Tuesday December 23, 2003

Corruption taking root in Ethiopia

By Nuru Addis (FEACC)

It is readily understood that a country serious about fighting corruption has to, first and formost, assess the prevalence and intensity of corruption before it launches an anticorruption campaign. Without a clear understanding of the level and nature of corruption, no one country will be able to tackle it effectively and substantially. International experience shows us that the assessment of the level and nature of corruption in a certain country is particularly important to identify the sectors where corruption is pervasive and devise mechanisms of launching the anti-corruption campaign.

Realizing the need to assess the level and nature of corruption in the country to facilitate the anti corruption campaign, the Ethiopian Government launched a national survey on the level and nature of corruption. Just last year, the institute of Educational Research of the Addis Ababa University, which made the contract to conduct the survey (on joint venture with the ethics sub-program) in 2001,handed over the document containing findings of the survey to the federal Ethics and Anti-corruption Commission which, in turn, organized a multilateral workshop at which the findings were tabled for discussion.

According to the findings, the efficiency of public institutions, the quality of public service delivery systems and the business environment in Ethiopia were found to be unsatisfactory. The survey, which involved over 4000 responders from households, public officials and business entrepreneurs, was particularly vital to understand the prevalence and depth of corruption in the country. The household respondents in particular singled out corruption as the most serious problem facing the country. As stated by most of the respondents, the customs service in the country is the worst example in terms of providing good quality service. Land allocation, national housing, judiciary and tax systems are also of poor quality in the country. The respondents identified the expansion of gratification, too long processes and incompetence of judges as major impediments in the court system, which indirectly forces the public to resort to informal mechanisms for solving their legal disputes. As stated by the respondents, on the average about 4.5 percent of the annual household’s income is spent bribing officials.

In a similar vein, the survey conducted on the sample of representative firms in order to assess the quality of public services, has confirmed that the overall quality of services is very poor. They reported that unduly longer time is required to clear their imported goods from the customs office, which incurs them a substantial amount of loss during shipment. Besides, firms bribe officials in order to get better services. According to the survey, the longer time needed to clear goods from customs offices may have created an incentive for firms to provide gratification to employees in this authority. At the worst, firms have to pay extra money to get public utilities such as water, electricity and telephone lines. Respondents from representative firms categorize public health institutions, police departments (excluding traffic police), tax division and land allocation offices as the worst service providers in the country. Customs division, courts, government education departments Telecommunication Corporation and national housing come as the second worst public service providers in the category.

Firms also complain that corruption has limited their ability to get credit from banks. As far as lending money is concerned, they said, the banks are corrupt. The role of the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia as an institution promoting development has been limited by corruption, the survey indicated. Corruption is viewed as one of the most severe problems inhibiting the growth and operation of firms. Firms have been paying six percent of their revenue to public officials, according to the same survey.

The analysis of the data collected from public officials during the campaign identified the dissatisfaction of the majority of officials on their payments and benefits as a major cause of concern for facilitating corruption. Economic problems that prevent the public officials from leading a decent life may put temptation in their way to commit corruption, indicated the survey. It is thus incumbent upon the government to devise ways and mechanisms of remunerating civil servants in a manner that could free them from engaging in illicit dealings to the detriment of the public interest. There is also the need to workout standard regulations and procedures governing the ethical behavior and performance of officials and public agencies. It would be necessary to familiarize public officials and servants with rules and standard procedures that they need to follow strictly.

Appeal and redress mechanisms that seem to be lacking in several of the surveyed public agencies should be put in place and the clients must be made aware of these so that they can make appeals when they are mistreated by public officials. Being one of the few government department identified as good service providers by the survey, the passport administration office has, for example, put in place this mechanism.

Based on the findings of the survey, the researchers forwarded vital recommendations and urged the government to implement them in order to curb corruption to a significant level. Having underlined the existence of sustained political will to fight corruption on the part of the Ethiopian government, the surveyors stressed the need to translate these intents in to action that could discourage the proliferation of corruption in the country in years ahead. Service providing government agencies should give sufficient information to clients regarding the procedures that have to be followed in order to obtain services. Moreover, these institutions ought to give clear and visible directives to clients about the procedures of presenting complaints to higher authorities on the agencies.

They also recommended the availability of strong, honest and accountable judiciary system and an efficient bureaucracy free from political abuse. Ensuring transparency in government departments and agencies is also crucial. Perhaps the most important factor to make the anti-corruption campaign a success (as suggested by the researchers) is the active participation of the general public with proper sensitization and awareness raising programmes being launched in advance. The involvement of the media and the civil society in the fight against corruption is also tremendously supportive.

The participants of the workshop, on their part, expressed dissatisfaction over the sampling method that the surveyors employed. According to them, the surveyors should have taken samples from all cross-sections of the society, including the lower class, where there are a great number of victims of corruption. “People in the lower class have borne the brunt of corruption in this country and paradoxically the surveyors took government officials as their major samples,” lamented one participant. However, the participants commended the government for launching the survey and preparing the document, which could be used as a benchmark for further study.

To sum up, the findings of the survey, the surveyors pointed that corruption in Ethiopia will reach pervasive stage sooner than later to the very dislike of the Ethiopian people who are living under abject poverty and ignorance. It is therefore the duty and responsibility of the Ethiopian government to launch the anticorruption campaign more vigorously by mobilizing all stakeholders and cross-sections of the society.