Causes Of Corruption

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What are the economic and fiscal costs of corruption in a country, if any? As hard as this question maybe, in order to completely understand it we first have to break it down. To understand this question, one first needs a thorough and deep understanding of what corruption is and its origins. One also has to understand what is meant by the terms economic and fiscal costs. Only after this, can one start to get a better understanding of the question. Therefore through the analysis of how corruption ties into economic and fiscal costs, we are going to see why corruption is the only cause for a country’s failure. Body To start things of we begin by defining the very concept of corruption. What is corruption? Although this question seems short…show more content…
Endemic corruption is the type that is pervasive in the social, political and cultural parts of a country. This pretty much means that it present in all mostly all functions that take place inside a country. It is extremely hard to eradicate as no single person or group can be pinpointed as the root cause of it. Sporadic corruption on the other hand, is less rooted in the social or cultural behaviour and is a lot easier to overcome in comparison to endemic corruption. Corruption can also be classified in terms of its extent, it can either be generalised or focalised in certain institutions or activities. It can also be classified in terms of its scale, where it can either be local, national or international. Earlier in the paragraph it was mentioned that endemic corruption is hard to eradicate. This is because it is deeply rooted in the institutions and processes of a country that are dominated by corrupt people or groups. South Africa in this instance offers a rather perfect example. I’m sure most of us are no strangers to the fact that we can easily get our way with police officers with just a simple bribe. South African police are generally known to easily accept bribes instead of enforcing the law. On top of that, we have high ranking government officials on the other hand who extort money from the government for their own private gain. The President of South…show more content…
The first being "tenderpreneurship" and the second being fronting. tenderpreneurship arises when a public official uses their high status to profit from inflated contracts. This has greatly contributed to South Africa’s sluggish growth as well as tarnished image as an attractive destination for foreign investment. This is because most of the time, individuals involved in tenders do poor jobs so that they can reap a high reward. To see how this all adds up, President Zuma has recently reshuffled the South African Cabinet(mentioned earlier). Soon after this it was discovered that the newly appointed minister of finance had awarded President Zuma's nephew with a fifty billion rand tender. President Zuma's nephew, Khubuluse Zuma, will be responsible for the nuclear power plant to be set up in the country. It should come as no surprise that with corruption, nepotism arises. Corruption can also occur through fronting. Fronting occurs when a primarily white business misrepresents itself as being racially diverse in order to benefit from BEE or Black Economic Empowerment. BEE is basically an affirmative action measure used to benefit people of colour. Such a practise is ethically and morally wrong because it pretends as if it caters for people of colour when they are in fact excluded. Other than South Africa, corruption is also prevalent in other countries such as

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