Memorandum submitted by CIETeurope
This memorandum addresses several of the points
of focus of the inquiry:
— the causes, nature and extent of
corruption in the public sector in developing countries;
— the impact of corruption on development,
with particular reference to the provision of services to poor
people; and
— measures to combat corruption - building
the community voice into the fight against corruption.
Corruption has long been recognised as an issue
in development at the macro level, with large amounts of money
being stolen by corrupt senior officials and political leaders
in developing countries, and large bribes being paid by international
concerns in order to secure business opportunities. The everyday
corruption that pervades the public services of developing countries
has been termed "petty corruption" and has tended to
be considered less important than the grand corruption involving
much larger individual sums of money. Mirroring this perception
about the importance of different levels of corruption, most efforts
to combat corruption have been top-down and centralised, with
little if any involvement of ordinary citizens.
The CIET approach to corruption begins from
the perspective of ordinary citizens, people who are supposed
to receive public services free or at nominal cost. It documents
the extent and effects of corruption on the delivery of public
services, collects information about what supports corruption
and what supports integrity, and most importantly involves the
people concerned—the intended service beneficiaries and
the service providers - in describing the problem and formulating
solutions. In the CIET approach, corruption is one of the many
factors that contribute to lack of access to effective public
services, especially for the most vulnerable groups in the society,
and involving ordinary people in the fight against corruption
is a way of supporting good governance and tackling poverty. The
intention is to create a push from below to improve services and
reduce corruption. This provides a climate conducive to high level
actions to root out grand corruption and provide support for local
initiatives against corruption.
NATURE, CAUSES
AND EFFECTS
OF CORRUPTION
IN PUBLIC
SERVICES
Corruption does not "oil the wheels"
of public services
It is still argued by some people that corruption
"oils the wheels" and helps to keep public services
working. The idea is that people are happy to make small payments
for services supposed to be free, they get a better service as
a result, and everyone benefits. However, CIET social audits of
public services in different countries paint a very different
picture.
A national integrity survey in Uganda in 19981
confirmed that the experience of corruption by people attempting
to use public services was widespread. Some 40 per cent of service
users reported having to pay a bribe to service workers in their
most recent contact: the highest rate of bribery was in the police
(63 per cent) and judiciary (50 per cent) services. At the same
time, experience of the services was not good, with long waits,
multiple visits and multiple staff seen in order to complete dealings
with a service. People who made payments to service workers did
not experience a quicker, better service: they saw more staff,
made more visits and took longer to complete their business.
Similar findings of a more protracted service
when a bribe is paid come from the 1998 national integrity survey
in Bolivia2. These payments to service providers are better described
as extortion rather than bribery, since bribery implies a voluntary
payment with a facilitation of service as a result. Most of those
who paid in Uganda and Bolivia claimed this was on demand from
the service providers.
CORRUPTION IS
NOT AN
ACCEPTED PART
OF LIFE
IN DEVELOPING
COUNTRIES
It is sometimes suggested that concepts of corruption
from developed countries cannot be applied to other countries
with different cultural contexts. However, experience of hearing
the views of ordinary people in different parts of the world suggests
that they are well aware of what constitutes corruption and angry
about the effects it has on their lives, while often feeling powerless
to do anything about it.
"Police are too rotten—they will squeeze
us until we are left as bones." Male focus group, Uganda
Despite low expectations of public services,
household respondents in many countries rate the services deservedly
negatively, and frequently cite issues related to corruption problems
with the services. In Uganda, service users who paid a bribe were
less satisfied with the service they received than those who did
not pay a bribe (34 per cent vs 70 per cent) 1. In Bangladesh,
in the baseline service delivery survey in early 19993, users
of government health services were less satisfied with their experience
if they made an unofficial payment to service workers (more than
20 per cent) or if the required medicines were not available from
the facility (in two thirds of cases). Non-availability of medicines
is at least in part due to leakage from the system.
