The Three Causes And Effects Of Corruption In Kenya

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

Sierra Leone is a small country found on the west coast of Africa. The country shares a border with the Atlantic Ocean, Liberia, and Guinea. Sierra Leone has a population of 5,525,000 people, and 27,699 square miles of land. In 1462 Freetown, Sierra Leone was founded by Pedro da Cintra, a Portuguese explorer from Lagos, Portugal. da Cintra originally named the country Sierra Lyoa , the Lion Mountains, but in 1787 the British officially adopted Sierra Lyoa changing its name to its modern day spelling- Sierra Leone. This small country has faced many horrors within its history. The Sierra Leone civil war is a major contributing factor to the country’s current state of poverty and corruption. Most problems that the country faces today all stem

However, despite all the perks that Kenya upholds, they face the issues of having incompetent leadership and poor governance. Dealing with these issues Kenya is struggling to handle economic growth, both natural and man created problems (Stanford). Choosing the issue was enriching with knowledge and gives me the opportunity to explain all of the issues under one accord. The purpose to explain the issues of Kenya and how they are corrupt was well needed to be addressed because the people of Kenya should not take corruption as “normal” and treat it like it is a part of everyday life.

In the Kenyan scope, corruption is defined to include “benefit" which means any gift, loan, fee, reward, appointment, service, favour, forbearance, promise or other consideration or advantage; corruption referring to an offence under any of the provisions of sections 39 to 44, 46 and 47; bribery; fraud; embezzlement or misappropriation of public funds; abuse of office; breach of trust; or an offence involving dishonesty - in connection with any tax, rate or impost levied under any Act or under any written law relating to the elections of persons to public office.[13]Together with these are the Economic crimes referring to offences under section 45; or offences involving dishonesty under any written law providing for the maintenance or protection of the public revenue.[14]

Unfortunately, Kenya is facing economic, health, and environmental challenges due to continued drought conditions, and these challenges threaten their progress. The two biggest factors keeping Kenya from achieving rapid economic growth are corruption and

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.

Corruption is still a major issue around the world. It affects business practices; it can infect all forms of government and knows no economic distinction. Although, most of the time it is a national matter, it usually bears international consequences. Briefly please describe the four forms of corruption and give a global example to each form of corruption.

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 has overrun all aspects of South African culture since the early 1900’s. The government, the police force, and all of the citizens commit acts of corruption on an everyday basis in order to secure contracts, grants, and in order to earn more money. From a business standpoint, as government contracts are given to certain businesses with connections, many other legitimate businesses are driven out of the market, often leading to less than ideal goods. Prices have significantly inflated, as the contracts are not necessarily given to the lowest bidder, which has caused a very chaotic currency in South Africa

In the past decades, there were many studies that carefully examined the issue of corruption in the institutional framework as well as its significance in politics and economics. Jakob Svensson (2005) has published a paper in which he defines corruption and compares it to taxation and lobbying. Svensson talks about the main measures of corruption in the world and a variety of institutional theories that try to explore causal factors of this issue and possible policies that could eliminate its extent in any country. There have also been studies that examined corruption at the firm’s level and the global level. Fisman and Svensson (2001) have found some significant evidence of the importance of corruption at the microeconomic level. They looked at the bribe payments in Uganda and obtained significant results studying the relationship between firms’ growth and bribery. Moreover, Mauro (1995) published his work which examines the global level of corruption and its influence on economic growth. According to his findings, the effect of corruption on economic growth is relative and increases in power only when corruption is combined with other factors. In this paper, we will explore the definition of corruption and its reflection on the microeconomic and macroeconomic levels.

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”.

Kenya was ranked 145 out 187 nations on the Human Development Index. “Kenya has been ranked lowly in a UN global survey on well-being and quality of life beyond annual economic growth rates” (Masha, 2013). According to the Human Development Index, Kenya has been declining on the developmental scale ever since 1980. Most of Kenya’s population lives under extreme poverty which is an average of 30 percent of the country. These facts will show a drastic picture for Kenya and their fight against poverty. Believe it or not, Kenya has one of the highest growing population in the world. “As a result of the booming population growth, the country faces a serious unemployment problem, which the government admits will worsen over the next decade despite its best efforts” (Mwembe, 1989). Unemployment is increasing more every day which unfortunately means poverty is rising. Currently more than half of Kenyans live under the poverty

In many developing countries, corruption is a barrier to economic growth. Corruption can prevent the fair allocation of goods and services to citizens by trickling to aspects of everyday life. On a macroeconomic level, scholars are of the belief that corruption hinders economic growth and development (Mauro, 1995).

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

Throughout the last 10 years, Nigeria and Kenya have been partly free. Corruption is the greatest indicator among both for the lack of democracy. In Nigeria, corruption stems from the problem with oil, it leads to political violence, repression and unchecked government power. In Kenya, corruption arises from economic interests, causing political instability and hindering development. In addition to that, both experience electoral corruption. Conversely, civil societies active participation in the government propels each country towards a “thicker” democracy. Even though Nigeria and Kenya are thin democracies, their high levels of corruption in their government inhibits their ability of becoming free democracies.