Public Sector Corruption Research Articles

Bad Politicians, Good Bureaucrats: Modelling Public Sector Corruption and Bureaucratic Reliability

Bad Politicians, Good Bureaucrats: Modelling Public Sector Corruption and Bureaucratic Reliability

Corrupt Practices in the Public Health Sector: A Focus on Metropolitan Local Government Areas of Kano State, Nigeria

Corruption is pervasive in Nigeria at all levels. Thus, despite recent gains in healthcare provision, the health sector faces numerous corruption related challenges. This study aims at examining areas of corruption in the health sector with specific focus on its types and nature. A sample size of 480 respondents aged 18 years and above was drawn from the eight Metropolitan Local Government Areas of Kano State, using the multistage sampling technique. The results revealed evidence of corrupt practices including those related to unnecessary-absenteeism, diversion of patients from the public health facilities to the private sector, diverting money meant for the purchase of equipment, fuel and diesel, bribery, stealing of medications, fraud, misappropriation of medications and unjustifiable reimbursement claims. In order to resolve the problem of corrupt practices in the healthcare sector, the study recommended the need for enforcement of appropriate code of ethics guiding the conduct of the health professionals, adoption of anti-corruption strategies, and strengthening the government monitoring system to check corruption in public health sector in order to ensure equitable access to healthcare services among the under-privileged people in the society.

An Analysis of the Long-Run Relationship Between Corruption and Debt Sustainability in Nigeria

Corruption and public debt have continued to increase in Nigeria despite the anti-corruption posture of governments over the years and justifications often advanced for accumulating debts. The rising tides of public sector corruption in Nigeria are pervasive with its debilitating effects on the economy. The government’s anti-corruption campaigns have produced minimal results than expected as the country’s performance on global ranking by Transparency International remains dismal. Coincidentally, the fiscal stability of the economy has been jeopardized by increased public debts without commensurate investments injected into the system.This paper examined the long-run relationship between corruption and debt sustainability in Nigeria from 1996-2019 and employed the Vector Error Correction Model (VECM) technique of analysis.The choice of the period covered was informed by the need for a large dataset which guarantees a robust outcome in time series analysis and to capture the year 1996 when Nigeria made its first appearance in the assessment of global perception of corruption by Transparency International. Findings revealed that corruption is negatively related to debt sustainability in Nigeria, suggesting that higher incidences of corruption make public sector debt unsustainable. The speed of adjustment of -0.7575869 is negative which is statistically significant at 5%. This shows that there is 75.76%-point adjustment taking place each period towards the long-run periods. There is, therefore, the need for effective anti-corruption institutions, revisiting of the whistleblower policy, and entrenchment of the culture of transparency in financial transactions in order to curtail the ravaging effects of corruption in Nigeria. KEYWORDS: Corruption, Debt Sustainability, Vector Error Correction Model (VECM)

The Role of E-Government In Fighting Against The Corruption: A Case Study Of Vietnam

Corruption is always a big problem exist in every country. Today, the corruption is not only in the public sector but also in the private sector. Each State has used many ways to prevent and fight this crime. The 4th Industrial Revolution (4IE) brings many innovative solutions for modern life. Especially, e-Government is a great achievement of the 4IE. Base on the e-Government, the policies and regulations of States are transparent. It plays an important role to prevent and fight corruption more effectively. In this paper, the author will analyze the case study of Vietnam on fighting corruption base on the information technology and the outcome of applying e-Government on preventing and fighting corruption in both public sector and private sector. From this result of research, the author will recommend some solutions to improve the corruption status in Vietnam on the next period.

Exploring the Linkage Between Public Corruption and Political Trust in Mauritius: a PLS-SEM Approach

This research examines, analyses, and explains—from a citizen’s perspective—public-sector corruption in order to determine whether public opinion and belief concerning it in the case of Mauritius matters in assessing political trust. The findings confirm the existence of a strong and significant inverse relationship between citizens’ perception of corruption and political trust, suggesting that corruption viewed through the citizens’ lens erodes trust in government. Mediation tests further confirm that improvement of service delivery is a better strategy to mitigate citizens’ perceived extent of public-sector corruption and ultimately repair the deficit of political trust than placing reliance on anti-corruption agencies.

A corrupção no setor público brasileiro

O estudo teve como objetivo estudar a corrupção no setor público, buscando elaborar um conceito sobre o controle externo da Administração Pública quanto aos princípios relatados no artigo 37 da Constituição Federal. Em relação aos dados coletados, este estudo caracteriza-se como pesquisa bibliográfica. É importante destacar que o para combate a corrupção no Brasil, torna-se imprescindível a construção de uma nova cultura institucional eficiente, envolvendo diversos atores da sociedade e Tribunal de Contas, a fim de preservar as Finanças Públicas.