Corruption is not the only cause of poor delivery
of public services, but it is an important factor. It includes
not only demands for bribes but also absenteeism, diversion of
resources, nepotism, cronyism, and the like. The public may attribute
poor service delivery to corruption, even if this is not always
the case. Lack of medicines in Bangladesh may be due to inadequate
and poorly targeted supplies as well as leakage from the system,
but citizens attribute it to corruption.
"They only ever give us prescriptions, never
any medicines. The health workers sell the medicines outside."
Male focus group, Bangladesh
Poor people suffer especially from the effects
of corruption in public services
One of the worst effects of corruption in public
services is that it effectively denies the service to people who
cannot afford to pay the bribes entailed in using the service,
yet do not have other options. Thus the very poor, most in need
of government services, are worst affected by corruption in the
delivery of these services. This is starkly demonstrated in the
second Bangladesh service delivery survey, recently undertaken4.
The poorest 28 per cent of households (defined on the basis of
an annual income of less than Tk 23,899) are less likely to use
government health services. Focus groups made it clear that this
is because they cannot afford the extra and unofficial payments
required for these supposedly free services and because poor people
are treated very badly by the service providers, who prefer to
treat patients who can afford to pay them.
"A rich man has got power and strength,
so he gets health services. The poor have no strength, no power,
so they are being deprived of health care." Male focus group,
Bangladesh
"As we are poor they do not give us any
treatment here." Female focus group, Bangladesh
Among service users in the 2000 Bangladesh survey4,
there is clear evidence of discrimination against the very poor:
they were less likely to be prescribed medicines in government
health facilities, less likely to feel they were given an explanation
of their health problem, and less likely to be satisfied with
the service they received. The payments made in the health facilities
by very poor people were lower than those made by less poor people;
this may help to explain why the very poor receive a worse service.
COMBATING CORRUPTION
Analysis of data to point to interventions
Documenting the extent of corruption in public
services in many cases merely confirms what was already known,
although the act of quantifying, documenting and publicizing the
information can be helpful for advocacy. But modern epidemiological
techniques can be applied to tease out the factors related to
corruption in delivery of services, in a way that quantifies the
potential gains from different interventions. This can be used
to help plan programmes to build integrity at both national and
local levels. This risk and resilience analysis is a key part
of the general CIET approach5 to supporting development, producing
results in a form that can help planners with limited resources
to decide which courses of action might have the greatest effect.
In Uganda1, for example, analysis showed that
the proportion of service users paying bribes could be reduced
by 7 per cent if they were given helpful information about how
to use the service, taking into account the other factors related
to the risk of paying a bribe (like making more visits to complete
the business, and seeing more service workers). In Bangladesh3,
the rating of the service by users could be particularly improved
if medicines were available and if extra payments to service providers
were stopped, taking into account other factors.
Amplifying the community voice
The top-down approach to tackling corruption
in public services has not worked any more than it has worked
in development generally. The need to increase participation of
citizens in the planning, delivery and management of services
is especially acute when tackling corruption. Community members
are well aware of the way corruption erodes their access to effective
services, they know the local problems only too well, they have
ideas about what sort of services they want, but individually
they have no means of influencing the situation. The CIET social
audit process systematizes their experiences, views and suggestions
and puts them next to information from facilities and service
providers. This dialogue between planners, service providers and
community members, based on relevant, up to date facts about delivery
of services increases transparency and helps to make services
accountable to the population they are meant to serve. It is a
concrete contribution to good governance.
Involving public services in finding solutions
Government buy-in and involvement of services
themselves is crucial to success of this approach to tackling
corruption. It is too easy to point a finger at individuals; poorly
and irregularly paid service workers may be tempted into corruption
in a system that fosters it. The social audit process focuses
rather on system flaws, examining factors conducive to corruption
or integrity, and holding up examples of good practice. In South
Africa, the police in Johannesburg have worked in collaboration
with CIET to respond to the findings of a survey6 showing the
poor performance of many police stations in dealing with cases
of sexual violence reported to them, some of this poor performance
being due to corruption as well as other forms of inefficiency
in the system. In Uganda, the 1998 integrity survey1 was undertaken
at the request of the Inspector General of Government. IGG personnel
were involved in the process, and the IGG and Ministry of Ethics
and Integrity have since used the findings to initiate integrity
plans at district level throughout the country, working with local
administrators and political leaders.
