Global Perspective Group Project Outcome: Political Corruption

By Meharbash Kashif, Le Anh Tu and Nguyen Thanh Long

What is political corruption?

• Political corruption is mainly the abuse of high power and authority by government officials in order to accrue capital or gain personal benefits such as financial benefits. Some examples include:

• Bribery

• Embezzlement

• Kickbacks

• Patronage

Two forms of political corruption• Political corruption can be of two forms. The first one

being the withdrawal of capital from private sector businesses or the general government revenues. Some examples of this form of political corruption is:

- Pillage

- embezzlement

- Kleptocracy

• The second form is when officials withdraw from public resources to ensure their hold of power and to continue their authority into the future. This can be through means of financial benefits or general incentives. Some examples of how politicians take advantage of this type of political corruption is through:

- patronage

Causes of corruption in government• Many of the politicians strive to become rich

and in the top tier of society. In order to buy luxury products however, they need high incomes(3)(IMF, May 1998)

• According to a report by the International Monetary Fund, ‘workers who don’t receive a fair wage…may change actual effort…or their perceived level of remuneration.’(1)(IMF, June 1997)

• Most corrupt governments don’t have a fair wage system, especially in developing countries which can lead to officials being dissatisfied and carrying out corrupt actions to satisfy their personal greed(2)(Voxeu.org, June 2013).

The table above compares Philippine

government officials salaries to American

counterparts. The US officials are paid

more and are able to afford housing much

better than the Filipinas. This indirectly

indicates that due to the harsh salaries,

Filipinas are more corrupt than the

Americans.(22)(Michaeldselllers, nd)

• Another example of this is in India with politician BS Yeddyurappa(5)(Mensxp, n.d).

• Salary: $180 or 12,000 rupees per month(in 2012)(4)(Indian Express, n.d)

• Position: Chief Minister of Karnataka(Indian province)

• Although his position is quite high, his salary doesn’t represent that which is why he carried out corrupted actions like:

- Hiking up his salary by 150% to 30,000 rupees($450)

- allegedly took part in the illegal exportation of iron ore which transported 3500000 metric tonnes of iron to a local port without a license to have monetary gain(7)(Indian Express, July 2010)

- illegally acquiring forest land owned by the government for his own purposes during his Chief Ministry between 2008 and 2013(6)(Indian Express, October 2014)

Poor Economic Conditions• It has been proven that most developing countries have more political corruption due to

their economic conditions and high dependence on primary industries like materials exportation. Due to the volatile changes in these markets, governing bodies are usually very unstable which can lead to a lack of funding. This all indirectly leads to increased poverty as the government isn’t able to fully invest in developing the country. It can also frustrate the politicians as their funding gets slashed, affecting their salaries, overall encouraging the politicians to take alternative, usually corrupt, ways to gain more capital.

• Areas with more foreign aid can also increase political corruption as the government rather keeps the donations for themselves rather than invest it.

Example: Haiti

• Haiti during the devastating Haiti earthquakes in 2010

• More than $9bn donated from public and private donations to help build the infrastructure and house the survivors but 85,000 people still in camps according to a 2014 UN report(8)(NBC news, Jan 2015). 36% of the donations allegedly went to fund the organizations themselves or private contractors allegedly who have taken are being politically corrupt.

The diagram on the right shows how corrupt countries are with red indicating most corrupt. We can see a direct correlation here, with developing countries usually regarding their primary sector as most important being the most corrupt(eg. Ethiopia, Afghanistan). This proves our theory that poor economic conditions and a high dependency on supplying to foreign markets can lead politicians to be more corrupt as the market prices are fluctuating and can fail at any time.

(20)(Transparency Korea, nd)

Effects of corruption on politicians

The politicians are less likely to participate in fruitful political

activity since they can get more than what they pay, just by

participating in political corruption. This leads to disruption

and weakening of the government structure, reducing

governmental productivity and development. Ultimately

political corruption corrupts the politicians and in directly leads

to them losing respect in the public is their ways are revealed.

Overall, creating a high intensity social unrest amongst the

public.

