Corruption Scandals and Anti-Corruption Institution Building Interventions in Jamaica

Abstract

In Jamaica since 1981, numerous institution building efforts have been undertaken aimed at improving administrative propriety, including but not limited to the establishment of the Office of the Contractor-General -an ombudsman of contracts (1983), the National Contracts Commission (1999), the Anti-Corruption Commission (2003), Public Management Accountability Act (2002) and several codes of conduct for ministers (2002), public officials and politicians (1973). However, despite these new anti-corruption institutional initiatives, there is a general public perception that corruption is endemic in Jamaica (Jamaica Gleaner, 2001), a view supported by public polling in February 2005, which found more than 90 per cent of respondents believing that corruption was rampant in society, with 70 per cent believing that most corruption resides in public sector agencies (Buckley, 2005; Hart, 2005). This view is supported by a falling ranking in 2004 for Jamaica on the Transparency International (TI) corruption perception index to 74 out of 146 countries, down 17 places from its position in 2003 (TI, 2005). This chapter presents an overview of the persistence and growth of corruption in Jamaica in spite of the plethora of anti-corruption policies and institution building that have been pursued by the state; and concludes that resolve, political will, and a change in political culture are additionally required to supplement the institutional response.KeywordsCorporate GovernanceCorruption Perception IndexInstitution BuildingCost OverrunTransparency InternationalThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.