Corruption by Government

CORRUPTION THEORY

Corruption by government officials is one o the big challenges engulfing the public sector around the world. Corruption is however believed to be most prevalent in African countries and according to Peter Anassi, is the major reason why this continent is somewhat behind in as far as development is concerned (2004, p.171). This makes corruption to be very pertinent in any public sector engagement. It is for this reason that for our research on the delivery of RDP houses, we are going to use corruption as one of the guiding theories. In introducing this theory, it is important start by defining the term corruption first. Corruption is a broad term which encompass a lot of things, most of which are not relevant in our endeavor discuss this theory. As such, we employ Joan Robinson’s definition of corruption as our working definition. “Corruption... is the use of... power for.., .profit, preferment, or prestige, or for the benefit of a group or class, in a way that constitutes a breach of law or of standards of high moral conduct" (1970, pp. 52). This decision is chosen because it offers a key advantage in that it succinctly highlight exactly certain core aspect of our research area which is the abuse of power for one’s gain.

From the above definition, we are going to establish out corruption theory. In addition to the working definition, we also employ Shleifer-Vishny’s corruption theory to construct our theory. This theory explains as rooted from the government. This theory thus charges that: “Good and smart government makes the rules that make it tempting for the bureaucrat to take money and bend the rules. The bureaucrat introduces the red-tape in order to bend the rules in a way that protect him. Corruption and red-tape go together.”

Therefore the employed working definition as well as the above accounted for theory informs our corruption theory which maintains that: The government’s functional rules are progressive, but are not without...