5. Introduction
5.3 Corruption and Public Sector in Post-Colonial Africa
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The colonial administration also introduced taxation in the areas they colonised.
The colonial government came to Africa with their imposition of a flat rate tax known as hut-tax. The money made from the hut tax was used in running the colonial administration. The citizens saw problems with such taxation as they were not benefitting fully from it, as the money collected was not fully accounted for. It was the unethical practices by the colonial chiefs, as a result of the taxation, that led to the Aba women riot of 1928, which left thirty-two women dead and thirty-one wounded (Uchendu, 1965: 47). This shows that some of the civil servants in the public sector during the colonial administration were after their private gains. There were other instances that were connected to corruption in the colonial public sector.
The above evidence shows that corruption was present during colonial Africa.
Nevertheless, we are not by this condemning or writing off as evil and immoral everything did by the colonial masters in Africa. For instance, the civil service that was set up by the colonial government was one of the best things done to African continent. Concurring with this, Amadi maintains that the civil service is actually one of the Europeans‟ greatest legacies to Africa. According to him, the civil service was almost immune from corruption in its early days. Also, many of the British civil servants were excellent administrators, who were in charge of key posts in the public sector and saw to it that corruption was reduced to the barest minimum (Amadi, 1992: 88). This indicates that there was not much corruption in those areas of the colonial public sector, in those areas administered by the Europeans. These Europeans strictly applied what Ake meant when he avered: To avoid many of the unethical practices in the public sector, roles, activities, and relationships are to be strictly governed by rules, which are rigidly adhered to (Ake, 2000: 493).
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As colonialism was drawing to an end, the African elites were getting set to take over from the Western people “however, for the elites independence was a mere shortcut to achieving their objective: to rise socially, replace the white man, be more like him” (Gould, 1980:22).This may be observed in the way the public sector is being administered today. It can be stated that after independence by African countries, the „colonial chiefs‟ type of administration which lacked due process is still in use in African countries. According to Mulinge and Lesetedi:
The attainment of independence by African countries did not end this „colonial chief‟ model of administration. The leadership style adopted by African political and administrative elites after independence reveals a strong resemblance to this model...like the colonial chief, these leaders have been associated with authoritarianism and, most important, an almost total lack of respect for the law and due process. In addition, they have used their positions of power to amass illegal wealth just like the colonial chief. In particular, they have shown open contempt for the law, an attitude which is partly responsible for the rampant corruption that characterises most administrative bureaucracies in sub-Saharan Africa today (Mulinge and Lesetedi, 1998:22).
The case here is that the system of governance in Africa today is more or less a continuation of what was obtainable during the colonial period. The authoritarian method and the lack of accountability of the colonial chiefs are still perpetuated today by African leaders and the consequence is the rampancy of corruption experienced in almost every aspect of the African life.
Another contributing factor to the rampancy of corruption in post-colonialAfrica is role confusion.This is because, sometimes due to the influence of colonialism, some civil servants are confused as to what actually constitute the right thing to do as a civil servant in order not to be involved in unethical practices. Peter Ekeh elaborating on this explains:
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There are two public realms in post-colonial Africa, with the different types of moral linkages to the private realm. At one level is the public realm in which primordial groupings, ties, and sentiments influence and determine the individual public behaviour. I call this primordial public because it is closely identified with primordial groupings, sentiments, and activities, which nevertheless impinge on the public interest...On the other hand, there is a public realm which is historically associated with the colonial administration and which has become identified with popular politics in post-colonial Africa. It is based on civil structures:
the military, the civil service, the police and so on.
Its chief characteristic is that it has no moral linkages with the private realm (Ekeh, 1975:92).
This means that both in the colonial administration as well as in the post-colonial administration respectively, there were two different cultural values. These different cultural values were being operated by the same people in the public sector at the same time. The consequence of this contrary and conflicting moral values operating within the same moral and political environment is that Africans most often prefer to go with their primordial moral sentiments. This reults to corruption when reviewed from a European moral perspective because most Africans do not really believe that they are corrupt when the take from the state to give to their tribes and families.
