Corruption In Africa Research Articles

Examining E-Government development effects on corruption in Africa: The mediating effects of ICT development and institutional quality

There has been increased development in e-government initiatives in countries across Africa and these initiatives have been linked to reduced corruption levels. Although some studies provide evidence of how e-government development contributes to reduced corruption, few studies have analyzed the mediating effects of ICT development and institutional quality on the e-government development—corruption linkage. Relying on secondary data from multiple sources, we used a hypothesized model and Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) to empirically examine the mediating role of these two factors on e-government development on corruption. Our results show that a significant relationship exists between e-government development and ICT development, e-government development and institutional quality as well as ICT development and corruption. Whilst these were all supported in confirming the effects of ICT development on corruption. The findings demonstrate the significant role ICT development and institutional quality play as mediators of e-government effects on corruption. However, the study's direct effects of e-government on corruption was not significant. The research suggests that the ICT development of countries be strengthened. Furthermore, there is the need for an improved quality of a country's institutions as measures to ensure stronger effects of e-government on corruption.

Reconstructing the Elusive Fight against Corruption in Africa: The Quest for Re-characterization of Political Corruption as an International Crime

Corruption remains the major hindrance to prosperity of the African continent in all spheres. It is the single greatest challenge to Africa's realization human rights, democracy, economic growth as well as peace and stability. Whereas the anti-corruption discourse dates back to the colonial periods of the various African countries and has continued for decades, no significant progress has been made. Increase in corruption levels in Africa is directly linked to political corruption. The paper argues that national mechanisms against political corruption in African countries are incapable of being effectively deployed. This is because the perpetrators of political corruption are the same ones who constitute African Governments that are supposed to enforce anti-corruption laws. This paper calls for a shift from national mechanisms to international mechanisms for fighting political corruption by re-characterizing political corruption as an international crime and incorporated in the Rome Statute, and appropriate amendments made to the Statute to align political corruption to the requisite threshold for classification.

Channels of corruption in Africa: analytical review of trends in financial crimes

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to identify and analytically review the trends of financial crimes as channels of corruption that impact the development process and economic progress in Africa.Design/methodology/approachThis paper outlines the trends in financial crimes by compiling statistics derived from a scan of the publicly available survey and other published data related.FindingsThe financial crimes of embezzlement and theft, bribes and kickbacks, money laundering and illicit financial flows and state capture are all channels of corruption that are prevalent in Africa with significant negative effects on the continent’s socio-economic development progress. The magnitude of these crimes has been trending upward with the resultant effect that corruption continues to have significant negative impacts on Africa’s current and future development prospects. To develop policies to minimise these negative effects, it is necessary to quantify and continuously monitor the magnitude of these various corruption channels.Originality/valueThe main value of the study is the insights it provides on the nature and extent of the trends in financial crimes as channels of corruption in Africa, and the resultant negative impact on socio-economic development in the region.

Natural resources, fuel exports and corruption policy in Africa

Theoretical explanations of corruption in Africa are inconclusive. Economic downturn and poverty are the effects of poor resource management in Africa. Yet, neopatrimonialism also stands as an alternative explanation. This survey separate these two theoretical alternatives of corruption in Africa. It examines 54 African countries using the corruption perception index of 2017. It found that fuel-exporting countries in Africa are more corrupt than non-fuel exporting countries with a large associated effect size (Cohen’s d =. 94). Fuel exporting countries were linked with resource-curse theory (poor resource management) and the extractive theory of corruption (neopatrimonialism) while non fuel exporting countries was linked up with only the extractive theory of corruption (neopatrimonialism). By implication, African nations involved in the exportation of fuel resource are 94% likely to be more corrupt than countries that do not export fuel.

Delineating the role of foreign governments in the fight against corruption in Africa

Corruption on the African continent unfolds two unique trends: first, the involvement of senior state officials in the perpetration of grand corruption; and secondly, the illicit and surreptitious ...

