Citizen-Centered Corruption

Can Civil Society Prevent Corruption

Introduction

One of the most significant and current discussions in Social Sciences corruption, with one concern about how international community and governments can effectively and efficiently fightand counteract this phenomenon. When most of these initiatives failed to achieve this goal and a lot of countries, especially developing ones, continued to suffer from corruption, many researchers found that civil society must be involved in anti-corruption measures (Verdenicci and Hough 2015). One of the resent approaches is that of a citizen-centred approach which is based on the premise that civil society can play an important role in the process of fighting corruption (Verdenicci and Hough 2015). The World Bank also recognised the crucial relation between citizens and anti-corruption process which stated that the citizens are “essential in constraining corruption” and has noticed that the civil society through their activities has been able to increase the awareness of the people about corruption and the necessity to counteract such corruption (World Bank, 2000, p.25).

It also may be said that many studies have criticised governments for being not efficient and effective enough when delivering services as well as adoption of inadequate methods which raised doubts against politicians (Verdenicci and Hough 2015).This has led some scholars to believe that the more government participation could be in state institutions, the greater the likelihood is of corruption. Alesina and Angeletos (2005) believe that “What is more, those who benefit from corruption may prefer higher taxation and more regulation, not for the sake of the poor, but because bigger governments increase the rents which they can extract. As a result, high levels of government intervention, corruption and rent seeking may be self-sustaining” (2005, p.1).

On the basis of government interference and corruption, the idea of citizen participation has emerged to play a supervisory role to verify the legality of the government's actions. This is because civil society represents the intervening groups between the public and the government (Akinyemi, 2016).

This essay is an attempt to argue that the success of civil society in fighting corruption may has a significant positive impact in the reduction of corruption, where the politicians and officials know that the civil society is the observer and the possibility of such corrupt personnel getting caught is considerably high and thus, these personnel have to calculate and weigh the probability of the risk factor impact against them getting corrupt on the premise of rationality. However, the civil society role cannot be effective in the lack of political will.

The study paper starts to shed a light about the concept of civil society in the fight against corruption, before moving on to the concept of the political will and is followed by a comparative case study of Hong Kong and Ghana.

Civil society in tackling Corruption

The concept of civil society has been identified in the words of Idumange: “Civil society has been widely recognized as an essential 'third' sector. Its strength can have a positive influence on the state and the market. Civil society is therefore seen as an increasingly important agent for promoting good governance like transparency, effectiveness, openness, responsiveness and accountability” (Idumange, 2006, cited in Akinyemi 2016). This is because civil society represents the intervening groups between the public and the government (Akinyemi, 2016).

Thus, because of the limitation of the traditional approach in tackling corruption, Johnson argued that successful reform needs people involvement throughout its process (Johnson, 1998).Johnston also argued that any effort or initiative towards prevention of corruption would not be effective without the engagement of the citizens(Johnston, 2014).In that sense, Johnston emphasized the importance of building trust between state and people, utilisation of the best practises in the field; creation of a mechanism to monitor the governments’ performance and to engage the people in setting that processes (Johnston, 2014). Such methods are closely reflective of the primary considerations of the formulation of effective pressure groups which could operate as alternative focal points of counter-corruption efforts and should be independent from the bureaucratic functionaries the state directed governmental mechanisms. This approach has evolved from the idea that the citizenry of the civil society could be the best actors who can stand against corruption and protect the citizens’ interests if the powers and entitlements which are vested in the capabilities of the state could be abused or misused. Ultimately, the awareness of important roles which the citizenry can play in anti-corruption process has led to citizen-centred approaches (Verdenicci and Hough 2015). The approach suggests that governments should work closely with the civil society and they should engage into the processes which could involve their interests. The governments also should not rely just on the local authorities in their activities (Mansuri, 2012). This approach has led the World Bank to allocate $US85 billion to local contributory developments (Mansuri and Rao, 2012). This had happened as the World Bank adopted the idea that “a more engaged citizenry should be able to achieve a higher level of co-operation and make the governments more accountable” (Mansuri and Rao, 2012, p.21).

