$1 trillion or 3 percent of the world income in 2002. This does not take into account the impact of corruption resulting from poor education, poor health services and poor road construction.
In poor countries, corruption leads to lower levels of investment and encourages businesses to go underground. Apart from this, a high level of corruption produces unequal distribution of income and undermines anti-poverty programs leading to political instability in some cases. Reforms are needed to take reality into account and tackle each corrupt practice on its own ground.
However, in designing the laws or policies for combating this vice, it is important to keep in sight the fact that an act is corrupt only if it has the effect of undermining an institutional process or if it has the effect of despoiling the moral character of some official in his/her capacity as a public official.
An infringement of a specific law or rule does not of itself constitute an act of corruption. In order to do so, such infringement must involve three elements namely; the act must have the effect of defeating the purpose of the rule, aim at subverting its purpose, or contribute to the despoiling of the moral character of a public official in his official capacity. This makes it important to have rules which apply sector by sector.
Kiira Jamal
Bandung