Citizens, bribery and the propensity to protest

ABSTRACTIt is widely assumed that the more one experiences corruption the more likely one is to want to protest about it. Yet empirical evidence illustrating this is thin on the ground. This paper fills that gap by focusing on the extent to which self-reported experience of bribery affects the willingness to engage in protests against corruption in Africa. We find that the more one experiences bribery the more one is likely to support anti-corruption protests. A further unexpected finding is that the personal experience of corruption also increases the willingness to rely on bribes to solve public administration problems.

Bribery and Corruption in Africa: Nigeria As a Case Study

Despite the durable decades of Independence, Nigeria is still facing the challenge of Bribery and Corruption. The Leadership in Nigeria has been attributed by political bickering, mismanagement, lack of vision and the worst of all is that all the leaders have been gripped by severe corruption, which has become a serious and potential threat to the survival of the country (Kuffour, 2009). Corruption is a serious challenge in the public administration of Nigeria. That competition has deeply eaten into all the sector of the Nigerian Society is to affirm the obvious. This can be attested from the exposures of various probe panels that have established or launched at various times by various regimes in the Nation. Actually, Corruption is at the core of the crisis in issues such as legitimacy and governance, rule of law, the application of sustainable democratic order, and the welfare of the citizens and National development. Corruption is the main evaluation of the glaring insolvable challenges of diseases, poverty, hunger including the general severe development challenges in the country (Of India, 2009). Corruption has severally affected the growth and the proper utilization of resources in the Nation. With the huge wealth from oil resources; political, social and economic strength, the country is referred to as the Giant of Africa. However; it was discovered that 25 years of corrupt and brutal military rule, which left a legacy and various mark of political corruption in the hands of the country’s influential political elites, who are sitting on top severe patronage networks the country was subdued to a non giant status. The Educated and the Influential primarily views the governance through the lens of their private survival and enrichment rather than National Development. The Centralized economic and political structures in the country tend to make those who regulate and handle Major state posts stupendously wealthy, while 75% of Nigerians fall into extreme poverty (Sklar et al, 2006)

Corruption and Its Implications for Development and Good Governance: A Perspective from Post-Colonial Africa

Abstract: One of the many impediments to a specific region, country and/or continents political, social and economic growth prospects is corruption, the aim of this paper is to unearth the drivers and consequences of corruption in post-colonial Africa. Corruption is a global phenomenon; however when observing global corruption statistics and/or trends, it seems to be more prominent in underdeveloped continents such as Africa. Corruption in Africa is purely driven by low levels of economic growth, bad governance structures weak constitutions political instability, high levels of poverty coupled with high and ever-increasing levels of unemployment. We argue that post the colonial era, there has been a rise of corruption activities within the continent where individuals including some African heads of states have looted the continent of its resources meant for the general populace. In this sense, corruption takes resources meant for the poor, limits foreign direct investments (FDI) and has severe effects on a continent that is already the least developed in the world.

Corruption in Africa: The Way Forward

Corruption in Africa: The Way Forward

Taming Corruption in Africa: A Comparative Examination of South Africa and Nigeria

Taming Corruption in Africa: A Comparative Examination of South Africa and Nigeria

An empirical examination of the relationship between income inequality and corruption in Africa

Most studies examining the relationship between corruption and income inequality have treated income inequality as the dependent variable and corruption as an independent variable. However, a sparse but growing strand of the literature now looks at the reverse because there is reason to believe that higher income inequality may influence corruption levels. Furthermore, the empirical literature is inconclusive on the exact relationship between income inequality and corruption across different regions and income categories. We contribute to this literature by providing empirical evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa using an unbalanced panel data for 48 countries from 1996 to 2016. Contrary to prior results from developed countries, our results show that higher levels of income inequality are rather associated with lower corruption levels and suggestive of a changing relationship between income inequality and corruption among countries on different income trajectories. We also find a reverse causality between income inequality and corruption and that corruption Granger-causes income inequality. Finally, results from OLS, random effects and fixed effects models reveal a U-shaped relationship between income inequality and corruption for low-income and lower-middle-income African countries with turning point income inequality levels ranging from 22 to 52.