The reviewing of all of the techniques regarding the processes of anti-corruption based operational intervention throughout the previous decades could lead to the formulation of the perception that the most effective measures of success concerning the prevention or addressing of the problems and the incidences of corruption have been only achieved through effective engagement of the civil society by the political or administrative leadership. In this respect, Heilbrunn (2004), has outlined that the initiatives of the anti-corruption movement which have been undertaken by the civil society in tandem with the government administration institutions which could have been harbouring any form of political intent to address the problem of prevalence of corrupt practices, have comprehensively resulted in the raising of the necessary public awareness in favour of the anti-corruption movements. Furthermore, this has also resulted in the strengthening of the public resolve in combating of corruption. Other aspects and outcomes related with the entire effort scenario highlighted by the engagement of the civil society concerning addressing this menace of corruption could be identified as the reinforcement of integrity and systematic approach in weeding out the effects and caused of corruption at various levels, including at the governmental as well as the non-governmental sectors.

According to the research of Gyimah-Boadi (2002), the global evidence which have been garnered through different studies so far concerning the problem of corruption under consideration and the roles and responsibilities of the civil society in addressing such problems, has identified the fact that the greater could be the active role of the civil society in terms of highlighting and demanding particular actions which could be oriented towards the rectification of the systems concerning the problems of corruption, the better has been the formulation and promotion of the values of participatory governance and accountability fostering on part of the incumbent governments. Thus, Choi (2009), has outlined the various impacts of the civil society and the concerned citizenry becoming involved into the overall proceedings of anti-corruption movements over the years, in three categorical terms. The first one has been the increased participation of the citizenry in the processes, procedures and mechanism of governance which has been particularly effective regarding the strengthening of democratic processes and values within the existing socio-political context. The second one could be identified as the delivery mechanism of services of the government which could be profoundly impacted through the participation of the citizenry within the entire process of operational conveyance of such public services. The final one could be considered in the format of empowerment of the common citizenry in holding the governmental and administrative institutions to account whenever the deviances of the stated and legal procedures of governance could be experienced. Apart from such considerations, the research of Akinyemi (2016), has also propounded the perception that the anticorruption efforts which have been directed and led by the civil societies of various countries, have brought forward profound incidence of the positive effect of indirect reduction of corruption as well as the direct improvement of responsiveness from the state organs. This could lead to the realisation of the fact that the effective role which could be played by the concerned and aware civil society of any country as well as the common citizenry to enforce accountability on the governmental as well as non-governmental sectors, could involve multiple perspectives and approaches which have an immense span and depth in terms of the short term and long term effects. However, civil society activities can be effective if only there was political will (Abdulai, 2009). In this point, it is important to know the definition of the political will, and what are the conditions which could exist in order to ensure that the proper political will to fight corruption could exist in the adequate and effective manner.

The political will

Abdulai defined political will as “political will in combating corruption implies the commitment of both state and non-state actors including civil society and the private sector to work collaboratively to provide the political space necessary for the success of anticorruption measures”(Abdulai, 2009, p. 390). Thus, politicians must show their desire to eliminate corruption in cooperation with the civil society and through the development of laws, regulations and the activation of the law enforcement. Therefore “political will" essentially refers to the validity of the government's commitment to fighting corruption through speech and actions (Abdulai, 2009). In this context, observers can note why many countries, particularly the developing ones, have failed in implementing their anti-corruption strategy, where political institutions and laws are weak and the principle of accountability for political leadership does not exist.

Nevertheless, how one can determine whether there is a political will or not. Generally, if government initiatives and tools that should prevent corruption are not accompanied with a severe penalties and punishment, it is indication that the political will has not taken place (Abdulai, 2009). Although, there are might be many indicators that can show whether the political leaders have the will in terms of fighting this disease or not, this paper will focus on four conditions: provisioning of sufficient resources in order to implement the anti-corruption strategy, provisioning of motives and application of sanctions to undermine corruption, authorised and support citizen engagement in anti-corruption process and finally empower anti-corruption commissions by giving them the independence from the government and provide them with prosecution and investigation authority (Abdulai, 2009).

This paper attempts to examine the experience of anti-corruption of both Hong Kong and Ghana, and outlines the reasons why the strategy of fighting corruption in Hong Kong has succeed while the opposite was the case in Ghana. It believes that the political will might be one of the reasons; therefore its necessary to evaluate the political will in both countries, the study considers the four conditions which were mentioned earlier.

It is important to clarify that the original study was conducted by a comparative case study of Hong Kong and Ghana and Singapore (Abdulai, 2009). This essay used the cases of Hong Kong and Ghana in the study as an example.

