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Cost Of
'Quiet Corruption' Is Huge In Developing
World
By Don Cayo, Vancouver Sun
At a crude rural school plunked amid
scattered huts -- not even a hamlet, let
alone a village -- in the mountains of
Nicaragua, there's never any classes on
Mondays.
This is because, I was told when I
visited a few years ago, the teachers
need the day to travel from their homes
in a "real" town down the valley.
The town is a mere hour or two away, but
there's also no school on Fridays, when
the teachers head home. And, of course,
if there's a funeral, a holiday, or any
excuse at all, the school week is
shortened by another day. Or two. Or
three.
Kids in places like this have little
chance for a decent education at the
best of times. With their school closed
half of the days it should be open, they
have no chance. So yet another
generation is doomed to poverty.
This isn't unique to Nicaragua. In
scores of poor countries, teacher
absenteeism is so institutionalized that
many hold second jobs with overlapping
hours.
Ditto for doctors and nurses who use
their time on the public payroll to
peddle private care. Or meter readers
who negotiate with customers what power
consumption figures to record. Or police
who have well-established prices to
overlook all manner of real or imagined
traffic violations. Or clerks who demand
a fee to "find" an official record or a
rubber stamp. And on and on.
This is the penny-ante "quiet
corruption" -- as opposed to
headline-grabbing big-time corruption --
that's chronicled in a new World Bank
report. It focuses on sub-Saharan
Africa, but it's findings are relevant
to much of the developing world.
"Quiet corruption does not make the
headlines the way bribery scandals do,
but it is just as corrosive to
societies," said Shanta Devarajan, chief
economist for the bank's Africa Region
and one of the authors.
Since better-off citizens simply pay the
petty costs of navigating through or
around the system, the poor bear most of
the impact. And it's severe.
A 2008 study in rural Tanzania, for
example, found four out of five children
who die of malaria seek, but don't find,
help in a modern medical facility.
"Quiet corruption, including absence of
diagnostic equipment, drug pilfering,
provider absenteeism and very low levels
of diagnostic effort all contributed to
this dire statistic."
Other troubling studies are cited. For
example:
- In Kenya and Uganda, 20 to 27 per cent
of teachers couldn't be found during
school hours.
- In West Africa, 43 per cent of the
fertilizers sold in the 1990s lacked
expected nutrients, making them
ineffective.
- More than half the drugs sold in drug
stores in Nigeria in the 1990s were
counterfeit.
- Ugandan health care providers were
absent from the job 37 per cent of the
time in 2002 and 33 per cent in 2003.
The report notes that small-scale
corruption -- whether absenteeism, or
minimal effort or demands for bribes on
the job, or "leakage" of supplies and
equipment -- is hard to measure, in part
because it becomes a society's norm.
Small-timers feel justified because
their bosses are big-time cheaters.
Clients expect to be gouged -- for
example, more than 80 per cent of
companies in a handful of the worst
countries expect to pay under-the-table
to get minimal government services
performed and/or to win a contract.
People stop looking for health care or
help from the teacher because they know
they won't get it.
"If professional standards are
substituted with a 'fend for yourself'
attitude at every level," the report
says, "the system falls into a vicious
cycle in which every misconduct is
tolerated."
It's impossible to condone such
behaviour -- it is odious that children
die because "professionals" didn't do
their job, or that millions are denied
bought-and-paid-for benefits that could
ease their poverty.
But, at least at times, it is possible
to understand it.
On my first visit to Haiti, for example,
I learned that most public servants
weren't paid for many months of the
year. They simply didn't get their wages
as promised. And, in Haiti and a lot of
other countries, even when payrolls are
met, the jobs often don't pay a living
wage.
So is it any wonder that for so many it
became the norm to skim what they can?
Foreign donors, whether governments or
NGOs, can never rein in this widespread
quiet corruption on their own. Poor
countries themselves must implement the
transparency and quality of supervision
that's needed if ever the culture of
skimming is to change.
But I think donors can and should look
at their own practices, too. One factor
driving this phenomenon is that
outsiders so often fund a new facility,
but won't provide a penny toward the
wages of those who run it. This needs
re-thinking.
It would be wrong to simply pay corrupt
employees more to slack off or skim. But
if they're to be expected to give their
all, they have to be decently paid. |
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