Most Anti-Corruption Programs Have Lacked Key Components

The five field studies reported here and published research examined successful and unsuccessful anti-corruption programs, and the processes of corruption in Africa and Central America. They found most Third World governments' anti-corruption programs have lacked the appropriate mix of strategies and exercises needed to build new behaviors to overcome the core problem of a culture of corruption, or the hysteresis effect. The five studies led to development and testing of a model anti-corruption program. Test of the model program showed it could be assimilated by participants who lacked advanced education, and they could achieve an initial operational competence in a relatively brief period of training. The authors’ five field studies found eight (8) components were necessary for successful anti-corruption programs, and these findings were bolstered by the published research of others that was empirically based. The eight components are: (1) the actual and visible support of the head of government or C.E.O., (2) behavior modification training for civil servants to build informal social controls and internalize negative reactions to corruption, (3) a public component to build public support and social conscientiousness, (4) a degree of career security for civil servants, (5) laws and formal structures, such as criminal statutes, ethics code, transparency, audit, legislative incentives such as the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, other official and independent oversight, (6) exercises and follow up to operationalize new behaviors and feedback, (7) reduction and streamlining of government licensing and regulation of the economy, and (8) training to build new sensitivities to mission, professionalism, fiduciary duty, and peer group responsibility. The model program developed and tested included skill building, group exercises, role-playing, cohort projects, and practice scripts.

Part of the Problem or Part of the Solution? MNEs, FDI, and the Cycle of Corruption in Africa

Corruption is a persistent and pervasive concern worldwide, leading to lower levels of economic growth, the erosion of political and legal institutions, and decreased foreign and domestic investment. Yet, many questions remain about the role that multinational enterprises (MNEs) play in exacerbating or mitigating corruption. We address such questions by examining corruption in sub-Saharan Africa, a context with increasing levels of economic growth and foreign investment, but varying levels of success in addressing corruption. We generate new insights with respect to the nature of corruption itself, causes of corruption, consequences of corruption, and how corruption can be fought. We find that rather than corruption being an inherently unavoidable ‘cost of doing business’ in developing countries, the attributes of FDI and actions of MNEs play a significant role in influencing whether corrupt activities are enabled or curbed in a host country.

Corruption and the postocolonial state: how the west invented African corruption

ABSTRACTThere is corruption in Africa, no doubt; but then again, there is corruption everywhere. However, when it comes to Africa the corruption discourse appears to take a different tone with assertions like these. Corruption is a big problem. It permeates every section of society. It is a way of life. Everyone is corrupt. Then certain descriptive metaphors follow, most of them pathological: cancer, virus, cankerworm, parasite, epidemic, and so on. But why does corruption appear to be a particularly African problem in a way that it appears not to be, in other places? This paper examines the way in which the narrative on African corruption has been framed, and argues that the discourse on African corruption is a Western invention that emerged as a post-colonial construct. It is discourse that has distorted and ignored the true nature of the problem, which has made a solution even more elusive.

Rethinking corruption in contemporary African philosophy: Old wine cannot fit

To conceive the notion of corruption presupposes the existence of corrupt individuals, groups or organisations. The existence of corrupt individuals, groups or organisations you might say presupposes the presence of an entity. Every entity (i.e. state or corporate) has laid down procedures, processes and methods of doings and functioning. When these procedures and processes are negated, one could be accused of subversion. Subversion is an element in the definition of administrative corruption and is the unwillingness to follow stipulated plans of actions. An action that negates procedures falls under corrupt practice. This article will answer the following research questions: How has corruption been framed and perceived and what are the underlining consequences in Africa? In what ways, if any, has the prevailing perception of corruption undermined and understated the notion of corruption in Africa? In what ways can a remedial be conceived in the fight to make Africa free of corruption? And finally: How can Kleptoafronia be conceived as a panacea for corruption in the continent? This article uses themes and narrative analysis in the qualitative realm to provide answers to the research questions. Over 500 scholarly materials were read and scanned from journal articles, Internet sources, textbooks and several academic indexes to provide evidence for the arguments in this article from five disciplinary standpoints: political science, public administration, criminology, psychology and medical sciences. This article is a conceptual article that tends to demonstrate that corruption in Africa is a psych-administrative disorder termed – Kleptoafronia.