Furthermore, the civil servants in the post-colonial public sector are not committed to the service which they signed up for. According to Ekeh, “Africans are not hard- working in matters connected with the civic public At least one does not feel guilty if one wastes one‟s time in the service of the civic public (Ekeh, 1975: 111). This means that some civil servants do not take performing their duties in the public sector seriously. They only see it as an evanue to get paid by the state and would not hesitate to dodge their official responsibilities whenever they can. For instance, a civil servant whose duty is to supervise some junior workers to get them acquintedwith their responsibility, may always feel very reluctant in doing so unless there might be some illegal gain that will come out from it. Thus, it may be stated
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that in the public sector in post-colonial Africa people are out to satisfy their selfish interst instead of what will benefit the general public.
It is expected that the public sector in post-colonial Africa ought to maintain the standards of an ideal public sector, an ideal type of bureaucratic organisation where rules are strictly followed, characterised by a hierarchic organisation of office and management of office placed on the hands of specialists (Ake, 2000:493). If the standards expected in the public sectors are maintained, the public service in Africa will look good. For instance, Nnoli points out that, in the public sector:
Officials devote proportionately more time than is reasonable to the serious business of promotion and moving ahead within the system in which very little emphasis is placed on merit and performance.
Relatively little time is consequently left for the tasks which the administrator is expected to perform (Nnoli, 2000: 59-60).
This means that in the public sector in post colonial Africa not much attention is placed on merit as expected from the code of conduct that governs the public sector. Claude Ake explains that against these standards the public service in Africa looks very bad (Ake, 2000: 493).
The public sector in post-colonial Africa is therefore, nothing to write home about which suggests that there are lots of unethical practices in the sector. Consequently, there are so many examples of corrupt practices that may be found in the public sector in post-colonial Africa. Examples of such corrupt practicesinclude: nepotism, ghost workers, bribery, fraud, kickbacks, gift-giving, embezzlement, greed and favouritism.
It is better at this stage to look at corruption in some government departments as this will help to understand and see the level of corruption in the public sector in the post-colonial Africa. For instance, in South Africa, in the Department of Development Aid before 1994, series of corrupt practices such as tender fraud, favouritism, nepotism and lack of accountability among others, were recorded.
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Thus, because of the high rate of corruption or culture of corruption in this department, those who were not at first interested in involving themselves into corrupt practices were tempted to join in unethical conducts. According to the Pickard Report (Republic of South Africa 1991 cited in Constanze Bauer):
the attitude in the Department of Development Aid later became so blatantly dishonest that even officials who under other circumstance would never have thought of becoming involved in such corrupt action began debating that if others can get away with such behaviour, why should they disadvantage themselves by not becoming involved also (Bauer, 2000:220).
From the above quotation, it is clear that some of the civil servants serving in the department were actually influenced into corrupt practices by the corrupt nature of the system itself. Their action in turn helped corruption to increase in the department. This is because those officials, who were not interested in the act, later were tempted to join. In other words, corruption sometimes helps to increase corruption as has been observed in chapter three. This suggests that sometimes corruption may not just originate spontaneously but may be trigged by something else. The officials in the public sector who may be involved inpublic sector corruption may not be doing it alone. Sometimes civil servants involve those outside the public sector in other to achieve their illegal act.
