Corruption: Drivers, Modes and Consequences

Abstract

Corruption has become ubiquitous in both the private and public sectors of rich and poor countries across the globe. It occurs in various modes and always causes human suffering, particularly on the most innocent poor and vulnerable, the same humans who have neither the means nor resources to resist or escape. The chapter investigates corruption, where and how it happens, its drivers, causes, and strategies used to conceal it when and where it happens. It looks at the growing movement of anti-corruption activism and the factors key to the success of this movement. The factors steering the anti-corruption drive are knowledge, confidence, solutions and intolerance to corruption. Literature makes some distinction between petty and grand corruption. While corruption is seen as either petite or grand, there are two factors that make corruption indistinguishably concerning: systematisation and the multiplier effect. What may look like petty corruption will in the long run have huge repercussions on more than the two or so who started the corrupt act. Petite or grand, corruption kills, its devastating impact on the social, economic, financial, developmental and political lives of communities is gusty and puffy. Technology is making a footprint in the fight against corruption as much as it is worsening the scourge of corruption on humankind.

1. Introduction

Corruption has become an item and an agenda of great concern for its undesirability in both the public and private lives of persons and institutions. Defining this evil is difficult because of its dependence on a number of factors that are never the same over time and geographically. There are no limits to what corruption can involve: services, humans, money, physical objects, (mis)representations, sex and even deaths. Corruption can involve embezzlement, influence peddling, collusion, commissions and fees, insider trading, bribery and kickbacks, extortion and solicitation, and sexual favours. Humans are generally aware of corrupt deeds and engage in them out of cognitive dissonance. When systemic corruption habituates corruption, the state of psychological entitlement to a bribe engulfs the perpetrators and calcifies in them somehow like in the ‘boiling the frog phenomenon’. The key driver of corruption is greed but the extreme destitute seems to be winning lenience. Weak governance systems, disorderly and punitive economic situations and cultural habits are creating grounds that variably ‘encourage’ corruption. Corrupt people will try to conceal their misdeeds through physically concealing the proceeds from corruption, misrepresentation, using intermediaries such as agents, agencies, joint ventures, falsifying documents and transacting through cryptocurrencies. It is, therefore, always important to check the moral probity of the ones your business is engaging with. Attempts to evade punishment have always been assessed and weighed against the constructs of innocent blindness, ignorancia affectada or wilful blindness. Petty corruption may have a different definition from grand corruption, but the multiplier effect makes petite corruption as devastating as grand corruption. The multiplier effect in this sense has four implications: Once one tests the benefits of a corrupt action, they are likely to do it again, thus multiplying the deed. Corruption starts with small benefits and progressively seeks high-rewarding misdeeds, thus multiplying the magnitude of the ill-benefit. Corruption is contagious, and bystanders see and want to be involved, thus multiplying the number of corrupt persons. A corrupt deed may start with money between two persons but escalates through other things aside from money and the suffering of many thousands of people in time and over geographical space, thus multiplying the suffering. Effectively corruption kills. Systemic corruption destroys individuals, organisations and countries systemically and systematically. However, increased corruption literacy and confidence in the workability of proven solutions have calcified anti-corruption activism. Corruption should not be tolerable anymore, and someone should be encouraged to stop the corruption-but at them, here now and forever. With more resolve with the anti-corruption activism, societies should be able to stop erosion of human dignity by reversing corruption in education, mining, oil and gas industry, wildlife trade, waste disposal, etc.

2. Corruption: the slippery concept

A definition of corruption is difficult to construct and universalise because of variable perceptions of what constitutes an unacceptable and selfish act across geographical space and across cultures and longitudinally over time. To help my argument, I will take you to these search results over the Internet, which is a global phenomenon. A search on the meaning of corruption raised the following:

• https://www.thesaurus.com generated 246 synonyms and antonyms

• https://www.merriam-webster.com generated 396 synonyms and antonyms

• https://thesaurus.yardictionary.com generated 94 best synonyms for corruption

I further looked for synonyms of corruption using the following constructs: immorality, lustful behaviour, distortion, vice and misrepresentation. The Internet gave the following:

• 72 synonyms for corruption relating to vice or immorality,

• 60 synonyms for corruption relating to lustful behaviour that is considered abnormal and unacceptable,

• 90 synonyms for corruption related to distortion of the original course, meaning or state of something,

• 132 synonyms for corruption related to immorality, or an act of immorality or sacrilege

• 200 synonyms for corruption related to a false, absurd or distorted representation of something

I will end here otherwise I could show other results from other sources. The search results communicate to us that there are different ways of seeing, assessing and reacting to the same thing (corruption) depending on time and space and moods. Effectively we can say the quintessence of corruption is historically conditioned in space and time. What remains as core to a conceptualisation of corruption is the selfishness, the self-aggrandisement and undesirability of the deed and the undesirable consequences of corruption on the innocent person(s). If a hard, cut-and-dried definition of corruption is not achievable, we can still read through and accept the characterisation of corruption as a false, absurd, distorted (mis)representation of something, an act of immorality or sacrilege, unacceptable and abnormal lustful behaviour driven by greed and selfishness.

3. Corruption: where it happens

Corruption is ubiquitous across the world. It happens in the private as well as in the public sector, in charitable organisations and non-profit organisations. It happens equally as much in the interface of the public and the private sectors. Corruption, in its multiple forms, occurs in different spheres of influence and at different levels of corporate activity within the following:

• societal surroundings,

• wider business operation/the whole government,

• the supply chain,

• the company/the government ministries,

• Company’s divisions/the government and the ministerial departments

There are no limits to where, when and what corruption can involve: money, sex, objects, people, almost anything as is discussed ahead. Corruption is, however, thought to be deep-rooted in narco-states, kleptocracies, oligarchies and mafia states.

4. Corruption: How it happens

There are many ways by which the corrupt activity is sealed: bribes, kick-backs, extortion, sex, solicitation, gifts, hospitality, fees, commissions, collusion, trading of information/insider trading, embezzlement, etc. Because some of the ways are very similar, they will be treated jointly in the below discussions.

• Embezzlement is when an employee or other person misappropriates anything of value that was entrusted to them because of their position, be it in the private sector, public sector, charitable organisation, non-profit organisation or the community.

• Trading in influence/influence peddling involves a corruptor giving payments, expensive gifts, hospitality or undue advantage to a corruptee in exchange for undue advantage.

• Collusion will involve two or more parties agreeing and effectively working together to defend a position that benefits them at the expense of a party not in the collusion. This can be exemplified by a Union (or its representative) conniving with the employer to not pay-out or to underpay a claim by an employee.

• Fees and commissions are generally used to conceal a bribe payment. All processes will be done to (mis)represent and title the bribe as a fee or a commission. The (mis)representation can be complete or partial. An example of a partial misrepresentation is where a bill quotes say USD$100000 when the real cost is USD$75000, then the other USD$25000 will pass out as a bribe payment.

• Trading of information/insider trading may involve a past or current employee or a past or current board member offering or receiving something of value in exchange for some sought-after confidential information.

