Bribery has become like a daily medical prescription

The extent to which corrupt acts prevail in Sub-Saharan Africa versus the low efforts to reduce it, is alarming and hurts the economy as well as the trust of service seekers in public institutions. 

By GEdion onyango, onyangojr@gmail.com

In Summary

And fifty years down the road, corruption has still remained one of the most outstanding impediments to economic and political development in Sub-Sahara Africa.

The realization of a corrupt free society has become the most difficult and an expensive policy venture in Sub-Sahara African countries today. Policy makers and institutions have been rendered incapable when it comes to the fight against corruption.

And fifty years down the road, corruption has still remained one of the most outstanding impediments to economic and political development in Sub-Sahara Africa.

The extent to which corrupt acts prevail in Sub-Saharan Africa versus the low efforts to reduce it, is alarming and hurts the economy as well as the trust of service seekers in public institutions.

In Kenya, corruption has been in the centre of political debates for over two decades. But the road to see a corrupt free Kenya has been tedious and dangerous, and the fight is neither on nor dead. We are hanging in between the decision to fight corruption and the political will to institutionalize anti-corruption policies.

Although a few efforts have been witnessed, corruption in Kenya has sickly become part of our everyday life. Corrupt public and private sector officials cannot just think of another way of delivering services as bribery has become like a daily medical prescription that without which no service can be delivered.

Weakest links in anti-corruption approaches

Unfortunately, in as much as it has assisted in operationalizing and defining corruption, the weakest link in anti-corruption efforts lies with its legally bias approach.

That is, acts of corruption take place in the most covert manner and it is almost impossible to mobilize evidence that can be valid to prosecute the actors. Thus, the legal protocol needed to prosecute corrupt public officials becomes the undoing of our anti-corruption agencies, particularly in the case of reducing rampant petty corruption in the public sector.

Whereas, this legal approach is effective in the fight against large scale corruption where procurement flaws can possibly be traced, it poses a challenge towards reducing unrecorded incidences of petty corruption. In addition, public institutions are not working as they are supposed to. So, in as much as policies against corruption can be good, there are high possibilities that they will be handled by wrong implementers.

In other words, the current design of anti-corruption agencies, the approach and policy implementation render anti-corruption efforts unsuccessful in most instances. 

Scholars have argued that petty corruption affects the common citizens more directly than large scale corruption.

 

So even though countries such as Rwanda are said to have seen a little improvement in the fight against corruption, the vice still remains a threat to sustainable and equitable economic and political development.