CORRUPTION ON THE INCREASE

Posted on: www.dailyguideghana.com

By William Yaw Owusu,

Friday, November 15, 2013

Data from the 2013 Afrobarometer (AB) collected from 34 African countries shows that governments have failed woefully in the fight against corruption spite of so-called policy interventions to stem the tide.

Ghana placed ‘respectably’ among the countries whose governments are failing in the fight against the social menace.

The report released in Dakar, Senegal yesterday and marked the 3^rd Afrobarometer global release on Corruption perceptions in Africa is based on interviews with more than 51,000 African people making it the biggest survey of people’s experiences and views of corruption in Africa.

A majority of people in 34 African countries including Ghana condemned their governments' anticorruption efforts in the surveys conducted between October 2011 and June 2013.

It compiled by Samantha Richmond, Afrobarometer's operations manager for capacity building, at the University of Cape Town, South Africa and Carmen Alpin, Afrobarometer's data manager also in Cape Town.

According to the report, 56 percent of people said their governments have done a "fairly” or “very bad" job of fighting corruption; while just 35% said their governments have done this "fairly” or “very well".

The report said the highest negative ratings are given by people from Nigeria (82%), Egypt (82%) and Zimbabwe (81%) whilst the lowest negative ratings are given by people from Malawi (28%), Lesotho (28%) and Botswana (29%).

In the case of Ghana, 54% of respondents gave negative ratings underscoring the need for the President as head of the government to sit up and crack the whip on corrupt public officials.

According to the report, Ghana is one of the 16 countries that have been tracked since 2002 where negative ratings have increased.

“The most dramatic changes were recorded in Kenya, Zimbabwe, Ghana and Tanzania. In 2003 just 11% of Kenyans said the government was doing a bad job5, compared to 70% in 2011.  Negative ratings increased by 43 percentage points among Zimbabweans (from 38% in 2002 to 81% in 2012), by 31 points among Ghanaians, and by 25 points among Tanzanians.”

“In contrast, over the same period negative ratings declined in Malawi by 40 percentage points (from 68% negative ratings to 28%). More moderate improvements were observed in Lesotho (an 18 point decrease), Botswana (11 point decrease) and Senegal (10 point decrease).”

“Looking at the 16 countries tracked since 2002, the average score for the perceptions of corruption index remains unchanged at 1.74. Several countries, most notably Malawi, have registered improvements (decreasing scores on the corruption perceptions index) (Figure 9), but their gains have been offset by declines in others, especially Kenya, South Africa and Ghana,” the report said.

On the question of whether one paid bribe in the past year, 23% of respondents from Ghana said they did with the highest coming from Sierra Leone (63%) and Botswana (4%) recording the lowest.

According to the report, the negative ratings surfaced “despite the fact that eradicating corruption and improving governance in Africa have been priorities for most major international organizations and many political leaders since the mid-1990s.”

“Across the 34 countries, perceptions of corruption are highest for the police, followed by government officials and tax officials. Officials in the office of the presidency are perceived to be the least corrupt.”

The surveys h also found that almost 1 in 5 people (16%) have paid a bribe one or more times to a government official in the past year in order to get an official document or permit. Paying a bribe to get medical treatment as well as avoid a problem with the police were the other two most cited reasons. Nearly one in three Africans (30%) has paid a bribe at least once in the past year.

“Sierra Leone, Morocco, Guinea, Kenya and Egypt have the most people paying a bribe for a service or to avoid a problem. Fewer people in Namibia, Mauritius, Cape Verde and Botswana say they engage in this form of corruption.”

The report said that “corruption punishes the poor the most. Africans who often go without enough food to eat perceive higher levels of corruption in their state institutions and are more likely to pay a bribe, give a gift or do a favour for a government official in order to obtain official documents, gain access to public services or avoid a problem with the police.”

“Furthermore, the poor are especially likely to be confronted by demands for bribes in countries where experiences with corruption are especially high. Corruption also appears to be bad for democracy. People who perceive higher levels of corruption within their state institutions, as well as those who have had to engage in petty corruption, are more likely to be ‘not at all’ or ‘not very’ satisfied with the way democracy works in their countries.”

Background

Afrobarometer surveys are based on nationally representative samples. The 34-country results represented the views of approximately three-quarters (76%) of the continent’s population.

Countries included in Round 5 are: Algeria, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Cote d’Ivoire, Egypt, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritius, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger and Nigeria.

The rest are Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Sudan, Swaziland, Tanzania, Togo, Tunisia, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.  Results from Ethiopia, is expected to be released shortly.