• Bribery and kickbacks involve one party giving another party something of value in exchange for an undue advantage/something of value.

• Gifts and hospitality involve giving excessive hospitality or gifts to person(s) that can influence a particular business task or decision. The object of the corrupt transaction can be a ticket to a special event, luxury item(s) or an outing.

• ‘Sextortion’ may involve the making of a sexual assault, sexual harassment, rape case allegation against an individual and then requiring payment in return for the withdrawal of the allegation. There are two things here: a threat of making the claim can be extended to the ‘victim/alleged perpetrator’ or the sextortionist may have already reported the alleged case to the police/community and now wants payment in exchange for withdrawal of the reported allegation/case. Commoner cases are now involving elder people (ab)using minor kids to make sodomy and sexual harassment claims. Because of sometimes oversized reactions to ‘allegations’ of sexual misdemeanours on minors, ‘framed victims’ are often too frightened and ready to pay anything they can afford to get off the hook. It fetches lots of money ‘on the market with minors’. The flip side of this form of sextortion is where a person with advantage of power or other possession require the lessor advantaged to perform sexual favours in exchange of a consideration. The consideration/favour can be for instance food, permission to cross a border illegally, a job, a place in a college, a textbook.

• Extortion and solicitation generally involve a party demanding some payment or undue advantage in exchange for a favourable decision or the execution of a task. Stories of various forms of thievery abound in societies. These include gems and jewellery, huge amounts of monies and bricks of gold being smuggled across borders. The money made from these corrupt activities is used in setting up offshore businesses, building mansions and depositing in foreign accounts. The above modes of corruption will be constantly coming up in the discussions that follow. However, these are not the only means of completing corrupt deals.

5. Corruption: the drivers

The key driver of corruption is greedy, wherein a person, a group or an institution seeks to secure something of value using immoral and unethical means. In corrupt activities, there is almost always an aspect of selfishness at the expense of the rest of those who will, one way or the other, brush with the immediate, delayed or long-term devastating consequences of the corrupt activity. The quintessence of a driver is that it is a condition inherent or induced in the psychological or biological making of a person that pushes or pulls the person to commit a dishonest, unethical, immoral, illegal and unduly self-aggrandising act. The innocent and benign desire to be a doctor, or a rich entrepreneur does not qualify as corruption, we are all driven by some (intense) desire to achieve something. In corruption, the means of achieving that which drive us is (intense) selfishness. There are two psychological states that generally hook with corruption, particularly under the contexts of systemic corruption: a state of cognitive dissonance, when a person/institution is very conscious that what they are doing is corrupt and causing suffering to their targets/victims, but they do not stop doing that wrongful and selfish act. For instance, dumping waste near slums and informal settlements on the argument that you are doing those people a favour because among them the ‘poor but entrepreneurial’ will come up to the dumps, retrieve recyclables and make money. We are aware of the diseases that can be contracted from the dumps and the danger of hungry kids walking in search of edibles. On a moral analysis, a benefit-against-cost analysis this act has no better description than ‘corruption’. When corruption takes root we get those persons who will grow the psychology that they are entitled to payment for whatever they are doing for you. For instance, a government worker issuing birth certificates. They can tighten up the process so that they create discomfiture in getting a birth certificate. The discomfort may be in the form of slow services, with long disappearances in the other rooms. Those in a hurry will start offering a bribe to quicken up the worker. Then, the next one in a hurry does the same of giving a bribe until it becomes a norm, a standard and a culture. Those not in hurry can afford to wait, and it is ‘okay’ to be served after the ‘dirty’ of those with money to bribe is done. With repetition, there is normalisation, standardisation and acculturation of the bribing. The corruptor (worker) gets it in her/his psychology that (s)he must be paid to issue the birth certificate, now it does not matter whether you are in a hurry or not—birth certificate for a bribe. Psychological entitlement in this case is when the corruptor feels they are entitled to something, for example, a bribe before they can do what they are already paid to do.

6. Corruption: the causes

Causes of corruption are conditions outside of the moral feelings of the (potential) corruptor or corruptee, which are exploitable in the execution of the corrupt and selfish deed. They are exploitable in that they make the object of the intended corrupt activity vulnerable; they facilitate concealment of the corrupt deed, or they naturally or artificially are used to degrade the seriousness of an act of corruption. Some of the causes or environmental factors that literature variably link to the prevalence of corruption are as follows:

Governance issues: Former colonies, size of government, structure of government, political Systems, press freedom, criminal justice system.

Corruption tends to be rife where governance systems are weak or non-existent. Systems create rules, content and processes of interdependence, working and relating which vary in their level of corruption proof. Thus, corruption is more a function of the nature of governance than any one of the factors: former colonies, size of government, structure of government, political systems, press freedom and criminal justice system operating singly.

The attribution of corruption to historical statehood as a colony has generally been with reference to Africa and the Latin American world. However, such a link becomes difficult to sustain in argument, taking into consideration that even some European states that were at some point colonised are not regarded as corrupt states, least as countries where corruption is visible even by the ‘hidden cameras’. I do not dispute that most former colonies could still be experiencing corruption not necessarily because they were colonised but because individuals from the former colonial masters have maintained grip on systems, structures and resources in ways that help to keep them from exploiting the former colonies through corrupt channels. Much of this has been achieved and will be sustained through bribery and other forms of corruption, including the threats to withdraw aid and support.

Root [1] and Gerring and Thacker [2] argue that the bigger the state, the higher the levels of corruption. However, I argue that size alone cannot cause corruption. What we can suppose is that size and systems can be made to create resources, structures, processes and interface relationships that are exploited by the greedy and selfish for their personal aggrandisement.

To curb corruption through the Criminal Justice System (CJS), it matters to ensure deterrence at the policing level, the justice dispensation level and the prison/correctional services level. The effectiveness of the CJS depends indirectly on the stance-to-crime of the legislation, which sets the laws and monitors the CJS.

Kauffman and Krany [3] argue the presence of a correlational link between voice and accountability and control of corruption. They claim that the weaker the voice and accountability, the higher the level of corruption. The assumption here is that when voice and accountability are low, too will be their level of influence on conditions that can facilitate creation and strengthening of activism against corruption.

Treisman [4] and Institute for Economics & Peace [5] concur that democracy in itself does not put an end to corruption. What democracy does is reduce corruption by creating a system and environment where corrupt activities are not censored, are discussed and are exposed. It is this fear of being ‘exposed, named, and shamed’ that act as the deterrent against corruption. Brazil and Mexico have a public ‘dirty list’ that features all those convicted of corruption [6]. Democratic set-ups enhance the power of voice and the power of media channelled at challenging the multiplication and proliferation of supply chains of corruption. Where corruption manifests as a technical problem, it should be confronted by technical anti-corruption means, and where corruption manifests itself as a political phenomenon, it should be confronted by both technical and political devices.

• Economic issues: Extent of competition, Salary levels, Recruitment systems, Percentage of women in the labour force, Endowment of natural resources, economic environment.

