Corruption is responsible for poverty and poor health service delivery in East Africa.

In Africa and East Africa in particular, speaking on behalf of the poor and the oppressed has become the easiest tool to rise to political offices. The most unfortunate about this is that when politicians get to their dream political positions, they turn against the electorate. In East Africa for instance, we have witnessed ‘bad’ laws being enacted by parliamentarians to protect their interests, funds meant to for development projects and health being swindled by government officials and the populations being turned against each other by politicians.  A review of the development progress in many countries around the world in the past few decades reveals that those that achieved growth did so through diverse policies and institutional arrangements with anti corruption policies being one the most important; That said,

Has any us wondered why the poor continue to get poorer even with their countries GDP increasing every other quarter? Why are food prices are rising and yet poor farmers never benefit? What makes the game funny is that even political players who struggle to keep them down blame the poor for their status. A case in a point is the Jigger epidemic in Busoga  in Eastern Uganda. I first had about the Jiggers story from one funny friend who told me that the jigger epidemic was out of curses  from Busoga ancestors. Funny myth!  Then politicians exchanged accusations over undelivered promises.  I was one of the many Ugandans surprised by the intensity of the jigger epidemic when the media unfolded it. I made a brief  conclusion on the key players involved;  politicians  and civil servants embezzled money meant for water and health facilities, the curses tormented the folks  that they  even forgot to bathe and  jiggers hit epidemic levels! Right? This is one case we have seen the poor being blamed for their problems yet what belongs to them is stolen by policy makers, literate and beuaracrats which pushes the poor further into the tunnel.

Our East African Community neighbors are not any better. Transparency International, still rates Kenya as one of the world's most corrupt countries, Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo feature on the same list. In 2005,  Kenya’s Bribery Index suggested that the number of bribery cases reported by the public in dealings between public and private officials has dipped from 40% to 34% and the average bribe paid has soared, from 1,484 Kenyan shillings ($20) to 4,958 ($68). – The Economist Aug 11th  2005.  Rwanda; even with the delicate political situation in Kigali and Kigali’s investment into international media to have it presented as corruption-free,  84% of the Rwandans told Transpar­ency International that they believe Rwanda is slightly corrupt and   12%. Rwanda’s ‘white collar’ corruption mostly benefits the high political class and mak­es it more difficult for the ordinary folks to speak out about it. The News Line, July 13, 2010

Corruption in the health sector is a critical problem in developing economies where public resources are already scarce. Developing countries experience the highest level of under-table payments to doctors in order to receive treatment, unethical promotion, bribes, and bid rigging during procurement. All these and many other factors affect service delivery to the poor in such countries.

Health is an essential goal of development and growth of a self-sustaining population and economy. Health has direct influence on poverty and income levels in any country and therefore countries ought to ensure sustainable financing for health objectives and anti corruption policies to achieve health and development objectives.

Ahabwe Michael 
Director ICOD Action Network
ahamitch@gmail.com

Anti Corruption Blog Launched.

Corruption is a very big problem in many nations of the world – some would assert that it is becoming more extensive, and more areas of development activity are being affected. Corruption is also becoming, de facto, an attack on governance as more and more of the rules under which nations are governed are breached with impunity. Citizen engagement is very important in fighting corruption, and there are particular advantages in getting NGOs more involved in the fight. NGOs have limitations, but also great potential strengths, and these can be better realized through better project management.

Unfortunately, there are many indications that corruption continues to be not only a serious problem, but also an increasing one. All over the world, including those places where neo-liberal economics and liberal-democratic politics have been institutionalized, there has grown up a “new corruption” that has become a part of these new institutions and is carried out by greedy and rapacious elites.

Corruption also generates economic distortions in the public sector by diverting public investment away from education and into capital projects where bribes and kickbacks are more plentiful. Officials may increase the technical complexity of public sector projects to conceal such dealings, thus further distorting investment. Corruption also lowers compliance with construction, environmental and other regulations; reduces the quality of government services and infrastructure, and increases budgetary pressure on government.

Corruption means that money that would otherwise have been available for spending on the public good by government is siphoned off into the pockets of individuals, and money that would otherwise have been available for productive investment is diverted and skewed into schemes that provide the most illicit income for corrupt people. A World Bank Forum.

Corruption harms democracy

Corruption erodes each of these aspects of democracy. With corruption, political parties are financed by interests to whom they are then beholden, whatever their promises to the people. Political parties in turn often try to bribe the electorate to give them their votes, or intimidate them by promising them government goods and services if elected, or that they will be shut out of government services if they back the wrong party. In some cases political parties (particularly parties that are in power) are able to skew the electoral process itself by buying off those who manage it.

This is the time to stop corruption; expose the corrupt and petition our government to prosecute them or isolate corrupt governments.