It is a scourge that pervades and reduces human’s striving for excellence as mere wishful thinking or at best as a utopian phenomenon, despite manﾴs intellectual accomplishment.
The Oxford dictionary gives nine basic definitions of corruption, but there is an element common to all: a notion that something pure, or natural, or ordered has decayed or become degraded. It is more or less an infection leading to decomposition of the social, economic and political structures of the society. It corrodes the societyﾴs social structure and the citizens’ trust in government while damaging the economy and ultimately undermining the legitimacy of the government and the nation itself.
Hence, it is an avoidable virus that leaches and targets the fundamental building block and strata of the society: chief among them includes the political class, from which it spreads like a volcanic eruption from the inside top echelon to the outer subordinate and to the rest of society. The devastating menace is lashed out to disrupt the social, economic and political life of the country in epidemical and insidious proportions. It does this in such a soothing way that the society actually sees corruption as a means of personal growth through aggrandisement of wealth, which is often embraced at the beginning, but only to be regretted and fought against at great cost to the nation when the impact is manifestly obvious.
Corruption is not only associated with the national machinery in terms of the government and its apparatus, but within the private and corporate sectors of the economy. This is where the impact is heinously farfetched, as it systematically erodes the ability of the private sector to continue to act as a catalyst to compliment the public sector in the development of the country.
The danger in the epidemic spread of corruption is that it encourages competition in bribery, rather than in the quality of service, as well as the price of goods and services causing imperfections and unhealthy competition in the marketplace. This tends to distort the economic realities of the countries, leading the impotency of the governments’ various fiscal and monetary policies as these policies are fundamentally undermined by the parallel under-current of corruption: since more money will be channelled into the pockets of a few persons through illegal and corrupts means and onward into circulation. According to Peter Eigen of the Transparency International Agency, ﾓbribes and incentives to corrupt public officials and politicians are undermining the prospects of sustainable development in poorer countries.ﾔ
This is why the government must take drastic steps even when there is low level of corruption to forestall its deadly track. Most African and Latin American countries today have not been able to escape the clutches of corruption despite its intellectual repertoire and expertise in formulating and implementing sound and consistent economic policies. In addition, billions of dollars in foreign direct investment, as well as massive international lending and aid/assistance funds have not helped either. In fact, in most cases these cash inflows are finally found in the pockets of a few leaders and cronies. The cases of Haiti, Argentina, Nicaragua are typical examples of perplexing aspects of corruption and national development.
The Bahamas has been fortunate not to experience a deep-rooted scale of corruption, but certainly, it is creeping slowly and steadily. We cannot allow its further holds on our leaders, public services systems, and the private sector. The level of blue-collar crime is rising: one interesting thing about it is that it stimulates the culpritﾴs interest, considering the ease of personal enrichment.
The government must now institute measures that will forestall the foothold of corruption in our country. Our laws must be made to punish, to the fullest extent, anyone involved or who is an accomplice or conspirator towards any form of corruption, no matter what position the person may hold. There is a need to set up corruption monitoring units in all government departments to compliment the role of internal audit systems.
The Royal Bahamas Police Force Corruption Unit must now be re-orientated towards appreciating the new high level of corruption in the country to enable them to come up with new and effective strategies to deal with corruption at this intermediate level. Though the Police have done a remarkable job, there is still very much to be done to weed the roots of corruption cancerous tentacles.
There should also be a legal counsel unit attached to all government departments to further assist in monitoring and inspection of evidences to enable them to monitor potential cases of the different types of corruptions. These types are: monetary in relation to payment of money in return for a service or commodity, which bypasses the legal procedure to acquire that service or commodity; and bureaucratic corruption carried out by way of a successful transfer of the steering-medium of power, in particular, a transfer of a position of power (an office) in return for power-supportive behavior (loyalty), which bypasses the legal procedure to acquire the position.
Ignoring the incipiency of corruption is tantamount to the postponement of the doomsday, because it will certainly come. The Bahamas has striven too hard and has gone through trying and difficult times to allow itself to fall within the pack of other Caribbean and Latin American countries.
ﾠ
To be continued…
By Dr. Kevin Alcena