What is difficult to understand is relationship between relative presence of women in the labour force and levels of corruption. There are numerous cases where women have been at the centre of corruption in their femininity or operating alongside men. Women can also be party to corruption within labour as outside labour and business.

There are anecdotal claims that the higher the extent of competition the high the extent of corruption. But this relationship can be disrupted by other factors such as press freedom and the vigour of anti-corruption activism. Harsh economic environments can be causative of high corruption as is low endowment of natural resources. This relationship is in response to the natural instinct to survive in ambiances of scarcities. Low salaries create situations of scarcities. Extent of competition, salary levels, percentage of women in the labour force, endowment of natural resources, economic environment are factors that influence the scramble for jobs, thus the content and processes of recruitment systems and the prevalence of corruption in recruitment and selection channels.

• Cultural issues: Cultural determinants, political environment, professional ethics, morality, habits, customs, traditions, demography.

These factors, in one way or the other influence the prevalence of corruption. These too are the main explanation for the slipperiness of our conception of corruption. These factors can normalise and standardise particular actions to the extent that they become viewed as lesser or more corrupt. We cannot deny the fact that due to cultural hegemony perpetrated by the west and the USA on the other nations, the labelling of some cultural artefacts as corruption has been found offensive by people in other cultures. This is so, particularly, when these cultures take the issues in question as core to their way of living and socialising.

I would like to leave a note on the relation between corruption (C), economic rent (R) discretionary power (D) and accountability (A). If a society or system of governance confers too much space for decision makers to exercise their discretion they are increasing the chances for those decision-makers to act corruptly. Equally so, if a system allows for huge opportunities for creating economic rents, then it is allowing itself to suffer from rampant corruption. The stronger the accountability requirements in a system the lesser the chances for corrupt behaviours to occur. The equation below sums up the relationship among these variables.

$$\begin{array}{l}C\text{orruption}=\text{opportunities for economic}Rent\\ +\text{amount of}D\text{iscretionary power}-A\text{ccountability}\end{array}$$E1

$$\text{C}=\text{R}+\text{D}-\text{A}$$

The equation sums up the discussion in that governance, economics and culture in some sophisticated manners do affect rent, discretion and accountability and consequently corruption.

7. Corruption: concealing strategies

Corruption is almost always concealed because there is the risk of detection, arrest and prosecution. There is also interest in that the benefit from the corruption must be realised in full. Thirdly is the avoidance of exposure and blackmail. In fact, a corrupt activity must be concealed so that the corruption can be perpetuated. There are a number of ways corruption can be concealed.

• Physically concealing the proceeds of corruption or the objects of the corruption is one way of avoiding detection. For instance, material gotten of corruption may be kept at some warehouse until such time its visibility may not attract scrutiny. The use of intermediaries is another way of concealment of corrupt activities. There are four most common intermediaries: subcontracted companies; agents; other group companies/subsidiaries; joint ventures. In the latter cases, the proceeds from corruption are immediately associated with the intermediaries.

• A corrupt company can channel a bribe through a corrupt subcontract arrangement. It can work this way: The main contractor may make the representation that activity A is a specialist activity and since it is a component of the deal, the contractor would outsource for the performance of activity A. The contractor will then bill the Project Owner for that service and pass the bill to the Project Owner. Or the subcontractor will never perform the ‘said work’ but gets the money and pass it on to the contractor. The fake subcontractor gets their kickback. Another scenario is when the subcontractor does the said job but uses material of lower cost. The worst scenario is when everything was a phantom story designed to get money for completely nothing. This is normally when the Project Owner is over-trusting or does not have a due diligence process in place.

• Making of false statements in records or in public or under investigation can be used in attempts to conceal corruption. For instance, a statement that is made in confirmation of a contract award when the award was paid to win the contract. In this case, the contract was ‘bought’ and not made on an arms-length basis as should happen in a fair deal case. Another example is where a contractor ‘buys’ a contract. This is corruption and the contractor will inflate the price of material or of service so that he tries to recover the amount used in bribes to win the contract. In doing so, a false statement of claiming costs that are nonexistent or above-price costs is in itself a false statement. The third scenario is where a subsidiary entity is used to pay a bribe. The subsidiary company will then raise a billing invoice to claim the same bribe amount in the name of a service purportedly rendered. The truth is that no such service was ever rendered.

• Agents are often used in a corruption chain to conceal corruption. Corrupt bidding companies may use an intermediary agent who has contacts with personnel in the Project Ownership, government or the particular country and is knowledgeable about the project. The most common form of intermediary is the agent. The company then enters into a seemingly clean agency contract with the agent. The second leg of the corruption may be misrepresenting the scope of the services. The services may be exaggerated, or the services may be fake or non-existent. Whichever, the endgame is the same: huge amounts of money are paid to the agent who then pays the Project Owner through their personnel or the Project contractor and gets the agency fee.

• Participants to a corrupt joint venture would come together to form a joint venture of partners from different countries with the intent of concealing corruption. The partners will take up an agency agreement whereby the agent will be from a country less likely to detect the transactions and less strict in the case of prosecution. Another scenario is where one of the partners in the joint venture (JV) is related to the representative of the Project Owner. The representative of the Project Owner will ensure that the project bill is exorbitantly high and that payments are quickened. Another scenario is where the partners in the JV will each work on a portion of the project. Now, the representative of the Project Owner ensures that the relative of the Project Owner in the JV gets a bigger portion of the payments, much more than should have legitimately been.

• Subsidiaries or other group companies may be created to be conduits of corrupt money. A group of companies may select one in the group that is domiciled in a country where legislation is not harsh for their corrupt deeds and where chances of being detected are slimmest. The companies then enter a corrupt agency agreement. Alternatively, a corrupt payment is made by the identified company. The payment is done against a contract for a service that never was or that was but is exorbitantly inflated. The other companies will then be repaid through inter-company charges for services highly inflated in value or completely false services.

• Falsifying documents can very much help in concealing corrupt dealings. An agent agreement can be crafted so as to allow for payments under the guise of a genuine payment for a genuine service provided. The truth could be that the service was rendered but the payment figure is highly inflated. The extra money is what will be used to pay the bribe. The other scenario could be that the scope of the service is inflated to consequently cause an inflated payment. The worst scenario is that there is no service that was ever provided, what is there are falsified documents and corrupt payments. Corrupt personnel can generate a fraudulent contract claim document for a variation or extension of time that is not necessary. In fact, false reasons for extension of work are given, and such reasons could be given as thefts and strikes, etc. Falsified programmes, work records and time sheets are normally provided to support such statements. Forged or false certificates of testing or approval can be used to conceal defective materials or defective works.

• An agency agreement will normally be used to conceal the payment of a bribe through an agent. The agency agreement will purport to represent accurately the terms of the agency. However, it will only specify the legitimate services that are to be carried out and will not specify those services whereby the agent is to use the agency fee to pay a bribe. It will also usually specify an agency fee, which is considerably in excess of the value of the (legitimate) services specified in the agreement. The bribe will normally be paid out of this excessive fee.