2nd paragraph:

In this paragraph, the essay will discuss on strength of the conflict theory in term of explaining the addictive behaviour of society. here the essay will make relevant arguments by using appropriate references which will assist the essay to analyse whether the mentioned strength of the conflict theory can describe the proper reason and characteristics of addictive behaviours in society.

Corruption in Ghana

According to the 2000 Ghana Governance and Corruption Survey conducted by the CDD Ghana (2000),86% of respondents see corruption as a big dilemma in the public sector, whereas 59% of respondents see corruption as a big dilemma in the private sector; 44% of companies make illegal payments to public officials, 27 % make illegal payments to facilitate transactions between businesses and public services; 56% of the companies claimed that services are delivered once they make such payment; 46% of illegal payments to public officials are provided by companies and 31% are asked by the public officials and 50% of companies know how much they have to pay illegal money to the corrupt officials before they get involved in future potential transactions CDD (Ghana, 2000).

Corruption was also a serious issue during the 2000 election in Ghana when the incumbent government lost, the new president announced his new strategy and promise to fight corruption, he also adopted a Zero tolerance process against corruption. However, later, one of the senior officers in the sport ministry was caught for being corrupt and was prosecuted, this scandal was a hot topic for media and among the public (Osei, Badu, Owusu, 2010).

Corruption in Hong Kong

The concern of corruption in Hong Kong in the last decades had led to the creation of the anti-corruption agency, it was established in 1952 within the police force and it was responsible for the cases of corruption and bribery. In 1956, a team consists of senior officers were sent to Singapore and Ceylon to study the processes and policies through which these countries generally deal with the cases of corruption, as a result of this visit, in 1971, the Prevention of Bribery Ordinance was established (Lee, 1981). In 1973, Sir Alastair Blair-Kerr, was assigned to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the anti-corruption process and to provide his recommendations, the recommendations led to the creation of the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) in 1974 (Hong Kong Commission, 1973).

The Independency of anti-corruption Agencies

Hong Kong has proven to be an overwhelming success when the government determined to fight the widespread corruption at the time. In1974 the Hong Kong government established the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC), with broad powers of investigation and prosecution. The ICAC was provided by the government with all the required tools in order to facilitate the implementation of its strategy. Also it was supported with qualified people. In Hong Kong, the ICAC independently has the authority to investigate and prosecute in order to fight corruption and the rule of law is fully demonstrated (ICAC, 2002). Additionally, ICAC has access to a wide range of information in order to investigate with a high level of officials. This is consider a good indication of the High transparency that the country has, which made the task of searching for information so easy and save both time and effort. However, the ICAC cannot prosecute a person before seeking the permission from the judicial authorities in the country and this can be justified as to avoid any misuse of such authority by the commission (ICAC, 2002).

Like ICAC in Hong Kong, the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) and the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) in Ghana can investigate and prosecute officials but only when it is approved by the Ministry of Justice. Nevertheless, unlike ICAC, the subordination of CHRAJ and SFO to the government has weakened their roles and has made them ineffectual (Abdulai, 2009). In fact history has approved that Ghanaian Governments can dismiss the finding of corruption. In 1995, for example, CHRAJ, after a long investigation, found two ministers and a presidential advisor guilty of corruption, responsible for conflict of interest and for the abuse of their offices However the National Democratic Congress government simply dismissed the case (Abdulai, 2009).Gyimah (2002) described the situation in Ghana in his words “The independence and capacity of constitutional and statutory oversight bodies should be significantly enhanced. In most cases, this would require enhancing the constitutional, operational and financial independence of anti-corruption commissions and insulating them from the very institutions and officials they are set up to oversee “(Gyimah, 2002, p.5).

It is clear from the above discussion that the government in Ghana, unlike the government in Hong Kong, does not have a strong willingness to fight corruption, which shows that it undermines the authority of the anti-corruption agencies and reduces their powers.