Effects of corruption on people(locally and nationally)

Lack of quality in public services: Due to the high rates of political corruption, less money would be

reserved to invest in public services, therefore lowering their efficiency and quality of services. The

only way to achieve good service would be then be by paying extra for it, lowering the individual's

money but also this money usually just goes towards more corrupt politicians, creating an endless

cycle. South Sudan is one of the most corrupted countries in the world, ended up having the worst

healthcare and education among others. This is seen in many areas like municipality, electricity,

distribution of relief funds etc

Another effect that political corruption has is on public education. In spot of LEDC's, many people

aren't able to afford the expensive private education so public education is their only option but the

quality is again being compromised due to politicians taking money away from their funds. This

leads to a lack of well educated youths, who therefore aren't able to get jobs, increasing

unemployment rates. Due to the corruption at the early 2016 in Philippines, Philippines

unemployment rate stood at 5.8 percent in January of 2016 but it slightly up from the next month

by 0.1 percent.(19)(Mindcontroversy, October 2012)

Future: Utopian if corruption is destroyed

If corruption is destroyed, the entire country will be greatly,

positively affected in many ways:

-increased health and education due to better public services:

-less criminal activity such as bribery, evasion and patronage

leading to public opinion becoming more positive and

supporting the government

-safer environment therefore increasing immigration

-Higher GDP

Likeliness: highly possible and have realistic examples like

Singapore, a previously extremely corruption country that is

now one of the financial capitals of the world and has very low

crime rates.

• The graph on the right shows the control over corruption in many selected countries around the globe.

• According to the graph, Singapore is a top tier country when it comes to preventing corruption.

• Singapore is on the list of the top 4 countries that has the best education systems in the world. It is said that Singapore’s system is equally good as the UK, and potentially surpassing it in the near future (11).

• Singapore is also known for it’s low crime rate, top 2 in the world and Asia and holds the crown in South East Asia (12).

(10)

(15)

• South Sudan gained its independence in 2011 after the war with Sudan. This left South Sudan with a corrupted country with low education rate and a high crime rate.

• South Sudan on the other hand is one of the most corrupted countries in the world, ranked 163 out of 168 countries collected.

• By this mean, it is the least educated country with a literacy rate of 27% (14).

• In addition to that, South Sudan came second in criminal activities right after Venezuela.

• Comparing to Singapore, one of the top tier country around the globe, we can see the differences from the two countries. The root of the difference is the corruption rate of the two countries.

• If South Sudan tries to decrease the amount of corruption that is occurring in its country, the possibility of it becoming like Singapore is easily achievable.

(13)

(15)

Future: dystopian The most likely scenario is political corruption continues is a dystopian one. This has been seen in many countries like Italy which was prosperous but collapsed when corrupted officials took over. If not stopped, the future of corrupted countries may hold:

• Increased mafia activity. In relation to Italy, the Cosa Nostra or so called the Sicilian mafia. During the 1990s, the Cosa Nostra took an advantage of the weakness coming out from the central state of Italy and was able to substitute themselves from the authorities. Nevertheless, during the post war era, Italy’s government became stronger with the modernisation of south Italy. This caused changes in the relationship of Cosa Nostra with the government of Italy, making them weaker. What this shows is that if the authorities are corrupted, the chance of mafia’s taking illegal actions will be increased significantly (18).

• Increased wealth gap

• Decrease in public service standards. In terms with Italy, corruption has caused them 60 billion Euros annually to be wasted in public resources, resulting in a lack of funding and therefore a poor public service system.

• Machinery also takes part in this problem. According to the World Economic forum, the suggested year that the first AI will appear to be 2026, 10 years away from today (16). The development of machinery can create an new era for corruption where machines can function themselves can continue to corrupt without any trace of human. This reduces the risk that can be cause to people that are having the state of mind to corrupt (17).(23)

Possible Solutions• Empowering our community and society at all levels(local, national and global) to

have an entirely negative view towards political corruption. Whistleblower programs(eg. India’s Whistleblower protection program) should be put in place and strengthened in order for society to get rid of political corruption at the root: the political activity itself

• Pay enough wages for the authorities in order to give them a state of mind not to corrupt. Paying wages accordingly to the living conditions of the nation limits greed and also does not encourage politicians to solicit money illegally.