• Physical concealment of defective work or material may be done through other objects in the piece of work. Defective works may be physically concealed by other works. For example, a foundation contractor may, for corrupt reasons, supply inadequate quantities of steel reinforcement for the foundations and then pay a bribe to the building inspector to certify the steel as correctly laid. The inadequate steel reinforcement will then be concealed by concrete.

• Concealing the payments among corruptors, intermediaries, corruptees through cryptocurrency. Most payments for corrupt activities are being switched over to cryptocurrencies. Finalising corrupt payments through cryptocurrency is being preferred because it is difficult to figure out accurately the credentials of the actual buyer and seller. It is therefore encouraging to use this channel and large volumes of money can be transferred. The geolocation processes and the deanonymising processes need time, specialists and expensive technology. The financing of corruption has in the recent past gone public through various advertising channels. To avoid being traced out, those running the corrupt deeds migrate to new sites, new logos, and new names all too frequently. Trending too is the creation of corrupt and illegal markets alongside the legal markets and sites. The law enforcement agencies will as much as those victimised not be sure who they are actually dealing with. The corrupt owners of those markets and websites will always move between the two markets and sites as pleases their safety.

In summary, the motives to conceal a bribe or other forms of corruption include as follows: a bribe paid to win a contract must remain secret lest the contract award will be set aside; a bribe paid to have an inflated contract claim approved must remain secret otherwise the contract claim will be rejected; a bribe paid to secure planning permission must remain secret otherwise the planning approval will be set aside.

8. Corruption: innocent blindness, ignorancia affectada, wilful blindness

In cases of partnerships, joint ventures, agents/consultant agreement, agency agreement, subsidiaries, outsourcing one party may be or may not be aware that the other has engaged in some bribe payments relating to the common business to win a contract, to have an inflated contract claim approved, and or to secure planning permission. Each time one is in some broad-based engagement with other parties there is a need to check how the other(s) are, lest you become culpable for guilt by composition. There are many instances that need due diligence because there are many other scenarios that carry blackmailing, blacklisting and serious legal consequences. Due diligence need to be taken to ward off the risks of being blamed and penalised for some form of negligence where: the company, partner or all of the others are aware that a fellow member of the joint venture has paid a bribe in order for the joint venture to win the contract, a subsidiary in another country is paying bribes to win contracts, and or a subcontractor paid a bribe to a representative of the project owner to ensure that the company won the tender.

9. Corruption: A typology

A number of criteria can be used to characterise corruption. In this chapter, we look at corruption through the lenses of ‘size’ and location. Thus, we will discuss petty corruption; grand corruption and systemic corruption in a perfunctory manner because the rest of my talk has no size or location biases.

Systemic/endemic corruption occurs when the perpetrators deliberately design systems, processes, norms and rules that are indifferent, and encourage or permit bribery, dishonesty, and all sorts of corrupt activities. Perpetrators can be a single small private or public entity or an entity as huge as NATO, the UN and everything in between.

Grand corruption involves major perpetrators normally with economic, financial or political clout and the consequences of their corrupt deeds have ramifications on economy, legislation and politics of the countries and regions thereof. Let us take an example where a company pays out R1.5 million (USD$33.400 each) to three legislators to lobby a case for a monopoly status to Company Q. Company Q gets legislated as the sole provider of a service/product. Let us further assume that the country’s population is 70 million and each person consumes 2 units of the service/product daily. Let us assume because of the new monopoly status Company Q now overcharges by R1 per unit. Therefore, the total daily superprofit made by Company Q will be (70,000,000 people x R1superprofit per unit x 2 units daily = R140 million = USD$9.4 million, superprofits DAILY). The short-hand multiplier effect here is that for USD$33.333 bribe payment made to each of the three corruptors, the Company Q will extract USD$3431000000 annually from the nation (for R500.000–00 bribe received the company will milk the nation R51 465,000,000–00/R51.465 billion per year) in superprofits.

Petty corruption is generally typified by low-level servants in activities of small rent (bribe money). However, the consequences of petty corruption are not always petite. Let’s use a hypothetical scenario to illustrate the multiplier effect here. Imaging a manager in a Department of Education sitting on an application for the establishment of a Private school because (s)he wants a bribe, say (R2000 = USD$115) and the applicant sticks by their organisation’s anti-corruption code and does not pay. Fifteen months pass by, and the mathematics of the corrupt deed comes to a loss of (R100000monthly rentals x 15 months = R1.5 million = USD$100000) in rentals for space that is not being used. It takes a further (15 x 20 x 18,000 = R5 400,000 = USD$360000) loss for paying staff who are awaiting return to their jobs. Let us further assume that each of the 20 staff members is a breadwinner in families of 5 persons. The truth is 20 x 5 = 100 persons have their lives held at ransom by a single corrupt official for just USD$115/R2000. Therefore, the applicant has caused (R1.5 million + R5.4 million = R6.9 million = USD$460.000) loss by a corrupt official wanting just USD$115/R2000–00. Let us turn briefly to the costs for the students (450 x R2000 = R900.000–00/= USD$60.000) for uniforms and other collateral costs.

The point here is what can look tiny and negligible may have huge knock-on effects. Something like a multiplier effect. In this simple example, R2000 (USD$115) multiplies to a cost of well over USD$520.000 (R7.8 million) in just 15 months.

The cost of a petite corruption may not be financially quantifiable but huge in suffering caused. Take a traffic officer who issues a driver’s licence to a prospective driver without test. The unskilled driver kills 50 passengers in an accident. Assuming each of the 50 is a breadwinner to 5 kids, it means (50 x 5 = 250 kids) will have to live without a parent, without care and 250 kids will be abused for deprivation daily and 250 kids will drop out of school and these 250 kids will grow to be 250 homeless adults. Assuming each will bear 5 kids this will be (250 x 7 = 1750) destitute, all caused by the selfish want of R1000.00/USD$66.00.

10. Anti-corruption activism: Drivers, opportunities, struggles

One of the shortfalls in confronting corruption is the practitioner mentality of fixing things and getting quick exhaustive results immediately. Corruptors and corruptees SWOT their target systems; that is, they study their target systems for their Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. They do this against their own SWOTs, that is, they profile themselves for their Strengths and Weaknesses and the Opportunities and Threats to their corrupt activities present in their external environments. From match-and-merge study of the two SWOTs, the corrupt come up with strategies of Plan Concealment and Review, Plan Concealment and Implementation, and Evidence Destruction Plan and Activation. Generally corrupt individuals and syndicates plan to be forever (at best) or hundred steps (at least) ahead of their (potential) trackers.

Anti-corruption activism should be a long-term endeavour, well invested with patience, as it sometimes experiences favourable patches, some setbacks, reversals and demotivating instances. Persistence and perseverance are key even where and when big efforts do not seem to be taking anything anywhere. We will discuss the four prominent drivers of anti-corruption activism below. I have winnowed four from literature synthesis:

• Knowledge: corruption accentuates and perpetuates poverty

Research and experience have brought humankind the knowledge that corruption accentuates and perpetuates poverty. It has also helped us see covert corruption as much as it has made humankind able to appreciate the devastating effects of even the minutest act of corruption. Research must generate better information and strong effects to convince leaders and society to change. It must expose everything. Corruption has huge negative impact on the macro-economies. Corruption has halved inward investment rates, held back growth and increased inequalities [7].