Corruption and Human Rights Law in Africa

This book provokes the most pertinent debate engulfing Africa, that is, how to effectively deal with corruption in Africa – and it offers the human rights approach not as a replacement of criminal measures but to complement the already existing criminal measures, that gives a voice to the victims of corruption in Africa, who are, the ordinary citizens.
 

Chinese aid and local corruption

Considering the mounting criticisms concerning Chinese aid practices, the present paper investigates whether Chinese aid projects fuel local-level corruption in Africa. To this end, we geographically match a new geo-referenced dataset on the subnational allocation of Chinese development finance projects to Africa over the 2000–2012 period with 98,449 respondents from four Afrobarometer survey waves across 29 African countries. By comparing the corruption experiences of individuals who live near a site where a Chinese project is being implemented at the time of the interview to those of individuals living close to a site where a Chinese project will be initiated but where implementation had not yet started at the time of the interview, we control for unobservable time-invariant characteristics that may influence the selection of project sites. The empirical results consistently indicate more widespread local corruption around active Chinese project sites. The effect is seemingly not driven by an increase in economic activity, but rather seems to signify that the Chinese presence impacts norms. Moreover, Chinese aid stands out from World Bank aid in this respect. In particular, whereas the results indicate that Chinese aid projects fuel local corruption but have no observable impact on short term local economic activity, they suggest that World Bank aid projects stimulate local economic activity without any consistent evidence of it fuelling local corruption.

Combating Corruption in Africa through Institutional Entrepreneurship: Peering in from Business-government Relations

Corruption remains a significant barrier to the socio-economic development of Africa, despite efforts by various local, national and international stakeholders to combat it. Mishra and Maiko (2017), in their article which was published in Africa Journal of Management, suggest that business schools could serve as institutions of change by incorporating student-elder partnerships in their curricula to develop ethical business leaders who will help fight corruption. In this article, I respond to Maiko and Mishra by refining their idea to make it more feasible within the current African context. I also outline why their idea might not be effective for combating systemic corruption in Africa, and propose an alternative focused on training business students to become institutional entrepreneurs in Africa’s political arenas. This article is intended to start a dialogue that will facilitate the development of novel and effective ways of using business and management education to combat corruption in Africa.

A Human Rights-based Approach to Combating Public Procurement Corruption in Africa

Corruption is a threat to human rights as it erodes accountability and violates many international human rights conventions. It also undermines basic principles and values like equality, non-discrimination, human dignity, and social justice – especially in African countries where democratic systems and institutional arrangements are less developed than in most European, Asian and American countries. Corruption occurs in both the public and private sectors and affects human rights by deteriorating institutions and diminishing public trust in government. Corruption impairs the ability of governments to fulfil their obligations and ensure accountability in the implementation and protection of human rights – particularly socio-economic rights pertinent to the delivery of economic and social services. This is because corruption diverts funds into private pockets – impeding delivery of services, and thereby perpetuating inequality, injustice and unfairness. This considered, the focus of this paper is on public procurement corruption. It is argued that by applying a human rights-based approach to combating public procurement corruption, the violation of human rights – particularly socio-economic rights – can be significantly reduced. Through a human rights-based approach, ordinary people can be empowered to demand transparency, accountability and responsibility from elected representatives and public officials – particularly those involved in public procurement. In the paper, reference is made to selected aspects of the national legal frameworks of five African countries: South Africa, Uganda, Kenya, Nigeria and Botswana.

Corruption in Africa: What role does ICT diffusion play

This paper assesses the determinants of corruption in Africa and focuses on the effect of ICT diffusion on corruption. Using a sample of 47 African countries over the period from 1996 to 2014, empirical findings provide evidence of high corruption inertia in Africa and show that the rule of law is the strongest factor determining the level of corruption. Results reveal that African economies can benefit from the anti-corruption effects of ICT adoption only once a threshold of rule of law is reached. Thus, policies based on the use of the internet and mobile phones are effective in combating corruption in Africa but need to be strengthened by greater law enforcement.