• Create Anti-corruption Bodies (21).

• Community should have educated votes for which politician should be elected. In a democracy, ultimately the choice is in the hands of the people themselves so if they expose and vote a politician out by voting, they can stop political corruption before it even starts. (25)(Interview Video, nd)

Sources(1)(IMF, Date written: June 1997, Date retrieved: Feb 28th 2016)https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/wp/wp9773.pdf

(2)(Voxeu, Date written: June 2013, Date retirved: Feb 28th 2016)

http://www.voxeu.org/article/higher-government-wages-may-reduce-corruption

(3)(IMF, Date written: June 1998, Date retrieved: Feb 28th 2016)

https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/wp/wp9863.pdf

(4)(Indian Express, n.d, Date retrieved: Feb 29th 2016)

http://www.newindianexpress.com/states/karnataka/article432371.ece?service=print

(5)(Mensxp, n.d, Date retrieved: FEb 29th 2016)

http://www.mensxp.com/special-features/today/5609-10-most-corrupt-indian-politicians.html

(6)(Indian Express, Date written: October 2014, Date retrieved: March 1st 2016 ) )http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-others/corruption-cases-against-former-karnataka-cm-yeddyurappa-eshwarappa-family-reinstated/

(7)(Indian Express, written: July 2010, retrieved: March 1st 2016) http://archive.indianexpress.com/news/yeddyurappa-admits-iron-ore-racket/640829/

(8)(NBC news, written: Jan 12 2015, retrieved: March 1 2016)http://www.nbcnews.com/news/investigations/what-does-haiti-have-show-13-billion-earthquake-aid-n281661

(9)(The Guardian, n.d, retrieved: March 1st 2016) http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/poverty-matters/2013/jan/14/haiti-earthquake-where-did-money-go

(10) (priceschool.usc.edu, n.d, retrieved: March 1st 2016)

http://priceschool.usc.edu/files/2013/08/Lien-forum-Beijing-Speech-JHKedit-2012.pdf

(11) (eblogfa.com,n.d, retrieved: March 17th 2016)

http://eblogfa.com/6616/top-20-best-education-systems-countries-in-the-world

(12) (elist10.com, 2015,retrieved March 17th 2016)

http://www.elist10.com/top-10-countries-lowest-recorded-crime-rate/

Sources(13) (transparency.org, 2015, retrieved March 17th 2016)

https://www.transparency.org/country/#SSD

(14) (insidermonkey.com, 2015, retrieved March 18th 2016)

http://www.insidermonkey.com/blog/11-least-educated-countries-in-the-world-347958/

(15) (numbeo.com, 2016, retrieved March 18th 2016)

http://www.numbeo.com/crime/rankings_by_country.jsp

(16) ( weforum.org, 2015, retrieved March 18th 2016)

http://www.weforum.org/reports/deep-shift-technology-tipping-points-and-societal-impact

(17) ( weforum.org, 2015, retrieved March 18th 2016)

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2015/10/3-insights-on-the-future-of-corruption/

(18) (bunker8.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk, n.d, retrieved March 18th 2016)

http://www.bunker8.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/orgcrim/mafiacor.htm

(19)(Mind Controversy, October 28th 2012, Retrieved: March 18th 2016)

http://www.mindcontroversy.com/impact-effects-corruption-public-life-india/

(20)(Transparency Korea, nd, retrieved: March 18th)

http://www.transparency-korea.org/2014/12/2014-corruption-perception-index-report/

(21)(hubpages.com, nd, retrieved March 18th 2016)

http://hubpages.com/politics/corruption-solutionandcuses

(22)(Michaeldsellers, nd, retrieved: 18th March 2016)

http://www.michaeldsellers.com/blog/2011/11/22/thoughts-on-corruption-in-the-philippines/(23)( newyorker.com, 2015,retrieved March 19th 2016) http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/01/19/corruption-revolt

(24)(Global security, n.d, date retrieved: March 18th 2016) http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/europe/it-corruption.htm

(25)(Interview Video, 18th March,

retrieved: 18th March)