• The Emergence of Solutions: providing solutions alongside advocacy creates a powerful force for action

In recent decades, experiences and ideas with real practical and workable anti-corruption solutions began to image. Civil societies working and thinking together have been creating and moulding a corpus of anti-corruption experiences. Providing Solutions alongside advocacy creates a powerful force for action. However, as with many partnership endeavours, difficult times come when those who should be working in the partnership do not want to be members therein.

• Confidence: the more knowledge and solutions strengthen our resolute, the stronger our confidence to win over corruption

Confidence that corruption can be tackled is very important in multiplying number of membership, the idea, the voice and the action against corruption. The more people that become confident of the belief of winning against corruption, the more social experience less and nothing of corruption.

• No More Tolerance: the more the confidence, the stronger the intolerance become and proliferate

Once knowledge about the enormous destruction that corruption can do and people see effective solutions coming from talking and thinking together, and they each day gain units of confidence in the efficacy of their anti-corruption movement. Joly [8] and Jackson & Amundsen [9] have noted the need to grow context-responsive systems to fight corruption. In response to corruption, many organisations and networks have emerged: the United for Wildlife Task Force; EU Cybercrime Project; National Units of Europol; European Serious & Organised Crime Centre. The response includes the building of capabilities that can be deployed in fighting corruption. Such efforts include building specialist skills; building capacity for cryptocurrency analyses; capacity for forensic analyses of devices used in corrupt activities; advocacy skills; social mobilisation skills; behaviour change communication skills, etc. Most countries have legislated anti-corruption commissions. South Africa too has a National Anti-corruption Strategy. The experienced gains strengthen our resolve never to tolerate corruption. Indeed, corruption should no longer be tolerated.

11. Corruption IN the oil and gas industry

There are numerous cases of corruption in this sector. I will use just the Panalpina case for brevity. It is interesting that this case absorbs all of the things that have been discussed above. Again, it shows that the core of corruption may remain and that any new changes may simply be to dodge legislations, maximise the ill-benefits, or set pace ahead of policing and investigation.

The Panalpina Bribery Scandal exemplifies the rampant corruption in the minerals sector of commerce and industry. The Panalpina investigations unearthed a broad scheme of widespread corruption in the oil and gas industry. Six oil and gas companies were using a third party to pay and conceal bribes to foreign officials. The aim of the bribe payments was to obtain or retain business. Between 2002 and 2007 Panalpina World Transport subsidiary, Panalpina Inc. played the role of intermediary and paid Noble Corporation, Transocean Inc., Pride International Inc., Royal Dutch Shell Private Limited Corporation, Tidewater Inc., GlobalSantaFe Corporation millions of bribe money. Corruptees in these cases included Angola, Brazil, India, Mexico and Nigeria and other countries. The corrupt deals included bypassing national rules, obtaining lower tax system estimates, gaining preferential treatment in expediting importation of goods and equipment, circumventing national importing regulations, extending drilling contracts, helping their companies to hide the payments, and obtaining false paperwork related to offshore drilling rigs, helping legitimise illegitimate payments made alongside legitimate payments. After the investigations, Panalpina Inc. was fined USD$472 million. Panalpina Inc. was also using other corrupt means of getting payments from within the subsidiaries. Claims would be headed ‘special handling’ or ‘local processing’ and many other terminologies.

Violation Tracker has a record relating to Foreign Corrupt Practices Act showing that in 268 cases of corruption and USD$14 billion has been collected in fines. In the USA alone, the FCPA revealed that intermediaries were involved in over 90% of cases of corruption unearthed. In 2016, the Fairfax Australian media and the Huffington Post outlets revealed that Unaoil had over a decade been paying bribes on behalf of energy companies in at least nine countries. In 2019, three of Unaoil top executives confessed that they had been facilitating bribe payments.

12. Corruption in education

Nothing can ruin a country more than its poor and corrupt education system. Corruption in education is defined by Hallak and Poisson [10] as ‘the systematic (ab)use of public office for private benefit, in disregard to the significant loss of quality of educational services and goods, equality and access to education’. In Africa’s universities, the massification, commoditisation and marketisation of education have led to many chances of corruption [11]. Some of the corrupt activities within the higher education sector include fake universities, fake circulating information by sending spam, deceptive advertising, sale of theses over the internet, ranking high on hit list of search engines, little content to support levels of offering, hyper-production of certificates through surprisingly short courses, knowingly producing ‘intellectual cripples’ [12].

Other forms of corruption include ‘thigh for marks’ and ‘marks for a thigh’. In ‘thigh for marks’, it is generally the student making the offer in contrast to the ‘marks for a thigh’ in which it is the teacher making the demand/offer. Still, we have corrupt cases of ‘thigh for a text-book’ or other resources in short supply. Students having examinations and assignments written for them by others are further examples of corruption all of which decimate the quality of education and the future national human resource capability.

13. Corruption in mining

Corruption in the mining sector has been blamed for the polluted water bodies, excessive destruction of natural environments, polluted landscapes, wasted public money and polluted atmospheres. The IMF estimates that annually, over 2% of the global GDP, about USD$2 billion is lost to corruption. Much of the corruption in mining, as with the oil and gas sectors, start generally at the issuance of prospecting rights or/and mining permits. Painful instances of the mining sector corruption are when villages are removed to open space for mining, and they are relocated to other places without any help nor fair compensation for all the costs of their relocation. Resettling the displaced must be future-focused as well, that is, the new place should be better in all aspects than the place from where they have been removed. Unfortunately, there are lots of corrupt acts including relocation to other places not initially agreed to, instalment payments where the initial agreement stipulated huge once-off payment and smaller future instalments. In grand corruption cases, we have government representatives signing for the mining of mineral B without the mention of associated minerals A, C and D, for example. In some cases, mineral B could be the third in concentration. The advantage to the miner is that in mining, they make huge revenue from minerals A, C, D, etc., which are not referred to in the Government-Miner contract. They too will not pay tax on those revenues.

