“Quiet corruption” – the failure of public servants to deliver goods or services paid for by governments – is pervasive and widespread across Africa and is having a disproportionate effect on the poor, with long-term consequences for development, according to a new report from the World Bank.
This is according to the World Bank’s newly released Africa Development Indicators. Read more in the press release on the World Bank website or check out the report itself.
Overall, the report is interesting in that it shows that corruption is not just about bribery (exchange of money in brown envelopes), its much more complex than that. Report visual – “quiet corruption” as the bottom [larger] part of the iceberg hidden below the water level.
The report has a number of examples of how corruption hurts development in key social sectors, including education and health, going against the common perception in developing countries (and some economists’) that corruption makes inefficiencies more efficient or that it speeds things up. Sure, it can speed things up, but at what cost?
What happens when 20% of teachers never show up for work, but get paid anyway? What happens when 30% of healthcare workers don’t show up for work, but get paid anyway? What happens when 50% of drugs sold in stores are counterfeit? What happens when more than 75% of firms in a country report that they have to regularly pay bribes amounting to 8% of the costs to get things done?
You can imagine what happens. Corruption no longer seems like harmless dealings to “get things done.”
aleksandr, the issue regarding corruption in service delivery is very central to the way local governace should be executing their operations. The extent to which the government loses revenue from tax payers through negligence and unaccounatability is more grave than what the tax payers are made to believe. Local authorities really need to erect systems that curb such loses.
There is corruption in the town where I live. I don’t think that it is intended to get things done but is rather used to knock out any competent people so that the social butterflies can have long lunches and galas and some maybe get trips to Africa to give talks about the human condition. But I don’t think it gets anything done.