Sufficient support for anti-corruption agencies

When government has the actual will to prevent corruption, it will not only establish anti-corruption agencies, but also would provide them with the necessary independent financial resources to help them carry out their work and provide the necessary training for their staff. The evidence shows that the Hong Kong’s government provides sufficient funding to the ICAC. In 2001, the ICAC manpower was 1,286 members with a budget of US$88 million (Quah, 2004, p. 2). In 2002, the manpower increased to 1,300 and the salaries took the largest percentage of the budget of US$94 million that the commission managed in both years 2001-2002 (ICAC, 2002). The high salaries have given the ICAC the advantage to keep its staff; hence many of the employees have been working for the ICAC for a long time (Heilbrunn, 2004). In contrast, the SFO in Ghana suffers from the inadequate financial support; it had to also undergo long processes in order to obtain the necessary agreement for its budgetary estimates, which were often cut by the financial authorities. As a result of that, the SFO is always suffering from shortage of staff and equipment(Asibuo, 2001).Like the SFO, the CHRAJ, faces a significant challenge in terms of its financial affairs, the government, instead of increasing its budget in 2005, decrease the budget allocation from what it was in 2004 (Abdulai, 2009). Therefore and due to the issue of budgetary considerations, CHRAJ has not been able expand all over the country as is it difficult to buy the necessary logistics such as cars and equipment (Darko, 2014). It appears that both SFO and CHRAJ in Ghana share the same challenge regarding the insufficiency of financial resources, which may indicate the lack of seriousness of the governments in the fight against this phenomenon.

Provide incentives and sanctions to reduce corruption

If governments have the political intent and actual tendency to tackle corruption, then several things needed to take place. For instance, severe punishment has to be imposed. Apart from this, the government should work on increasing the awareness of the general people regarding the potential penalty if individuals could be found to have been engaged in corruption. In order to apply effective enforcement in fighting corruption in a thorough and planned manner, anti-corruption bodies should embrace a ‘zero-tolerance’ of corruption and stringent implementation of anticorruption action plan. A traditional theory of the causes of corruption which has the premises on the rational actor, established that the individual tends to avoid committing corruption if he knows that breaking the law incurs greater costs than benefits (Choi, 2009).Moreover, if the “big fish” could enjoy immunity and could be left unpunished for corruption, the truthfulness and efficiency of the anti-corruption body will become questionable (Quah, 2004). The law must apply to everyone regardless of the status of the individual. Everyone in front of the law is supposed to be equal, whether they are senior officials or ordinary employees.

However, in Ghana in the course of an investigation with the officials, they are often asked to either resign or return the embezzled amount without being prosecuted, there is strong evidence from the 2007 hearings of the PAC of Parliament which found that corruption is prevalent in the state bureaucracy, with funds approved for development purposes being misplaced and stolen by public officials with impunity (Abdulai, 2009). In contract in ICAC in Hong Kong adopted a Zero- tolerance policy, therefore created strong legal structure. ICAC also has extensive powers under the law to investigate and prosecute cases of corruption in Hong Kong, for example one of ACAC strict law says that “any person who, being or having been a Government servant maintains a standard of living above that which is commensurate with his present or past official emoluments, shall, unless he gives a satisfactory explanation to the court as to how he was able to maintain such a standard of living, be guilty of an offence” (Kumar, 2004).

Nevertheless, some scholars believe that social accountability comes with a wider meaning that acknowledge that actor can play crucial role if they do not have authority to sanction (Peruzzotti and Smulovitz 2006; Smulovitz and Peruzzotti 2000). Undoubtedly, one can observe the role of some non-state actors in fight against corruption for instance the media and social media which could bravely remove a corrupt official. Schedler (1999) argued that there is a different between the power to ask and expect the answer, and the power to sanction by the law (Schedler, 1999). Schedler believed that accountability should include both. However, Grimes (2008) argues that social accountability happens, when citizens engage in policy making process and implementation in order to reduce corruption (Grimes, 2008).

On the other hand, Corruption, like other crimes, is based upon motive, opportunity, and how these factors impact the relationship between citizens and government, serious governments recognise that effective strategies restructure the principal-agent relationship, provide positive incentives for compliance, and establish effective sanctions to prevent individuals and institutions from engaging in corrupt (Kpundeh, 1998).Therefore, if a country decides to take steps in the face of corrupt, it adopts any suggested law or policy whose purpose is to undermine corruption in all of its forms and manifestations.