14. Corruption in the health sector

Corruption in the health sector can make a difference between life and death. Health sector corruption affects access to healthcare, equity in the treatment of patients, efficiency of the system and efficacy of health services. Corruption reduces the speed at which the world would achieve global health coverage. It is estimated that annually, over USD$500 billion is lost to corruption in the health services sector alone. Ironically, the world needs less than USD$500 billion to reach the UHC (Universal Health Care) target ([13], p. 9). It thus means that all we budget for above-average UHC is going into a leaking bucket of a system infested with greedy, corrupt individuals either operating solo or in some group, corporate or syndicate. In a 2011 study covering 178 countries, it was found that annually over 140,000 children die because the budgets that could save them have fallen into corrupt hands. Friedman [14] asserts that the number of HIV-AIDS patients across the world has remained high because of corruption. Corruption has caused a build-up to antimicrobial resistance and also due to over-dose-induced resistance [15]. There is just not enough left for training, supporting and doing all the necessaries for the millions affected in the various continents. Hussmann [13] affirms that there are chances the Patient-Provider interaction in poor countries is suffering a 51% risk of being corrupted. Similar corruption is rated at 1% in the least corrupt countries. The main routes through which corruption siphons away the money are bribery, theft and embezzlement. The corruption just restricts the human population from accessing needed medicines, supplies and equipment. Bate [16] observed that USD$1 million worth of anti-malarial medicines was siphoned through corruption. The budget for tuberculosis was equally scammed by the corrupt hands of officials. Among the countries whose health systems are badly affected by corruption are Ukraine, Uganda and the United Republic of Tanzania [13].

In the health services sector of many countries, patients can be charged for treatments and diagnoses that never were, or that were substandard. Referrals are also done for kickbacks and ‘patients’ may be subdued to irrelevant and unnecessary procedures for which they are circumstanced to pay. The World Health Organisation has established that over 6.2 million Caesarean sections performed are unnecessary, About 10% of drugs used across the globe are fake and sadly around 50% are in the African health system. The selfishness of the corrupt involved is that they do not regard that fake drugs can lead to resistance, illness or death and that it is already poor that need health care the most. In most poor countries, the poorest can spend up to 20% of their hard-earned income buying fake medication. Worldwide about 25% of public health budget is lost to corruption, in the UK the figure lost to corruption hovers at 37%, in Germany at 10% and at USD$75 billion in the USA.

Delavallade [17]; Disch and Natvig [18] and Hussmann [13] present a harrowing picture of corruption in the health sector. A study of 64 countries shows that corruption lowers public spending on social protection health and education. In Chad, corruption in the central government is estimated to consume above 66.7% of the health sector budget leaving a meagre 33.3% to trickle and reach the local regions. In Cambodia, corrupt hands at the central government grab around 10% of the health budget. In the United Republic of Tanzania, local district councils consume up to 41% of centrally disbursed funds. In Uganda as with Chad, as much as 66.7% of official user fees would go into corrupt hands. The 2020 annual global spending on health was USD$8.3 trillion and this went to USD$8.8 trillion in 2021. This figure is 4% of the GDP of low-income countries, and with the OECD countries, it stands at 15% of their GDP. The multiple resources in the health sector offer numerous opportunities for corruption.

Other examples of corruption include the collection of the water that has been used to wash dead bodies and sell it for ritual purposes and is said to be a prime resource for those practising witchcraft. It is also alleged that in some countries those working with dead bodies to determine their causes of death do engage in the collection of some fat and sell it for rituals as well. One of the forms of corruption in the health sector that is causing huge suffering and self-aggrandisement of doctors on a huge scale is when private doctors working as well in the public sector enter into collusion of ‘stealing’ drugs out of public health facilities and take them to their private surgeries. There are also reports of collusion, where public hospitals fake that they will not be having a doctor soon to attend to ambulanced patients or that they are fully booked. They then refer the patient to a private doctor who will then fake diagnosis and then refer the patient to a public hospital. The patient will receive a bill with the referral cost, drug costs, bedding costs, consultancy fee, and everything until the bill satisfies the writer.

While the poor and desperate were timidly consuming every herb recommended on social media in the fear of contracting COVID-19, there was a lot of corruption involving donations and COVID-19 loans [19, 20]. Taking advantage of the regulations around medicine procurement during the COVID-19 pandemic corrupt officials did the following: In South Africa, the then minister of health was alleged to have played wilful blindness to corruption involving USD$10 million and another involving over USD$900 million [21, 22]. Cuadrado [19] and Alkins [21] show the following from research: in Malawi, COVID-19-related investigations focused on USD$1.3 million involving public-private sector collusion [21]; in Kenya, one investigation focused on USD$400 million, another on USD$71.9 million, and USD$69 million; in Zimbabwe, the minister of health was dismissed; in Ghana, the minister was alleged to have bought vaccine units at USD$9 above the market price; in Lebanon, politicians were bribing for votes in exchange for free vaccination; in many countries, those who were afraid to vaccinate could still buy proof-of-vaccination cards on the black market while fake vaccines were availed on the black market; in Uganda, COVID-19 patients were being billed up to USD$15000 for hospitalisation in state facilities. This is deadening for a country whose average annual income is USD$1000. Admission to Ugandan state hospitals is normally free. In Bangladesh, the Sinopharm vaccine had an official price of USD$10 but was being sold for USD$100; in Guatemala, the government is said to have paid for 16 million units of vaccine but could only show 350,000 units; the social media is awash with medicines for various ailments. Corrupt individuals are rushing to open street surgeries practising with these faked claims of medicinal value.

15. Corruption in wildlife trade

Trade becomes corrupt when the items being traded, and the considerations exchanged are not allowed but still get done and more so involving parties or persons that should be enforced against such trade. The sale of live or dead wildlife pieces is illegal in most countries as much as their hunting in the unprotected areas. The hunting and trade of wildlife in protected areas with the help of police, warders, the army, officials or any person who should be stopping the hunting and trade has become rife across the globe. This corrupt trade involves animals, birds, reptiles, molluscs, fish and other aquatics.

In the most shocking instances, warders give information to poachers, who then make their incursions to places where they will easily find the game and where they will not be detected. Bribe payments are reported to be left at indicated places including rocks, trees and dugouts near the carcasses. With the advent of technology, GPSs are sent to a third person, who passes the GPS to another then to the intended person. In all cases, the devices used are not registered with any of these persons, and in some cases, they are bought in ways that do not get them registered. The gadgets have no other purpose and after the GPS messaging they are switched off and have their batteries removed and stored away from their properties. This is part of their SWOTing and concealment of identity strategies.

16. Corruption in infrastructure and construction

Corruption in the infrastructure and construction industry has led to challenges that include poor-quality, inappropriate project choice, excessive time, high prices, excessive cost overruns, low returns and inadequate maintenance.

Kenny [23] states that financial losses through corruption will always have disproportionately high economic consequences on the nation to which Wells [24] affirms that over 20% of construction costs could be going into bribery. Corruption in the construction-infrastructure sector occurs at any of the following stages: project appraisal; project selection, design and budgeting; tender for construction; implementation; evaluation and audit [25].

Corruption thrives where governance is weak as we have noted with the many findings by Alkins [21] during the relaxed procurement procedures in the health sector during the COVID-19 pandemic. The project preparation stage can be riddled with corrupt activities including state capture. Failures of due diligence checks at this stage can lead to failure of all subsequent stages of the project. It is common that weaknesses in the project proposal stage are difficult to distinguish if they are part of corruption or are genuinely due to other factors such as lack of capacity, negligence or mismanagement.

