Imperatives of Anti-corruption Initiatives in Enhancing Public Service Delivery in Africa

Abstract

Africa’s public administration has been serially burdened by corruption, whereas the imperatives of anti-corruption initiatives in enhancing public service delivery remain key elements in the eradication of institutional docility strangulating Africa’s path to sustainable growth and development. In the last two decades, many African countries embarked on wide-ranging public administrative reforms aimed at strengthening institutional accountability and stemming corruption. Despite the various initiatives, there is a seeming trust-gap between the public and the state, especially when agencies set up to fight corruption become compromised in the entire process. The effect of corruption on Africa’s economic, political, and social landscape has become increasingly injurious to its growth and development, and this has made public administration inefficient. The failure to strengthen anti-corruption institutions and the trust-gap between the state and the public are hampering the fight against administrative corruption in Africa. Systematic corruption has replaced institutional due diligence while the political elites are guilty of its patronage. Public administration has become unjustifiably bloated and inflated, while institutions have become docile and inefficient in the delivery of public good. It is regrettable that despite Africa’s abundant resources, decades of public maladministration have placed a majority of its citizens in a cocoon of fear and bleakness; again its citizens have not fared better, while the earlier hopes of freedom that brought smiles and celebration at independence are increasingly being replaced with pessimism, distrust, and hopelessness. It is worthy to note that Africa in comparison with other continents, especially Asia, has failed woefully to harness its full potential. To navigate these murky waters, anti-corruption initiatives must be inclusively comprehensive, and adopt and deploy innovative governance where data is open, public administration is transparent, and public officials are fully accountable. This chapter conceptualizes corruption and anti-corruption in Africa, discusses the anti-corruption initiatives in selected African countries, and establishes the relationship between the anti-corruption initiatives and how it has improved service delivery in Africa. Collective action theory and institutional theory were used as theoretical frameworks in the discussion.KeywordsAfricaAnti-corruptionInstitutional docilityMaladministrationPublic Administration