Local solutions
Decentralisation is not a guarantee of reduced
corruption; it may simply add another level of bureaucracy where
corruption can flourish. However, effective accountability of
services seems easier to achieve at local level and it is easier
to plan and implement actions resulting from dialogue between
service providers and civil society at local level. In Uganda,
for example, the Ministry of Agriculture was loath to accept findings
of a service delivery survey that showed only 10 per cent of farming
households had ever been visited by an agricultural extension
worker, but the finding was agreed more readily at district level,
where it was known that reduction in staffing had led to lack
of supervision of workers. The effective decentralization of service
provision to district level in Uganda means that individual districts
can act on the findings. In Nepal, where control of provision
of public services remains centralised, it was difficult to get
agreement to study corruption in services directly and there has
been no response to similar findings about agricultural services.
Closing the loop; building confidence
Corruption is a complex, ingrained process with
no "quick-fix" solutions, no magic bullet. However,
using evidence and bringing together service providers and communities,
especially at local levels, local solutions can be formulated.
Repeat audits can then measure the implementation of the interventions
and their impact on corruption in the services and delivery of
services to the public. Evidence from these repeat audits can
be used to show which interventions really work in practice and
hold up examples that can be applied elsewhere. Evidence of progress
encourages further participation in a continuing cyclical process
of measurement, planning and implementing interventions so that
bit by bit a culture of transparency and accountability of services
is built up.
In South Johannesburg, for example, there has
been measurable improvement in the way the police handle reported
cases of rape as a result of interventions made by the police
in response to the results of the initial survey in 1998. It is
hoped to repeat the integrity survey in Uganda in 2001, to assess
what interventions have been made in different districts, and
relate this to repeat measures of corruption in public services.
CORRUPTION AND
POVERTY ALLEVIATION
Grand corruption has an adverse effect on development
because it damages the economic status of countries and discourages
investment. However, it is pervasive petty corruption that has
a disproportionately severe impact on the poorest members of society.
Efforts towards poverty alleviation will always be ineffective
so long as resources continue to leak from the system and do not
reach the most needy. By the same token, successfully tackling
petty corruption could make a very important contribution to improving
the lot of the very poor; arguably this could be the single most
important way of reducing poverty in many countries. A coherent,
concerted approach to petty corruption could have far reaching
effects, creating a less favourable climate for grand corruption
and specifically helping the situation of the very poor.
Dr Anne Cockcroft and
Professor Neil Andersson
CIETeurope
December 2000
REFERENCES
1 CIETinternational and Inspector General
of Government. Uganda national integrity survey 1998. Kampala,
1998.
2 Villegas A, Morales A, Andersson N. Popular
perceptions of corruption in the public services: key findings
of the first national integrity survey in Bolivia, 1998. CIETinternational,
1998.
3 Cockcroft A, Monasta L, Onishi J, Karim
E. Baseline service delivery survey, Health and Population Sector
Programme 1998-2003. CIETcanada and Ministry of Health and Family
Welfare, Bangladesh, June 1999.
4 CIETcanada. Bangladesh service delivery
survey second cycle 2000. Preliminary key findings. Bangladesh,
November 2000.
5 Andersson N. Evidence-based planning:
the philosophy and methods of sentinel community surveillance.
CIETinternational and EDI World Bank. Washington, 1996.
6 Andersson N, Mhatre S, Naidoo S, Mayet
N, Mqotsi N, Penderis M, Onishi J, Myburg M, Merhi S. Beyond victims
and villains; the culture of sexual violence in South Johannesburg.
CIETafrica-SMLC. Johannesburg, 2000.
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