16.1 Project development and initial screening

Politicians, companies or individuals may redirect part or whole of projects so that they serve the interests of a political sector or the politician per se. The contractors in this case have nothing to lose as the sponsor or the government will pay the real amount plus an inflationary amount. It is this inflated amount that will be shared by the corrupt handlers. In some cases, communities are faced with situations where a decision has to be made to maintain aspects of the extant project or to embark on a completely new project. Straightforward persons would choose a project on a cost-benefit analysis that values the Economic Return Ratio. Corrupt individuals would not worry about the ERR of the project but about the possibility to exploit for maximum self-gain. In some cases, in order to net a project, corrupt individuals can deliberately declare a lower cost of the project so that it is approved [25]. At implementation, cheap material, underpaid labour, etc., are used to reduce the overall project cost. The result is that the project will fail to last and soon the community will be seated with a white elephant or a dead horse. Poorly constructed projects will soon be a risk to users or will confer huge recurrent maintenance costs. Impressionist and visibility-seeking individuals are most affected by the desire to get anything to show to their constituencies.

16.2 Project selection and detailed design

At the stage of project selection, contractors and sponsors may structure the bid document enough to exclude other bidders. This can be by (a) inclusion of details which the selection committee will give excessive credit to and therefore rate the bidder very high while they know they are not necessary or (b) refuse as unnecessary details that they know are important. Their motive is simply to discredit bidders with these ‘extra’ items as unduly expensive when they are ‘not necessary’. Once the bidder they want has won the project in the case of scenario (a) above, the extra details will not be implemented into the project. In scenario (b) above the costing of the project will be revised to accommodate the necessary features that were previously refused as unnecessary. In scenario (a), the strategy is winning the project by detail and in scenario (b), the strategy is winning the contract by cost.

The deliberate exclusion of some cost elements to get the project approved and then raise these elements at a later stage as project modification exemplifies corruption by manipulation, a kind of ‘foot on the door’ crookery. In some cases, corruption can be affected by inflating every price and supporting the fake prices through fake quotations and documentations. All monies paid above the actual cost of the project find its way into the hands of corrupt individuals.

17. Corruption in waste disposal

Waste trafficking has been growing over the years. In all cases, the waste, including dangerous waste, is trafficked from rich countries to the poorer countries or those not so poor but with officials who are very corrupt. Waste treatment needs technology, manpower and treatment budgets, and these vary from one country to the other. Some countries have laws that are silent on waste management, others are more lenient, yet others are so strict that the management of waste disposal becomes fairly expensive. The current trend, among cost-benefit analysis, is that developed countries would make a saving by shipping their wastes to accepting ‘poor’ countries for a fee. The corruption lies in the deal involving kickbacks to officials in the accepting country, non-disclosure of all contents of the received waste, and the disregard of the knock-on effects of the waste on the local population.

Much waste, including nuclear, is accepted to be dumped in coastal areas near poor countries. The poor men of these countries normally go offshore in their fishing boats. They are unaware of the dangers of their being around waters where such waste has been dumped. They are ignorant of the danger of the consumption of sea life that has fed on part of the dumped waste. On land, it is the poor who rush for such sea-life food because that is relatively cheap, and it is generally a new culture to promote the nearest stall. This multiplies the danger of risky food to the population (a kind of multiplier of risk effect).

18. Corruption: human trafficking

Human trafficking is generally done for body parts when the victims are later killed, or it is done for the victims’ cheap labour or unpaid labour or sexual exploitation for little or no money or for criminal activities for very little commission. The people involved normally use deception to get their victims to agree to be moved from one place to another. They can also misrepresent facts or themselves to convince their victims. In the most heinous cases, an acquaintance, agent or relative can travel with the victim and pretend like they have both been kidnapped or abducted and then they are separated, and the agent gets ‘freed’. Agents are generally used in this corrupt business.

In some cases, for human parts like medical purposes, the agent can pretend to be a for-job recruiter. To make the whole process cost-effective, they transport only victims who will meet the criteria. This requires the victim to have full medical examinations. Desperate for a job, victims go as far as borrowing money to pay for such medical examinations. They send the results to the agent. The agent will check if the victim will be the best fit. If victim is free of diseases and is of required blood-type, travel arrangements are accelerated before there can be a change of heart. The increasing population of diabetics, heart, kidney and liver patients particularly in the so-called developed nations are certain to increase human trafficking for parts internally from the poor in the home country, and externally from those seeking employment abroad.

Where the victims are trafficked for forced labour, they end up enslaved in construction, farms, domestic servitude, mines, gardens, fisheries, etc. Most are forced or circumstanced to marry or just have sexual intercourse among themselves. With brutal ‘owners’, they end up with the choice of having to abort or infanticide.

Human trafficking can be done too for criminal activities such as drug cultivation, theft, forced begging or selling of counterfeit goods. These criminal activities normally have targets. If targets are not met, punishments are meted on the individuals. Punishments can include performance of sexual acts on the boss including ‘handjobs’, ‘sucking’ and/or allowing to be penetrated.

Human trafficking by smuggling is generally the act of getting humans past someplace either because the smuggler knows the clandestine routes or can bribe past the securities. The smugglers are paid a fee from which they will also pay the securities that allow them to pass. Smugglers can make the journey artificially long so that they are able to demand more, they can tell their victims that luggage will sell them out to police and security so they must be thrown away. Meanwhile, the smugglers call on their friends with GPS to come and harvest the thrown away. Smugglers would take the harvests to their families or for sale.

Human trafficking can also be done for purposes of muthi rituals. In the most painful cases, the victim will get the required ‘muthi part’ removed from them while they are alive. It is argued that the felt pain make the ritual really work effectively. What a barbaric act! Corruption cannot be tolerated anymore, any further than what mankind has endured to date.

19. Corruption: the consequences

19.1 Economic consequences of corruption

Corruption breeds corruption (a multiplier effect?)

An economy can be devastated by rampant corruption involving embezzlement of huge sums of public funds, and the mismanagement, inequity, wastage and social decay that inevitably follow systemic corruption. Grand corruption has a tendency to systematically create suffering and multiplying forms of corruption. It is not uncommon that soon systemic corruption sinks portions of the formal economy into underground economy (black market). When a sizable chunk of the economy goes underground, it creates the risk of inaccurate perception and calculation of macroeconomic data. Macroeconomic data are normally calculated from the formal above-board economic sector. As corruption grinds, portions of the formal sector will sink underground and resurface at some point. Such scenarios create a real headache for economic analyses and policy formulation.

