The Sunday News
Vincent Gono, Features Editor
AFRICA will on Friday celebrate Africa Day under the theme, “Winning the fight against corruption: A sustainable path to Africa’s transformation,” which is inspired by the continent’s acknowledgement that indeed corruption exists and that there is an urgent need for a resolute collective effort to arrest it and all its effects.
The theme is therefore spot on although political analysts remain sceptic about the political will power of the politicians to drive Africa towards a corruption free continent saying the summits on corruption should move from the talk shows that they are currently at to implementable and measurable commitments whose path will lead to Africa’s socio-economic transformation.
Political commentator and philosophy scholar Mr Jowere Mukusha submits that corruption is both a product and cause of poor governance and weak institutions, adding that it is one of the major costs and impediments to structural transformation in the continent.
He said corruption in Africa was a phenomenon that was closely linked to poor governance and argued that pressure to reduce corruption and move towards good governance was both necessary and desirable, but that those ends could not be achieved unless attention was also given to other governance capacities required for accelerating and sustaining growth.
Mr Mukusha contends that corruption cannot be addressed without considering broader governance challenges and argue that it exhibits unique characteristics in each developing country.
“There is need for serious political will in the fight against corruption in the continent without which all the summits and platforms to discuss it will remain talk shows without practical results to show for them. I am however, encouraged by the stance of Zimbabwe’s new political administration which has declared its zero tolerance to corruption. It is my hope that the verve does not fizzle out and will result in sustainable economic growth.
“The need to end corruption dovetails and feed into the re-engagement and the ‘Zimbabwe is open for business’ mantra that the country has been vigorously pursuing and popularising. Corruption has a tendency of stifling economic growth as investors always shun corruption destinations. Therefore, that Africa has seen it wise to discuss corruption should be seen as a serious signal of the trajectory that the continent is pursuing,” said Mr Mukusha.
The economic dangers of corruption, no matter how small, are so many.
According to a 2013 market brief by the African Development Bank, corrupt practices distort markets and stifle economic growth and sustainable development including robbing countries of critically needed resources.
It reduces efficiency and increases social inequality while capital has a strong tendency of shying away from risky markets where corruption is rampant and such has been the case with most African countries.
Another political analyst Mr Richard Mahomva said it was good that the subject of corruption was going to be discussed at continental level with a view to proffer solutions on how best it could be contained. He said although a lot has been said about corruption nothing tangible had been done regionally as part of the commitment to end corruption.
“The subject has been preached about for too long. Bringing it to the fore of the regional discussions should be read to mean acknowledgement and commitment to end corruption and should therefore be lauded. I feel as a continent we have paid too much lip service to the issue of corruption and we have glorified the politics of patronage. We hope the talk of ending corruption will not live at rhetoric level but be taken further both at national and international levels.
“We are happy Zimbabwe has taken the lead in the talk of ending corruption. The new political dispensation has taken serious steps towards addressing the issue of ending corruption and the interesting coincidence is that the theme of the AU has been crafted in the same wording with what Zimbabwe is pursuing,” said Mr Mahomva.
Both analysts and scholars assert that corruption take three broad forms: grand, petty and State capture. The wide range of corrupt acts and practices, which fall under the three broad areas, are enunciated in the United Nations Convention against Corruption as well as the African Union Convention on Preventing and Combating Corruption.
They include bribery, embezzlement, fraud and extortion, nepotism, kickbacks and patronage, unlawful gifts and commissions, money laundering, insider-trading, and white-collar crime. Several studies argue that bribery is the most commonly practised form of corruption in the world whereby beneficiaries use extra legal means of payment to acquire government favours and resource allocation.
Scholars (Burke and Cooper, 2009) argue that in Africa, the most common forms of corrupt practices are bribery, tax evasion and accounting irregularities, notably through concealment.
Public choice theorists argue that officials in Africa exploit the system to their advantage, due to government control of economic activities. This argument highlights that they can go as far as influencing economic policies for rent-seeking activities.
According to Robben, 1998, p.220 grand corruption refers to the purposeful and secretive violation of the standards of moral behaviour in a certain political community by politicians (and/ or any other corrupt party or parties). It includes embezzlement of public funds, political patronage and clientelism, which are acts of crime that are stipulated in the United Nations Convention against Corruption and the African Union Convention on Preventing and Combating Corruption.
In grand corruption, the leader maximises personal wealth rather than the welfare of the population. To this end, the leader should have near or complete control of political powers within the national territory.
A portion of the wealth amassed through corruption is used to buy the loyalty of those who will help the leader remain in power. This, in turn undermines civic rights and public institutions that may rise in opposition to such breaches of the social contract.
Grand corruption drives resource misallocation and results in the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few kleptocrats. It also has the tendency of eroding democratic political institutions of African countries. In a scenario where the assets of the State are seemingly infused with those of the leader, for example in fiefdoms and sheikdoms, the usual notion of grand corruption becomes meaningless. It has to be noted that some leaders have benevolent tendencies whereby corruption is accompanied by the sharing of some of the wealth with the population. It is arguable that such benevolence is a divide-and-rule technique of sharing rents. In other words, it is a mere reflection of the high cost of buying public loyalty and the loyalty of those who help to maintain the corrupt structures.
A slightly less corrosive form of corruption arises when oligarchs ensure that political decisions are in accordance with their economic interests.
Grand corruption presents an obstacle for African countries in pursuing their aspirations for high growth rates, through domestic resource mobilisation.
Petty corruption is also an impediment to domestic resource mobilisation and the structural transformation agenda of the continent. Petty corruption is commonly defined as the use of public office for private benefit — smaller transactions of bribes in the course of delivering a public service. It is practiced by middle and low-grade public officials and generally involves relatively small values of money compared to systemic corruption.