Furthermore, in the Department of Development Aid, there were reported cases of nepotism and favouritism by some of the civil servants. In this case, certain civil servants were involved in giving undue favour to their family members. When this was investigated, according to Bauer the commission of inquiry found out “that certain officials in the Department of Development Aid had been promoted quicker than would have been the norm, especially as these officials had not been found particularly promotable or competent” (Bauer, 2000: 222) When civil servants are promoted when they do not merit such promotion, such kind of behaviour is seen as corruption in the public sector which is usually as a result of nepotism or
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favouritism. Among the many cases of nepotism and favouritism reported in the Department of Development Aid was the case that involves the daughter of a deputy director. According to Bauer:
She had started work as an administrative assistant in the Department of Development Aid on 29 November 1974 after qualifying as a teacher. By 1 August 1989, she had been promoted through various ranks to deputy director and, throughout her career, she had been associated with the Department of Town and Land Affairs and had worked in the same directorate as her father. Her promotion had been signed by her father and she had been retained in the Directorate of Town and Land Affairs on his recommendation although this had entailed that another senior official had to be transferred elsewhere. Her study bursary had also been taken over by the Department of Development Aid, against official policy, on the intervention of her father (Bauer, 2000:222).
This is one of the types of corruption that is very common in the public sector in post-colonial Africa. It is obvious from the above quotation that there are some officials in the public sector that use their position to give undue benefit to members of their family. The public sector is quite different from the private sector where the director of the company may be the sole owner of the business. It is unethical if the public office is used as family business. Civil servants serving in the public sector ought to be promoted based on merit.
One of the cases of corruption that was discovered in the Department of Education and Training was ghosting. It was “found that a friend of the Deputy Director- General had received US$25000 for non-existent camps” (Bauer, 2000:226). This is ghosting.Ghosting as a form of corruption is used here to deprive the state of funds that should have been channelled in the improvement of this particular department or in the development of other departments.
Also, cases of nepotism and favouritism were not left out in the Department of Education and Training. In one of the cases, a Deputy Director-General of the DET
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was found to be favouring his son‟s companies and tried to cover up the illegal act.
According to Bauer:
It became clear to the Commission of Inquiry that the people who moved within the circle of supporters and confidants of the Deputy Director- General benefited from favouritism. Over a period of five months during the 1987-8 financial year, a friend of the Deputy Director-General had received nearly US$1 million from the US$2.4 million put aside for the renting of private terrains. The friend of the Deputy Director-General also operated under the names of many companies. Use was made of these companies, either for tax evasion or for the covering up of tracks (Bauer, 2000: 225-226).
Trying to make what is unethical appear as if it is ethical is deceit. It is one of the ways some civil servants use to deceive the general public in order to succeed with their plans.
The above quotations on both the Department of Development Aid and Department of Education and Training respectively, suggests, the rate of corruption in the public sector in post-colonial Africa, where some civil servants seem no longer to be honest in discharging their public functions. Testifying to the high rate of corruption in South Africa for instance, Cynthia Schoeman says that, Public Protector, Thuli Madonsela, told the South Africa Parliament late last year that corruption in South Africa has reached crisis proportions. This is reflected in the many corruption scandals that continue to feature in our press. It is also supported by the country‟s level of corruption as measured by Transparency International‟s Corruption Perception Index (CPI) and Global Corruption Barometer (Shoeman, 2014: 40).
Having examined the prevalence of corruption in two departments in the South Africanpublic sector, it then becomes important to look at the issue of corruption in the public sector in another country in the African continent.This is because the problem of corruption in the public sector cuts across Africa. In order words
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corruption in the public sector in post-colonial Africa is not peculiar to only one country in the continent.
In the case of Nigeria, the issue of corruption may be said to abound in almost every department that makes up the public sector. According to Christopher Agalamanyi:
Corruption is a cancerous ailment that has eaten deep in the public service sector of the Nigerian economy. In short, there is no aspect of the public service that is spared. For example, government departments such as the Customs, Immigration, Inland Revenue, National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), National Electric Power Authority (NEPA), the Nigerian Telecommunications Limited (NITEL), the Nigerian Postal Services (NIPOST),the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), all in one way or the other bear tales of corruption (Agalamanyi, 2002: 54).
This means that corruption in Nigeria is a very serious issue in thepublic sector, according to what is happening in the various government departments. For instance, in the department of Customs and Excise which is responsible for collecting customs and excise duties and also for accounting for them, there are notable cases of corruption.