Droughts and corruption

Natural disasters are challenges for good governance. That conclusion follows from recent research investigating the effects of natural disasters on one important force hostile to good governance: public sector corruption. However, a specific analysis of droughts is so far neglected in the still-young relevant strand of the literature. The present paper fills that gap by analyzing the short- and long-term influence of droughts on public sector corruption within a unified panel estimation approach for 120 countries during the period 1985–2013. Relying on a meteorological drought measure, the Standardized Precipitation Index, we show that more severe drought exposure is followed by more corruption. The effect holds for subsamples of developing and developed countries. The robustness of the results is supported by a variety of stability tests. Furthermore, we provide initial evidence on the transmission paths of drought-induced corruption, which differ depending on the countries’ level of development. Whereas droughts increase corruption risk in developing countries by triggering significantly larger aid inflows and less democratic accountability and transparency, corruption in developed countries rises as a consequence of governmental drought relief payments.

Government in Nigeria Can Achieve Good Governance Through Good Management

Poor public management defined by corruption and lack of prudence in public life continues to hold Nigeria hostage and makes good governance difficult. Since the 1980s government has been using many methods including the processes of privatization and commercialization as means of re-engineering the public sector for total quality management, and to increase the share of the public sector’s contribution to the gross domestic product. The experiment never achieved the desired level of success partly due to lack of political will on the part of government to wedge a total war against corruption, and also partly because the public sector is a large scale administration that has many entry and revolving doors which government finds difficult to close. These limitations provide the incentives for widespread public corruption that is recognized as one of the greatest challenges of government in carrying out its mandate. 110 respondents participated in this study conducted through the exploratory research design. The participants provided useful data that were triangulated with data from secondary sources for the purpose of the study. To achieve the objective of the investigation, data were analyzed through statistical techniques and the result showed significant positive correlation between good governance and good management. It was recommended that appointments in the public sector should feature a combination of people from private and public sectors of the economy to enhance competence with the aim of reducing public sector corruption. Further study should examine the reasons behind rising budget deficits as a way of reducing cost of governance in Nigeria.

Social audit, accountability and accounting – an Indian perspective

PurposeThe purpose of this case study is to investigate the role of a governmental social audit (SA) practice in enabling emancipation, and changing patterns in the balance of power, position and understandings between dominant micro actors and disenfranchised rural citizens.Design/methodology/approachEnlisting Bourdieu's practice theory concepts of field, habitus, capitals and symbolic violence, the case study is informed by semi-structured interviews at central, state, district, block and village levels as well field observations and secondary data. This study is a part of a larger critical accounting research project conducted in India over four months, covering eight annual implementation cycles.FindingsThe study demonstrates that despite entrenched hegemonic micro forces and public sector corruption, SA's accounting and accountability practices have altered the rules of the game in this field. This emancipatory perspective has redefined deep-seated, generational patterns of power relations and domination, impacting the distribution of capitals and habitus in the daily life of rural citizens.Research limitations/implicationsThis study provides an alternative perspective to understanding governmental SA formats in developing nation contexts at the micro level. In line with Celerier and Botey's (2015) focus on inclusionary and democratic participation, this study challenges the dominant perspective of accounting as strengthening power asymmetries and focuses on its potential as an emancipatory agent.Originality/valueThe paper provides a site of effective implementation of a participative accountability practice in developing nation contexts that offer suggestions to states, countries and policy-makers. This paper also adds to critical accounting literature in the field of SA and social services at a micro level. Drawing upon Bourdieu in this underexplored field, it shines a light on relational elements of change through accounting and accountability practices for researchers and practitioners.

Corruption, Democracy, and Privately Financed Infrastructure

Do political institutions moderate the influence of corruption on privately financed infrastructure projects? We argue that electoral competition incentivizes politicians to monitor bureaucratic corruption and focus on the public benefits of projects. Without such incentives, corruption is not monitored and the private benefits of bribes and favorable contract terms are responsible for increasing numbers of projects. Studying 116 countries between 1984 and 2012, we find that as public-sector corruption increases in democracies, no change in the number of projects is observed, while more projects emerge in non-democracies as corruption worsens.

