Corruption is a public-private partnership by Steven Friedman, 13 August 2014, 05:36 IS CORRUPTION a public-or private-sector problem? We are again being reminded that it is both — which is why finger-pointing between the suburbs and the government gets us nowhere. A few days ago, at least 22 people were arrested for corrupting Johannesburg’s billing system. The alleged crime was collusion between municipal officials and up to 500 high-end users — malls, hotels, real estate and car dealers. Officials are accused of changing the city’s database to enable companies to avoid paying for electricity. Co-operative Governance Minister Pravin Gordhan says this may be a common practice. All of which should challenge the way many of us think about problems in the government. Johannesburg’s billing system — of which this writer is a victim — has been a plague to residents for years. We were repeatedly told that it would be fixed, but it wasn’t. This prompted the usual reaction from many in the suburbs — the incompetent affirmative action appointments in government were once again messing up because they did not know how to do their jobs. But, if the charges against those arrested stick, something very different was happening: the problem was not that some in the government were incapable, but that they were too capable — of looking after themselves at the expense of others. The billing problem may have been not a blunder but the work of competent and well-organised criminal networks: while the reports don’t say the accused allegedly inflated some bills to pay for the shortfall caused by helping some to cheat the system, it is likely that this is why there was a problem in the first place. Why does it matter whether citizens are denied their due by bumbling incompetents or skilled criminals? Because different remedies are needed. If the problem is incompetence, the job must be given to others, either by employing different types of people or by handing it over to the private sector. This is a common view in the suburbs: the not-so-hidden message is that some groups are naturally better at running things than others. A less prejudiced answer is to train people. But, if the problem is people who know exactly what they are doing and why they are doing it, the start of an answer would lie not in labelling the culprits as fools but in taking them seriously — understanding how the criminal networks come to be and what makes them tick so solutions can be found. One of the keys to this is recognising something else the arrests may show: that the heated debates about whether we should be paying more attention to public-or to private-sector corruption miss the point — the problem is both sorts and the relationship between them. Corruption here is usually, perhaps always, a private-public partnership. An irony of the past 20 years is that, while low trust between business and the government makes it difficult to negotiate compromises that would serve SA’s interests, people on both sides are prepared to do deals across the divide to serve their own interests. The reasons are unclear. Perhaps, because there is such low trust in finding solutions that work for all of us, both sides assume the only basis for working together is narrow self-interest. Perhaps, in a low-trust society, it makes more sense to co-operate to beat the system than to try to make it work. Perhaps, where neither side trusts the other, using each other for profit makes more sense than working together for the common good. But whatever the answer, a very unhealthy mix between private interests and public purposes is a key problem in this society. We see it in political party funding, cosy relations between some in business and some in politics, and in some empowerment deals. It should be no surprise that these dealings sometimes lurch into corrupt relationships. So it is not accurate to claim, as many often do, that corruption is simply a government problem. Much of it happens because private-sector interests benefit from it — although they obviously need willing public-sector enablers. The problem, and its solutions, are found in both the private and the public sectors. Given this, there are no grounds for the finger-pointing in which the suburbs and the government blame each other for problems — which so often passes for debate here. It may be satisfying for some to blame all our ills on the government: it may be convenient for some in the government to point the finger back at their accusers. But it is also simplistic. Our problem is not incompetents in government — it is the deep-rooted public and private patterns that make beating the system more attractive than making it work, and making deals to do down the public more appealing than to serve it better. Because the problems are on both sides, looking at our own side of the fence and what it needs to change is more likely to yield results than yelling across the divide. • Friedman is director of the Centre for the Study of Democracy.
Posted on: Wed, 13 Aug 2014 06:33:19 +0000
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