Abstract
There is a great recognition by Public Administration academics, practitioners and civil society alike that corruption in the public sector has an adverse impact on service delivery. This emanates from the understanding that corruption does not only undermine the development goals of the country, but also that it hits the poor the most as resources that are meant to assist them out of their nervous conditions are diverted to the benefits of the few corrupt elites. Under these circumstances, structural inequalities, which have come to define and characterise the society in post-apartheid South Africa, are reinforced. This is evident in the fact that the rich continues to get richer as the poor get even poorer. This is a condition which is not conducive for social and political stability as well as sustainable development. It is largely because of this consideration that effective anti-corruption work is critical for promoting good governance in a developmental state such as what South Africa aspires to be. The article argues that although the South African public sector has a sound legislative framework and strategies for combating corruption, challenges such as the weaker application of the legislation and oversight mechanisms; insufficient political will; political deployments, and an absence of meritocratic systems provide opportunities for unethical, fraudulent and/or corrupt activities to thrive. To this end, the article presents an overview of the phenomenon of corruption in the South African public sector with the view of identifying the causes of corruption; the challenges of combating corruption as well as the implications these challenges pose for service delivery. The article concludes by making some recommendations on how to resolve the scourge of corruption. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2014.v5n27p1572
Highlights
The phenomenon of corruption is a universal problem (Myint, 2000; Mafunisa, 2007; Ruhiiga, 2009; Soliman & Cable, 2011) and considered troublesome in developing nations (De Graaf, 2007; Denoeux, 2007) like that of South Africa
According to the Transparency Internationals’ Global Corruption Barometer (2013), there is a high percentage 62% of people who feel that from 2007-2010, the level of corruption in the country has increased substantially, while 24% are of the opinion that level of corruption has in actual fact decreased and only 14% argue that it has somewhat remained the same
While the causes of corruption might differ from one environment to another, the following are considered prevalent in the South African Public Sector: weaker application of the legislation and oversight mechanisms; insufficient Political will; political deployments, low wages, and an absence of meritocratic systems
Summary
The phenomenon of corruption is a universal problem (Myint, 2000; Mafunisa, 2007; Ruhiiga, 2009; Soliman & Cable, 2011) and considered troublesome in developing nations (De Graaf, 2007; Denoeux, 2007) like that of South Africa. Corruption is problematic for most developing nations primarily because resources that are meant to achieve socio-economic and developmental objectives are, often times than not, diverted to the benefit of few corrupt elites thereby undermining the developmental goals of these nations It is not surprising that there is a growing worldwide concern over the phenomenon of corruption, where in response, the United Nations (UN) has in 2003 adopted the Convention Against Corruption (CAC) thereby effectively obliging its 148 signatories to adopt anti-corruption measures (Soliman & Cable, 2011). It is not surprising that the phenomenon of corruption was a recurrent theme and served as a campaigning tool used by various political parties in South Africa’s run-up to 2014 National and Provincial elections This is consistent with the argument raised by Kroukamp (2006: 209) in that South African citizens are increasingly rating “corruption as a major concern” within the public sector. It is important to concede that the more we know about the causes of corruption, the better we can decide which policy instruments to use to combat corruption (Graaf, 2007)
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