Most often, some of the officials in this department may engage in falsification of documents so as to help the importers to avoid the payment of full duty. What is supposed to be collected for the government is now collected for private gain, thereby, costing the government millions of Naira from that department alone.
Allowing the importers to smuggle contraband goods into the country is not helpful, as this would not allow the local industries to grow.Some of the corrupt activities that have been going on in the department of customs and excise are on record. According to Agalmanyi:
The unfortunate situation of the Customs Department was confirmed by the front page story
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of Daily Mail of 20th November 1992 which screamed „smuggling at Seme borders: Nigeria loses
#40 million monthly‟. This sting indicated that the smuggling activities are carried out with the connivance of men of the Department of Customs and Excise, State Security Service, Military Iintelligence and Immigration officials at the borders (Agalamanyi, 2002: 55).
From the above quotation, there is evidence that there is corruption in the public sector in Nigeria. If the Department of Customs and Excise that is charged with the work of checking and stopping prohibited goods into the country, now helps in smuggling in the prohibited goods into the same country, it then means corruption in the public sector. The actions of some of the Customs officials clearly indicate that they are after their private gains.
Again, the Nigerian Police Force is another government department with a noticeable number of corrupt officials. In this case, Agalamanyi explains that,
“there is no use over-beating the fact that the Nigerian Police has a number of corrupt officers within its rank and file” (Agalamanyi, 2002: 64). The Nigerian Police Force which was established to maintain law and order, keep the peace and fight corruption within the country hardly live up to these resposibilities. Pos- colonial, Nigerian Police force is known to be one of the departments in the public sector where corruption is practiced at a very high rate. In line with this, Agalamanyi argues that:
The Nigerian Police had been known to collude with dubious characters to defraud other Nigerians to even engage in the more violent crimes of robbery.
The Anini – Iyamu case is a classic example which still lingers in the memory of many Nigerians”
(Agalamanyi, 2002: 64).
It is an abuse of office for a civil servant like a policeman to defraud the citizens.
This is indeed corruption in the public sector. The Nigerian Police officials, as civil servants, are expected to be honest in discharging their public duties. They have to remember that they took an oath of office to protect the citizens. It is the duty of the
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police to always protect the citizens of the country at any point in time and not to act as unfaithful servants.
Another public department in Nigeria where corruption seems to be rampant is in the Judiciary department. The administrative section of the department may be the most affected, as any service rendered to the general public involves the payment of money, even if it is a service that is supposed to be rendered free. According to Amujiri:
Corruption is equally rampant in the judiciary. The administrative arm of the judiciary is the most corrupt. Every stop in filling, processing and assessing an application or in getting a court order executed or obtaining a copy of a ruling involves money. A legal practitioner going to file an application in court knows that he has to take some extra money which he calls PR which he knows will be vital to lubricate and ensure that his paper receives prompt attention (Amujiri 2002: 76).
The above quotation, strongly suggests that the judiciary department is equally corrupt. Today people are favoured when they pay for services which in the ordinary sense are supposed to be given free to them. Cases are won and lost in court not based on evidence but based who pays the highest amount to judges and lawyers. With corruption practised openly in a country‟s judiciary, what then may be the hope of the common man who cannot pay his way to get justice? This however, doest not mean that the rich are only to blame. Everybody shares the blame. Corruption thrives in the country because everyone directly or indirectly sanctions it, at by keeping quiet in the face of mounting evidence of corruption.
Another area where the preponderance of corruption in post-colonial Africa is ably demonstrated in Nigerian is among the political class, particularly Nigerian heads of state. This thesis shall take the case of the late Nigerian leader, Genral Sani Abacha as an example here. Abacha‟s regime was noted for corruption and nepotism. Abacha as the president of Nigeria ruled the country from November 1993 to June 1998. General Abacha‟s regime may be regarded as one of the periods