I was looking something up when I came across this article. What is corruption? Economic corruption is payment for services or material which the recipient is not due, under law. Political corruption is the use of power by government officials for illegitimate private gain. Forms of corruption vary, but include bribery, extortion, cronyism, nepotism, patronage, graft, and embezzlement. Corruption may facilitate criminal enterprise such as trafficking and money laundering, though is not restricted to these activities. How widespread is corruption in Africa? Corruption is perhaps the biggest single problem facing many African countries. It is a terrible sickness which can run right through a country, undermining honest endevour, preventing forward momentum and devastating the general quality of life. According to the ranking by World Audit the countries of Africa occupy some of the lowest rungs on the corruption ladder ... 27 Botswana 30 Mauritius 40 South Africa 42 Namibia 45 Tunisia 48 Ghana 51 Rwanda 68 Morocco 68 Malawi 74 Burkina Faso 74 Gambia 79 Egypt 81 Zambia 83 Senegal 83 Algeria 88 Benin 88 Gabon 92 Mali 92 Ethiopia 92 Tanzania 92 Mozambique 98 Madagascar 98 Niger 101 Eritrea 101 Uganda 108 Nigeria 108 Togo 108 Zimbabwe 108 Sierra Leone 117 Mauritania 119 Libya 119 Cameroon 119 Cote dIvoire 127 Kenya 127 Central African Republic 127 Guinea Bissau 127 Congo DRC 136 Congo 136 Guinea 140 Angola 141 Burundi 142 Chad 143 Sudan 149 Somalia When you get as low as Kenya you are largely in the company of war-torn and broken countries whose state infrastructure has disintegrated. It is quite an acheivement for such a relatively large and stable economy to be so corrupt. How does corruption effect the traveller in Africa? The first way that corruption will impinge upon your trip is through the quality of the services that you use. Operating legitimate travel service companies within a corrupt environment is a major challenge. All good operators have long since banned the expression well this is Africa from their vocabulary and instead fight tooth and nail to provide their guests with the highest levels of service. But guests would do well to bear in mind the adverse circumstances in which they are obliged to operate and make allowances. Safari companies are usually passion businesses and whilst their staff sweat blood to make their guests happy, very few of them make any significant money in the process. Corruption makes their work so much more difficult. Corruption will also significantly boosts the cost of your trip. It is very difficult to estimate, but we would not be surprised if out of a $10,000 trip, perhaps up to $2000 feeds directly or indirectly into corruption. But please do not let this put you off travelling to Africa. The income that derives from international travellers supports so much of the good side of the continent ... honest trade, education, health and conservation. The way to solve this problem is not by turning our backs on the continent. Do Africans have a different view of corruption? There is no doubt that many Africans take a very different view of practises that the Western mind would think of as corruption. It seems that the root of this lies in the fact that much of society here is still structured along tribal grounds. The African has traditionally viewed themselves less as an individual and more of a member of a kinship group. When you earn something you dont stockpile it for yourself, but share it with your immediate family. If you earn more then are likely to find that more distant relatives come visiting and will feel entitled to their share. Wealth is communal and having control of the earning capacity is to hold power amongst your kin and your greater tribe. It is to earn respect and be regarded as a big man. So when an African becomes a policeman, he is not necessarily tempted by the small salary, but he is tempted by the level of influence and respect he will attain, because he knows that he will be able to use this power to enrich himself. When someone is pulled over by a police checkpoint in Africa and co-erced into making a contribution, the Westerner will most probably view this as outright and despicable corruption, but the African will be more inclined to think of this as simply the way the world goes round ... the way to solve it is to gain more influence yourself in order that you may have more power to extort than the next man. When it comes to high ranking politicians, the big man phenomenon can reach remarkable proportions. In some countries it appears that the whole instrument of state is directed almost entirely towards enriching those in office. The Western view of this is usually one of utter corruption. But the African view is more one of pragmatic wealth distribution, because each of those politicians is doubtless supporting not just his kin, but a large part of his whole tribe. Every day he will have lines of people outside his office and at home, each trying to gain their share of the great handout. The question that you ultimately meet in Africa is ... who is more corrupt ... the Western banker who earns millions and keeps it to himself, or the African politician who redirects millions to directly support a huge kinship group? It is useful for Westerners to realise that there is more than one perspective on these issues. What are the solutions to corruption in Africa? This is a huge and complex subject and one which we cannot get into detail here. We used to state that we would only support safari operators who did their utmost to avoid making illicit payments, but over the years even the most upright of them have told us stories of how they have had to bend with the wind in order to continue operating. If anything the situation seems to be getting worse rather than better. We can only hope that the World Bank and other donors are able to put pressure on to reverse the tide, but with Chinese money now coming into Africa with no strings attached, the prospects for improved governance dont look great. Maybe it is time for the international community to take seriously the suggest made by Robert Calderisi, the former head of the World Bank in Africa, who claims in his excellent book The Trouble with Africa that since only a few cents in the aid dollar actually get through to the intended recipients, stopping all aid overnight would have relatively little impact on the people. That money could then be deployed into a handful pioneering clean countries, which would be obliged to operate on an absolutely zero tollerance basis. As these countries start to blossom and pay their own way, as they innevitably would, then the other countries could get in line for the same cleansing treatment. Let us hope for a brighter future on this front, because as things stand it is aid dependence and corruption which is preventing Africa from properly engaging with the rest of mankind.
Posted on: Sun, 18 May 2014 21:11:36 +0000
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