Understanding the Sources of Corporate Corruption at the Intersection of Public-Private Spheres

Despite the surge of corporate corruption scandals in recent years, corruption research tends to focus on public-sector corruption through the lens of political economy using widely used corruption perception data. The panel symposium on Understanding the Sources of Corporate Corruption at the Intersection of Public-Private Spheres will discuss new theory from multiple disciplinary perspectives and new findings from unique data corporate misbehavior and experiments for managerial and policy implications. By coming together across the disciplinary divide, expert panelists will offer their insights on how to build on a set of disparate theories about what causes some private actors including firms to engage in corruption. Panelists will also discuss cutting-edge empirical approaches to achieving causal identification in corruption research and new experimental settings that detect corruption. Discussion on why private actors engage in corruption in the national and global contexts will help explain why corporate corruption matters and what can be done to reduce its negative effects. To summarize, the proposed panel symposium intends to engage a group of expert panelists in corporate corruption in a formal, moderated, interactive discussion of (1) the causes of corporate corruption/corporate misconducts in the national and global contexts; (2) theoretically new and empirically rigorous ways to study corporate corruption; and (3) the managerial and policy implications of the findings from recent studies of corporate corruption at the intersection of public-private spheres based on newly available data and experiments.

Perception vs. experience: Explaining differences in corruption measures using microdata

Abstract: Most corruption research suffers from one common problem: There is no objective measure of public-sector corruption for a cross-section of countries. Studies on the determinants or the effects of corruption typically rely on indicators of corruption perception. In recent years, a second type of indicator reflecting experience with bribery has become available. If corruption perception is primarily informed by experience with corruption, these two types of indicators should be very highly correlated, which they are not. This study examines the variation in individual corruption perception that cannot be explained by individual corruption experience alone. We find that both respondent characteristics and country characteristics affect corruption perception beyond what can be explained by individuals’ first-hand experience of corruption. Some of these biases may force us to reevaluate results of corruption research that is based on perception data, as well as the anti-corruption policies designed in response to these results.

A survey dataset on the perception of public-sector corruption in Mauritius and a framework analysis of corruption court cases.

This data article provides research data on the perception of public-sector corruption in Mauritius, captured using a survey questionnaire as well as a thematic framework for the analysis of corruption court cases prosecuted by the national anti-corruption body, namely, the Independent Commission against Corruption (ICAC). A sequential mixed methods design was adopted. First, a quantitative approach was used, whereby a questionnaire was developed and administered on 600 persons to gauge public opinion on the perceived seriousness of the phenomenon of public-sector corruption in the country while at the same time recording citizens’ perceived effectiveness of the ICAC in its fight against public corruption in Mauritius. Second, to cross-validate the quantitative findings on the perceived effectiveness of the ICAC in fulfilling its mandate as an anti-corruption agency, a content analysis of court judgments prosecuted by ICAC from 2002 to 2018, was conducted to find out whether or not the respondents’ perceptions of the prosecutorial efficacy of the ICAC was justified. The questionnaire, the raw dataset as well as the analysis of court judgments can be downloaded from the Mendeley Data repository (https://data.mendeley.com/datasets/h8k5ghvhgh/1). The data may be reused for similar research in other parts of the world.The research findings have been published in The International Journal of Law, Crime, and Justice.

Vertical Collectivism and Public Sector Corruption in South Asia: Fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis

Using fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA), this article intended to discover the combinations(s) of the vertical-collectivism dimensions inducing the high level of public sector corruption in South Asian countries. The analysis showed that the three combinations are instrumental in the high extent of public sector corruption in South Asian region: (a) the relatively low magnitude of power distance OR (b) the relatively low magnitude of masculinity AND the relatively high magnitude of uncertainty avoidance OR (c) the relatively low magnitude of individualism AND the relatively high magnitude of uncertainty avoidance. The startling result is that the relatively low level of power distance was revealed as one of the core causal conditions affecting the high level of public sector corruption in South Asian region. On this notable result, this article argued that it resulted from the region’s circumstances where the necessary resources and means to provide the less powerful members with an opportunity for upward social mobility is hardly achieved. In light of the finding, this article suggested that policy makers in South Asian countries should prioritize the improvement in regional situation which gives no other options to people, but corruption

Assessing the effectiveness of the fight against public-sector corruption in Mauritius: Perception v reality

PurposeThe purpose of this research is to examine and analyse public corruption by comparing citizens’ assessment of the perceived performance of the anti-corruption agency of Mauritius (ICAC), in terms of its prosecutorial efficacy, and comparing such perception with the reality reflected by court judgments. Design/Methodology/ApproachA survey was carried out using a structured questionnaire, to gauge public opinion on the perceived effectiveness of the ICAC in fighting public corruption. Specific results were then cross-validated against an analysis of court judgments. FindingsThe survey findings reveal that citizens have a negative opinion on ICAC’s effectiveness and this perception is justified and validated by a content analysis exercise, to confirm poor prosecutorial performance. Originality/ValueThe study seeks to sensitise decision-makers on the need to instil public trust by clarifying specific provisions of the anticorruption legislation and adopting a proactive approach by setting up an integrity system within public organisations to address public corruption.

