admineconomy that supports that society.
There arises an attitude that because “everyone does it”, then why should not I. And things go from bad to worse.
There is both the big corruption, the stealing of millions of dollars, or at least the misallocation of millions, for the benefit of one or two people, and there is the petty corruption, the official who takes $5 to put a form on the top of a heap, the guard who looks the other way for a hamburger.
Others who were brought up properly become corrupters. People known to be hair-shirted honest will offer a policeman a bribe when caught going through a red light so they are not delayed on their way to church. A badly paid policeman might be tempted, and next time he might do the asking.
The private sector has its fair share of corruption. There are human resources managers demanding sexual favours for jobs; marketing managers and salesmen offering little envelopes for orders; shopkeepers hiding scarce items for special customers who will do them favours.
And so it goes.
While most corrupt acts have been illegal for centuries, the problem has always been to catch those involved. Few people pay bribes in front of witnesses, few blackmail someone in the First Street Mall, hardly anyone goes around trumpeting who their wife’s second cousin might be.
Zimbabwe in the 1980s decided to tackle this growing problem, or to be more precise a problem that anecdote suggested might be getting worse although no one had figures or proof. One major change was to assume that all gifts were bribes, unless this could be shown to be reasonably otherwise.
Later legal changes saw the establishment of an anti-corruption commission to tackle the causes of this problem.
Now that commission has been reformed, with a nine-member board appointed by President Mugabe after he discussed the matter with his two colleagues from the parties in the inclusive Government.
We hope this means that the team selected will have the support it requires.
Even in normal times, this sort of commission is one that cries out for joint action by the head of government and the leader of the opposition. All are affected; all need to be part of the solution.
As we see it the commission has two main functions, to seek the general causes of corruption and recommend the action needed to eliminate these, and to look at actual cases, see how the perpetrators can be hunted down, and then see how the door can be closed to stop the next one trying to get through.
Some examples might be in order.
Everyone knows that employees of the State became more likely to offer to do favours for small sums in recent years. These people were not the majority, but the problem became greater and more widespread.
The underlying cause was gross poverty. But even then there was a degree of honesty. Policemen seeking bribes, for example, might look the other way in return for a small sum if you were not wearing a safety belt, but would refuse any bribe if they caught you stealing, or assaulting someone or committing another serious crime. There was almost a split between overlookable “illegalities” and “real crimes” that had to be sorted out.
It was the same in the private sector. A couple of dollars might get you to the front of a queue, but probably no guard or receptionist would accept far larger sums for overlooking the commission of a serious offence.
So when the commission examines causes it can work with people who probably want to be honest but will partially submit to temptation in extremes. The remedies then lie in eliminating temptation and eliminating the circumstances that might mean people could be tempted.
This could well mean the commission adding its voice to the pressure to, for example, pay civil servants better. It is far easier to be honest if you have already bought supper for your children.
Most companies already know this. Petty theft became endemic in most organizations in the last days of the Zimbabwe dollar; people were stealing to buy food. A new currency, full shops and modest pay and suddenly everyone is honest. Even those who earn little have stopped stealing. Loss control officers are finding their jobs ever easier.
The other remedy in these cases might be to remove the circumstances that lead to temptation. We wonder why the police should be hunting down “criminals” who won’t buckle their safety belt, rather than hunting down real criminals who steal money.
A really good example of what can be done was again seen in the private sector with the currency switch. Suddenly there was no reason to bribe someone to give you a scarce item hidden at the back; there was nothing to hide anymore.
So the petty corruption is soluble. Most of those involved are basically honest, although they have slipped and fallen; but they can be redeemed and it can be made unacceptable.
This leaves the major corruption, and here we have deliberate evil, rather than people succumbing to small temptations in difficult times.
This is no doubt why there are so many administrative and financial experts on the commission.
Many of us in the private sector already know that a dishonest manager, corrupt through greed rather than need, is hundreds or thousands of times more destructive than a badly-paid sweeper who steals the sugar from the tea cupboard. The deliberate sinner can destroy the livelihoods of hundreds.
But here controls can make it harder to be corrupt. Auditors are not just there to hunt down the person who is siphoning off funds; their main job is to figure out ways of monitoring the flow of money and goods, yet still allowing those who buy, produce and sell to do their jobs without the whole machinery being gummed up with rules. The need to enforce honesty as well as allow efficiency requires some serious creative thought.
But in the end the fight against corruption needs to change the hearts and minds of the people. It needs cultural changes. Presumably this is why a religious leader is on the commission.
Proper controls can make corruption harder; removing the need of favours can encourage the basically honest to be honest since there is less temptation. But in the end all of us have to be totally intolerant of all corrupt practices.
This is possible. To take a European example, the Italian culture is not intolerant of corruption. There are around a couple of dozen words in that language that translate into the English “bribe” to give precise nuances over what sort of bribe is offered or accepted.
Yet right next door there is Switzerland, where most citizens will actually point out to a tax inspector that he has undervalued the tax they should pay. Swiss people are highly intolerant of corruption, including those people in the south who speak Italian as their mother tongue.
The commission will need some professional staff in our opinion; but they presumably can call on the police, the Auditor General, the Attorney General or the equivalents in the private sector when necessary.
We already have good machinery to catch cheats. What we need now is ideas, policies and a culture that makes cheating unacceptable. That is what we see as the commission’s main job. We wish it all the best.
Online Reporter