It is believed that raising of salaries is considered as one of the strategies which some countries follow, however, and because the weak economy Ghana suffered, the country has not considered that strategy, as its public officials get the lowest salary in Sub-Saharan Africa which is at the same level of economic growth as Ghana(Abdulai, 2009). In 2001, for example, in the public sector the maximum salary in Ghana was estimated at $3,275 compared to $8,523 in Benin, $12,337 in Tanzania and $13,300 in Uganda. While the minimum salaries in Ghana was estimated at $252 compared to $923 in Benin, $1,045 in Senegal, $701 in Tanzania and $523 in Uganda (Levy and Kpundeh, 2004). Thus, low salary in Ghana can be considered as high motivation for public service officials to engage in corrupt transactions and practices; these are other evidences of the lack of political will (Abdulai, 2009). On the other hand, the strategy of Hong Kong in fighting corruption focuses on reducing the opportunities for corruption rather than increasing the incentive (Quah, 1994).As has been noted earlier the employees of the ICAC salaries are basically high and it might be the case that there could be no justification for raising them.

People engagement in fighting corruption

It is known that the role of society in fighting against corruption has proved its success. However, it works when it finds support by the political leadership, when people feel that their voice could be heard and that there is a sincere response by the government. Therefore, people are likely to continually raise corruption affairs as long as they find genuine responses by the government and have not been ignored(Abdulai, 2009).Indeed, the ICAC recognised the effectiveness of the participation of the common people. For example, ICAC received US$100 million in its 1999-2000 budgets, three quarters of that was allocated to the Operations Department, which is in charge of investigating complaints and pursuing evidence of misusing of public funds by civil servants and the private sector (Kpunde,2000).ICAC has also, adopted a plan to educate people and increase their awareness about the dangers of corruption to the country and the necessity and the manner in which to report cases of suspicion of corruption, the plan was covered with the following points, effected complaint system, working 24 hours, to gain people trust and encourage them to report events of corruption, the plan also includes a prompt response system to address cases that require quick action (Abdulai, 2009). In addition to that, the ICAC adopts a zero tolerance policy, which mean the investigators must deal with all cases equally regardless the level of corruption and whether its grand or petty(Man-wai, 2006).

In contrast, the government in Ghana has not paid attention to people's participation in corruption cases which could be considered to be a possible result of the financial deficit that the anti-corruption agencies always face (Abdulai, 2009).Darko (2014) also thinks that because of the financial circumstances, CHRAJ has not been able to implement its plans and could not approach 70% of Ghanaian people who live in the rural areas around the country, thus, CHRAJ failed to increase the awareness of these people of Ghana(Darko, 2014). Therefore, reporting corruption is a culture that does not exist among citizens in Ghana (Abdulai, 2009). The Corruption and Governance Survey makes these comments in its report:

“Mechanisms for reporting corruption are weak. More than 81% of the households are not aware of the existence of any corruption reporting system. Even 23% of public officials were not aware of complaint registering mechanisms. Among the households who made unofficial payments to public officials in the past two years, only 5% of them made a report. A quarter of households did not report instances of observed corruption because they did not know exactly where to make such complaints” (CDD-Ghana, 2000). On the other hand, the undue delay in passing a Freedom of Information act has undermined the confidence of the people in the desire of the government to confront corruption; also, President Kuffour’s strategy includes a condition under which the complainant against the public servant must provide solid evidence (Abdulai, 2009).All these actions and policies by the Government of Ghana have made people question the real desire of the government to confront corruption. Nevertheless, The Corruption and Governance Survey found that people in Ghana want to participate in fighting corruption as (44%) would like to contribute with 4% of their revenue to eliminate corruption, while 27% of citizens are willing to contribute with 10% of their income (CDD-Ghana, 2000).It is clear that there are beneficiaries of the existing corruption in the country and that fighting this phenomenon is against their interests.

Conclusion

It appears from the experience of Hong Kong and Ghana that Civil society can play an important role in the fight against corruption once it has been provided with all the necessary support by the decision makers in the country, such as sufficient powers and budgets to implement its plans. Civil society cannot extend and approach all the people in a given country if it does not have the necessary tools, therefore, it will fail to increase awareness of the general populace about the damage of corruption. Civil society would also fail to keep its staff if it could not provide them with competitive salary schemes which could make them feel secured and stable.

The study provides evidence that the civil societies succeeded and achieved their goals when the governments had the will and the determination to fight corruption and provided the civil society with all the required support as it seemed in the case of Hong Kong, whereas the government of Ghana did not provide the agencies with the proper support which undermined all the efforts which the anti-corruption mechanism in the country had invested towards the attempts to reduce corruption.

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