Fiscal federalism and accountability in Nigeria: an ARDL approach

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between fiscal federalism and accountability in Nigeria. Corruption is a global plague and is endemic in nature. Several policies have been adopted by the Nigerian Government to institutionalize accountability and combat the scourge of corruption that have hindered socio-economic progress but to no avail.Design/methodology/approachThus, this study examined fiscal federalism and accountability issues in Nigeria using secondary data and used the auto-regressive distributed lag econometric technique to analyse the data.FindingsThe results from this study reveal that fiscal federalism fails to mitigate corruption in the long run in Nigeria because of poor bureaucratic quality (BQ) and ineffective law and order (LOR).Social implicationsFiscal decentralization must be accompanied by legislations that will strengthen BQ of fiscal institutions at subnational levels and promote effective LOR.Originality/valueThis study recommends that for fiscal federalism to mitigate corruption in the long run, government must adopt appropriate policies to improve BQ and further strengthen LOR in Nigeria. The finding also suggests that to promote public sector accountability in Nigeria, government should ensure the simultaneous decentralization of expenditure and revenue to lower tiers of government. This study provides detailed empirical evidence that fiscal decentralization without accountability will accentuate public sector corruption, and in the long run, weaken local economic development initiative to boost growth and development.

Public sector corruption and perceived government performance in transition

AbstractWe offer evidence that public sector corruption has an inverse association with evaluations of performance at both the local and central government levels. Consistent with ex ante expectations, perceptions of corruption among local government officials are directly and negatively related to performance evaluations at the local government level and relatively less so at the central government level. Conversely, perceptions of corruption among overall government officials have a stronger negative association with performance evaluations of central governments relative to performance evaluations of local governments. These results confirm that individual evaluations of public sector corruption affect perceived government performance evaluations, with local–local, local–central, central–local, and central–central level variances. Regressions by country groups—such as European Union membership, or geographic clusters, such as Southeastern Balkan or the former Soviet Union states—continue to support the core findings with one caveat. Results from two‐level random intercepts and slopes regression models show that the negative association between perceived corruption and government performance evaluation is weaker in contexts with relatively higher levels of public corruption.

Public Auditors and Detection of Corruption in Nigeria

The study investigated over the years the need and urgency of the auditors in detecting and reporting corruption in the Nigerian public sector. The main objective of this research is to show through empirical analysis that it is the duty of the auditors in detecting corruption in the public sector. The study was conducted in Edo and Delta states of Nigeria. Survey design was employed in the study. The survey was in two folds. In 2014, copies of questionnaires were distributed to accountants and auditors in the public sector and 5 audit firms. A total of 117 copies of questionnaire were retrieved. While in 2018, a similar copy of questionnaire was distributed to auditors only, working in the public sector in the two states. The Systematic Random Sampling Technique (SRST) was used in selecting 62 respondents from a population of 484 in 2018. The bio data and analysis was done using the Simple Percentage Analysis. The findings revealed that corruption detection by the auditors should be part of auditor’s role and exposure of corruption by the auditors will reduce corruption in the public sector in Nigeria. The study therefore recommends that ISA 200 and other Auditing standard should be reviewed to incorporate detection and reporting of corruption as key auditors’ responsibility. The State and National Houses of Assemblies should enact Act to review and impute the expected role of the auditors in the light of increasing accountability to the public.

Options for quantitation of public sector corruption in Slovakia and the Czech Republic

Možnosti kvantifikovania korupcie vo verejnom sektore na Slovensku a v Českej republike (Options for quantitation of public sector corruption in Slovakia and the Czech Republic) Journal Politické vedy has been released since 1998. The aim of the academically reviewed journal is to publish original articles of Slovak and foreign authors, concerning different fields of social science

DETERMINANTS OF THE LEVEL OF INFORMALIZATION OF ENTERPRISES: SOME EVIDENCE FROM ACCRA, GHANA

Based on the recognition that enterprises operate at different levels of informality, this paper evaluates the determinants of their degree of informalization. To do so, a 2016 survey of the varying degrees of informalization of 171 entrepreneurs in Ghana is reported. The finding is that only 21% of enterprises were wholly informal and 16% wholly formal. Nearly two-thirds (63%) were neither wholly informal nor wholly formal. Higher levels of informalization are significantly associated with younger entrepreneurs, those with lower levels of educational attainment, lower household incomes and younger enterprises. It is also significantly associated with the wider institutional compliance environment. Higher levels of informality are present among entrepreneurs unaware of the need for registration, who lack vertical trust (i.e., do not believe the state does anything for them, and perceive there to be public sector corruption), view informality as normal (i.e., a normal practice in their family) and view all similar businesses as operating informally (i.e., lack horizontal trust). The paper concludes by discussing the theoretical and policy implications.