Cibane (2013) states that there is evidence that replacement of public functionaries and government accused of being corrupt with the assumed saintly cohorts has historically reproduced the same histories described as corruption. Such eventualities should raise questions about the conceptualisation of corruption because cultural determinism cannot for be separated from their meaning of corruption for example some West supporting certain African leaders over many years later coming out to overthrow them as corrupt and charging them. Pillay (2004) analysts eagerly conclude that corruption threatens to block South Africa’s path towards sustainable development since it has flourished in most sections of the South African National Public Service making it the “common cold” of the national evils. However, Caiden (2013) argues that corruption transpires in all walks of life. It traps everyone at some point in life. Once it is shared, it has possible public outcomes, implications, consequences, and emulations.
Nevertheless, there are wide differences on how much wrongdoing should remain confined to the parties involved and left to their discretion to handle. Ideas differ in time, values and opinions
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change, and situations get transformed. Because local cultures vary from place to place, few universals can be taken for granted. Nevertheless, more emphasis is placed on corruption that occurs in the public domain of governance where the stakeholders generally include everybody not just the parties directly involved, even future generations.
There is a general consistency laze in most examinations of corruption, especially when it involves Africa and Africans, because the suggestion that there was incorporeal and unlocated impartiality and objectivity of the ego-politics of knowledge is a Western myth (Grosfoguel, 2007).
Generally the pertinent epistemological questions are avoided in the discussion of corruption in favour of characterisation of Africa as generally corrupt. There is cognitive laze in thinking that hegemonic Eurocentric paradigms that have informed Western philosophy and sciences in the modern world system have assumed a universalistic, neutral, objective point of view (Grosfoguel, 2007). Hence, throughout much history, the study of corruption has mainly concentrated on the institution of government, and more particularly on the behaviour of those who work within its machinery to implement public policies and directions in numerous categories of public functionary (Caiden, 2013).
Pillay (2004) stipulates that South Africa society of fabric is being eroded by corruption.
The scholar blames the complex political design for the rise of corruption and the attendant adverse effect on stability and trust as well as damage of the ethos of democratic values and principles. However, Grosfoguel’s (2007: 25) observation about the concept of global capitalism is equally relevant to that of corruption, because they are both “in need of decolonisation” with a decolonial epistemology that clearly assumes thedecolonial geo-politics and body politics of knowledge as points of departure to a drastic critique. To this point, it is clear why South Africa’s fight against the “evils of corruption” (Pillay, 2004) has appeared to be in vain. The evidence is clear that “corruption” index placing is beginning to influence the flow of anti-corruption resources. While TI says that its CPI ought not to be the basis of aid allocation, there is the strong likelihood that donors are using it nonetheless as an allocation basis (Galtung, 2006). Only one organisation has so far revealed that it depends on “corruption” index positioning when determining aid eligibility. This is the US Congress funded Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC). To receive MCC funding countries must perform above the medium within their peer group on the World Bank’s Control of Corruption Index (Millennium Challenge Corporation, 2005).
As the begging dog will embrace unnatural behaviour when begging for food reward, African governments have found themselves in some vast operant conditioning exercise whereby public policy deviations towards West endorsed anti-corruption strategies achieve the incentive of aid inflows. So it is reasonable to expect that the politics of CPI targeting will narrow government behaviour towards the reductionist myth that “good governance no corruption” and thereby reduce performance where targets do not apply for example the public health. This is what is seen as “striking the target and missing the point (De Maria, 2008).”
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The Anti-Corruption Commission Act, 1996 (Act 46 of 1996) of Zambia a SADC member country describes corruption in section 3 as the soliciting, accepting, obtaining, giving, encouraging or offering of a gratification by way of a bribe or other personal temptation or inducement, or the misuse or abuse of a public office for private advantage or a benefit.
According to the 2001 Corruption Perception Index (CPI), Zambia was listed the ninth most corrupt country out of the 90 countries surveyed, 11th out of the 102 countries surveyed in 2002 and again 11th out of the 133 countries surveyed in 2003. It dropped to ninth position, alongside with ten other countries, out of the 163 countries surveyed in 2006. The CPI is a poll of polls reflecting the perceptions of business people and country analysts, both those that are resident and non-resident in a country. It measures the degree to which corruption is alleged to exist amid public officials and politicians. It is a composite index, drawing on corruption-related data in professional surveys carried out by a variety of reputable institutions. It reflects the views of business people and analysts around the world, including experts who are resident in the countries being evaluated.
The Transparency International National Integrity Systems Country Study Report of 2003 analysed the strengths and weaknesses in Zambia’s governance system, as well as the executive, the legislature and the judiciary. It provided a overwhelming analysis of how a government can loot its treasury, corrupt key agencies in the country, interfere with privatisation and banking practices, and use the resources of the state to fund its supremacy in an election process and pay for its retention of power. The report indicated that the Zambian Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) is both under-resourced and under-skilled, that Members of Parliament lack the ability to discharge their functions effectively, and that the offices of the Auditor General and Ombudsman are effectively waning. This is attributed to a policy of deliberate under-funding and failure to punish those exposed as being corrupt. In particular, the report called for improvements to the legal infrastructure, including protection of whistle-blowers, monitoring mechanisms for gifts to ministers and public officials, strengthening of conflict of interest rules, and an enforceable code of conduct for public officials if corruption was to reduce in Zambia (Zambia Institute for Security Studies, 2009).
According to the Institute For Security Studies 2009, eight in ten Zambian households and public officials interviewed for the National Governance Baseline Survey (2004) ranked corruption in the public sector as a very serious challenge to the country with nearly seven in ten managers (67 per cent) ranking it as the greatest difficult obstacle to business development in Zambia. Those that were surveyed by the Institute for Security Studies noted that almost 40 per cent of the respondents stated that they had been asked for a bribe to acquire a public service, licences or permits. According to the survey, the police, the National Registration Office, the courts and the Lands Department which are under the public sector are agencies where unofficial payments are solicited most frequently. Generally, public institutions are considered to
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be only moderately honest. The organisation’s rated the most honest as being the Ministries of Health and Education, the Postal Services, and church and religious organisations.