CRITICALLY EXAMINING THE IMPACT OCORRUPTION ON THE AFRICAN ECONOMIES: PUBLIC COICE

Corruption and power have been inextricably linked for so long that many consider them to be one and the same, forever destined to accompany each other. Yet, corruption among the powerful has not been met with complacency in human history, rather the opposite instead. The Ancient Romans pioneered the first legal system with brutal punishments aimed to prevent ambitus, or political corruption. This strong desire to forcibly isolate corruption and power can be seen in China’s recent decision to declare severe cases of political corruption as worthy of the “death penalty”. Corruption even correlates with the development status of a country, which explains the common “African leadership is corrupt” rhetoric. Corruption and power may seem to be

Throughout history positions of power and wealth have been plagued by corruption, does this power cause people to be corrupt? Or is the power and wealth earned through immoral and corrupt practices? In order to find these answers, one must define what they feel is corrupt, for most corruption is the act of being dishonest or immoral with the motive of personal gains of money or power. There are numerous accounts of politicians, military leaders, business owners, entrepreneurs, and millionaires, all earning or using their power and wealth in an immoral and corrupt manner. Whether money is used for personal gain, used to corrupt others, or the wealth was earned by corrupt ways, it seems that the accumulation of wealth is constantly accompanied by corruption.

I begin by providing the context of a country’s economy as it relates to government and firm’s roles in developing a country and its economy. I then provide examples of countries (Brazil and South Africa) which have been plagued by corruption and I also discuss the major economic problems they have experienced in recent years as a result of corruption. I

Unfortunately, most African countries that are so rich in natural resources are countries that are forced into deep poverty, diseases and quarrels. The roots of these actions are actually grows from corruption. What African people need to start doing is changing the mentality of Africans and this can only be attempted through education and training within the home. Firstly, Africans need to focus on the younger generations and show them a good example of political behaviour. And they, in turn should be aware that wealth comes through hard work and being responsible, not by stealing public funds. Africans should start implementing courses about corruption and society in schools to educate people on the negative outside corruption that makes an impact on society. According to Pollock (2010), it is strongly needed to teach law legislators, who easily participate in corruption (para. 3). Secondly, the poor and miserable conditions in which most Africans are, is the next cause of the appearance of corruption. And most important action that should be taken in consideration is to fight with poverty. What is needed is a force to change mentality. Moreover, the belief that one can buy anything with money has enlarged corruption in all levels of life. The only way to destroy corruption is to do a massive campaign like they are doing in Kenya and that would take some time to produce results. There, in South Africa, exists such culture of an

First, it is important to define what corruption is. The term, “corruption” covers a broad range of human actions,

As many other governments africa’s has corruption but this corruption is coming from game officers helping to poach

The corruptin is the abusive and inefficient use of resources by trusted powers for private gain. Corruption is not committed to the rule of law, justice, human rights and the integrity of public service, and it hurts every one who's life, livelihood, or happiness depends on the integrity of people in a position of authority.Some times it's devastating impact is more visible . The governance ,transparency ,and fighting corruption is so important to sustaine economic growth.

Thus, corruption proposes that since the government is spending money away from programs that could benefits more of the lower income individuals. For examples, the government couldn’t provide public goods like education and health that could help the low income individuals because of the tax system. Yet, the higher income individuals have access to resources that the lower incomes individual don’t have to evade taxes by bribing government officials to lean on their side known as lobbying (Dincer and Gunlap). This research shows that the higher income individuals have a better chance to bribe governments causing the gap in income inequality in the economy because they have the resources to do it.

Ultimately corruption takes away from the total resource pie, which essentially takes away from the common populace. When a nation’s resources are fraudulently diverted, societal development and progress suffer across the board. Accordingly, nongovernmental organizations such as Transparency International concur with this assessment and also depict corruption as an anti-poor mechanism. Hence, corruption feeds into the cycle of poverty in developing nations, leaving the majority of wealth for the elite minority, while the majority of the populace lives in abject poverty. In the end, corruption and poor governance, combined with an abundance of accessible and valuable resources throughout the region provide ample motive for the generation of a power grab.

The negative economic impacts of corruption have grown rapidly, and major international organizations have claimed that corruption hinders economic growth (world bank 2006). Although there are claims that corruption is harmful to economic growth, economists have not really agreed with the argument from a theoretical point of view. Theoretical studies suggest that corruption may counteract government failure and promote economic growth in the short run, given externally determined suboptimal bureaucratic rules and regulations. As government failure is itself a function of corruption, however, corruption should have

International Monetary Fund. 1998. Does Corruption Affect Income Inequality And Poverty?. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/wp/wp9876.pdf. [Accessed 4 March 2017].

Corruption can be defined as the use of entrusted power to accumulate public wealthy for personal benefit. Corruption is not peculiar to any country, continent or state; it is sure a global issue which is an endemic to all government all over the world. However, corruption is prevalent in the Niger delta region of Nigeria; public officers in this oil producing state of Nigeria are corrupt. Consequently, it has defied the Niger delta from developing politically and economically which has left the states reputation in a mess. Radicalization of youths, abject poverty and -political instability are the three leading effects of corruption in the Niger delta region of Nigeria.

This paired with poor law enforcement yields an impossibly hard to get rid of corruption. In Kenya, political corruption has grown rampant. People, who are supposed to be representing the interests of their constituency, instead take money from the constituents to keep their representative positions.

Corruption is a complex political, social, and economic anomaly that negatively affects developing and developed countries. It weakens democratic institutions, holds economic development, widening the rich-poor gap and certainly leads to governmental instability. The World Bank definition of corruption states that “…the abuse of public office for private gain”.

INTRODUCTION "One thing can be said-the mere fact that corruption has become an item of national preoccupation is paradoxically the first real achievement by Kenyans over corruption" Since the end of the last decade the emphasis has moved from building public awareness on corruption issues to understanding the nature of corruption and its effects on the economy, society and politics; understanding the nature of the beast as it were. The global anti-corruption movement, therefore, has moved towards research and a host of rigorous tools have been developed to study and monitor corruption wherever it takes place. Hand in hand with this, efforts to combat corruption