Economic analyses and policy formulation will become even harder without correct figures of the volumes of goods that are in- and out-bound through the corrupt routes of smuggling. The chain of uncertainty will impact the exchange rate. When the exchange rate has no hard data behind it and just vacillates to the whims of the currency peddlers on the black market, the official exchange rate will have its meaning eroded. The dominance of a parallel/black market renders the official exchange rate generally meaningless and symbolic as it does not stand on the shoulders of accurate figures of production inflow and outflow of goods across the national boundaries. The scenario of a strong black market creates uncertainty on prices of goods. As some goods become unavailable on the market while others have their prices inflating all too often, calculation of the consumer price index (CPI) becomes difficult, and the nation will again live with a symbolic value of CPI. Equally so the inflation rate will be difficult to calculate to a precise figure. In conditions where the formal market is pressured by the informal sector and the black market every key macroeconomic indicator is distorted, proper economic accounting and macroeconomic management become difficult thus constraining modernization, economic development and the proliferation of a healthy functional market economy. It is not uncommon that with the deterioration of an economy quality of its exports falls as well and in a globalised and competitive economy the companies suffer modifications and terminations of international supplier contracts. As more important companies are removed from international supply chains markets dwindle and so do the national employment rates and suffering multiply among citizens.

19.2 Corruption worsens inequality

In distorted economies, the well-connected and privileged dominate both the formal and the underground economies, channelling goods from their formal into the underground economic activities, eventually making themselves the ‘economy’ through a ruthless monopolistic practice. The corrupt thus collect abnormally high profits and have the power to cartel goods off the market and return them at will at cut-throat prices. Inequality increases, the poor get poorer and anger runs in everyone with likely serious political consequences.

Examples of such inequalities include children of the rich having pocket money that surpasses the teacher’s salary, and the total budget for dog-feed in an affluent community surpassing the budget of a school in a community overlooking their own. The rich increase their imports of luxury goods right to perfumes, while the majority suffer and cannot afford a pack of painkillers for the headache.

19.3 Corruption raises investment costs, risks and uncertainty and reduces incentive to invest

Corruption has adverse impact on private investment, both domestic and foreign. Refer to the example above where a social and public investment in the form of a unique school was going to benefit generations of pupils was denied by a corrupt individual whose own kids are either failures or are in similarly good schools elsewhere. Systemic corruption multiplies situations where bribes have to be paid before any investment takes place and upon entering into negotiations for the registration and establishment of a business. The investor is followed with further demands for bribes at setting up the business and again at procurement of leases for land and buildings; permission to engage in activities such as production, transport, storage, marketing, distribution, import and export; obtaining connections for water, gas, electricity, and telephone; having access to telex, fax and e-mail facilities and so on; which can involve payment of substantial bribes at various stages and may require the services of agents with specialised expertise on how to get around complex rules and procedures to acquire these things.

More often than not the agents and intermediaries are equally or even more corrupt. They normally play on the technique of ‘we are almost there, this is the last step’. On fair analysis, intermediaries worsen the losses. Supposedly the business is finally on its feet, the corrupt officials will still demand monthly thank you. Councillors, local politicians and other kinds of ‘powerful’ may require that the business ‘just helps’ with corporate social responsibility issues like contributions to schools, charities and even birthday parties of their nominees.

19.4 Brain drains and destruction of future manpower resources

As corruption bites, those who have skills will tend to emigrate to countries where they can make a better living with their skills. For those skilled staying behind, instead of engaging in formal economic activities, they waste their spirit and effort in rent-seeking black market economic activities. Corruption tends not to value the plight of the poor. Talented businesspeople, industrialists, entrepreneurs and managers represent a scarce and valuable resource, and every country should be valuing them enormously. Businesspeople waste hours in queues caused by dishonesty and unpredictable behaviours of the corrupt in society. One strategy used by bribe-seeking officials is to pretend as if ‘things are so difficult here’ and as if they are doing you a favour by doing what they should and are paid to do. Imagine an applicant for a simple service had to wait 7 months for a document to have two signatures from two persons who are in the same building on the same floor and three doors apart. This waiting cost R700000–00 (USD$47000). In corrupt societies, enormous time is lost in waiting for appointments, engaging in discussions and sitting in negotiations and meetings that are non-beneficial as they seem to worsen investment prospects, political and economic instability. The private sector generally feels that in the majority of cases officials in the public sector have the ‘prey attitude’ towards them. Their tricks in tactical solicitations of bribes are difficult to interpret as they often play out as incompetence and being out of pace with the fast-moving world.

19.5 Without fair foreign direct investment modernisation slows

Foreign investors are more concerned about the prospects of making some profit in the countries they invest in. Investors tend to hold back where the conditions do not seem to be encouraging. Discouraging conditions, therefore, limit foreign direct investment (FDI) to exploitation of natural resources and investments in short-term and quick-yielding, quick-closing deals that do not embed into the recipient country’s uncertain economy. These FDI do not improve skills level, technology co-efficiency or industrialisation levels of the recipient country. As financial and economic discipline of the country erodes, the attractiveness of a country to foreign investors fades thus keeping investment low.

20. Corruption: political consequences

Corruption causes suffering and the citizens may get to a ‘fed-up’ point when they engage in demonstrations, picketing and strikes all of which can variably worsen issues. Governments can fall as has happened in unrest that start from food queues. Careers can be ruined as happens in countries where unemployment rates are near the bream. Reputations can be destroyed as happens with politicians in the wrecked countries. International and local agents for regime change generally fuel situations with the potential of worsening things rather than bettering them [26]. Political prostitutes and opportunists tend to thrive in ambience of dissatisfaction. These peddlers of regime change generally instigate situations of every form of anarchy. National legislation is generally designed to create respect, order and prosperity. Corruption encourages and involves breaking these legislated codes, rules and regulations [27]. Breaking the codes, rules and regulations leads to rule of law thus creating anarchy that does not benefit society. Road-use laws, environmental protection laws and maritime use laws are all designed with a positive aim and breaking them causes huge negative consequences.

21. Corruption: financial consequences

Most countries have mechanisms for price subsidies on basic commodities and price controls. However, in low-income countries where the majority are rural subsistence farmers, the subsidies do not benefit them much as they are on things that do not form part of their weekly shopping basket. I mentioned under economic consequences of corruption that the underground market concentrates market control in hands of corrupt individuals. In the worst cases, more foreign currency will be in the hands of the corrupt that dominate the underground economy than in the Central Bank. This concentration of money in the hands of the corrupt can decimate the value of a local currency. Prices of things can sky rocket, leaving everyone without valuable money. Financing projects and purchases can become very expensive and most times unattainable. The flourishing of a black market will result in government losing revenue, making the government struggle to increase subsidies making it more bankrupt and more and more unable to provide services in quality and in quantity. Corruption and the underground markets, price controls and subsidies have a multiplier effect on corruption thus worsening the social and economic plight of the general population. Currencies are exchanged on the black market creating a very difficult situation for those who cannot reach urban centres where this normally happens. When the currencies are exchanged in the rural and quasi-rural areas, the rates are cut throat further making the poor suffer more.

22. Corruption: developmental consequences

Not only does corruption affect economic development in terms of economic efficiency and growth, but it also affects equitable distribution of resources across the population, increasing income inequalities, undermining the effectiveness of social welfare programmes and ultimately resulting in lower levels of human development [28]. Poor and underdone human resources development will undermine the nation’s long-term economic growth, sustainable development and equality [29]. Corruption is always a stumbling block to national modernisation, economic development and integration in a world that is becoming increasingly globalised and integrated. Corruption shatters the potential and growth of future generations [30].