THE ECONOMIC IMPACT OF CORRUPTION IN AFRICA AND THE WAY FORWARD Case study: Cameroon

ABSTRACT

This thesis is based on a holistic approach to analysing corruption and its economic impact in Africa, using Cameroon as a case study. It seek to analyse precolonial Africa and how their justice system led to low corruption and the slave trade how slavery contributed to today’s corruption

the colonial rule how the divide and rule policies, imposed taxes etc., led to deaths, especially in the Congo, suppression of civil rights, exploitation and misery up to the 1960s, obstruction of natural process of state formations and development.

In post-colonial Africa, we seek to explore the cold war and the rise of dictators with support from the East and West, the decline of democracy and the rise of tyranny and tribal and religious conflicts; Neo-colonialism and the use of financial institutions to mingle in countries domestic policies

In Cameroon, the vast amount of corruption in the awarding of government contracts and the custom sector leading to enormous cost of doing business and tax evasion, corrupt insurance sector leading in insecurities in investments, corrupt judiciary, the police and the army, and the theft of funds for state arms and machinery, daily police bribery and unreliable justice system and the vulnerability of the poor.

The way forward seeks to propose the promotion of pan Africanism as a tool to eliminate religious and tribal conflicts, re-orientation to pre-colonial ethical norms and value to promote political goodwill and dedication to the country, strengthening anti-corruption watchdogs to facilitate the prosecution of em-bezzlers and the corrupt.

For international efforts, nations like Switzerland should change laws and make it difficult to attract money laundry and tax evasion. The nation of Cameroon should draw lessons from Finland such as a free access to education for all, freedom of speech and the press, independent arms of the government, political goodwill and dedication of service, access to law and justice, no political influence in state recruitments, openness to criticism and collective decision making.

Keywords

Accountability, Bribery, Corruption, Economic Growth, Political Goodwill.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1 INTRODUCTION

2 HISTORY OF CORRUPTION IN AFRICA

2.1 Corruption in pre-colonial Africa

2.1.1 Trade with the western Europeans

2.2 Corruption in colonial Africa

2.3 The Cold War and corruption

2.4 Neo-colonialism

2.5 Loans and aid with Strings attach

2.6 Strategic and economic interest

3 CASE STUDY: CAMEROON

3.1 Transparency international and the Cameroon national anti-corruption

3.2 Corruption in government Tender and wards of contracts

3.2.1 Call for tender

3.2.2 Requirements for tender

3.2.3 Submission of tender

3.2.4 The signing of the contract

3.2.5 Implementation

3.2.6 Reception and payment

3.3 Corruption in the Insurance Sector

3.4 Corruption in the Custom sectors

3.5 Corruption in the Army and Police force

3.6 Corruption in the Judiciary and the justice department

3.7 Political corruption

3.8 Other corrupt practices

4 THE WAY FORWARD

4.1 Administrative reforms

4.2 Independent anti-corruption units

4.3 Promotion of civil rights organizations and activist

4.4 Declaration of assets

4.5 Long-term strategy

4.6 International initiative

4.7 A lesson from Finland

4.8 Brief summary of corruption and its impact

REFERENCES

1 INTRODUCTION

Corruption is something that we talk about, it’s something that we complaint about, it’s something whose negative impact we recognise, it’s something that even the corrupt acknowledge. But the irony and the tragedy at hand is that those who engage in corruption love it, the tragedy at hand is that those of us who do not engage in it directly, accommodate it. Our levels of tolerance of corruption in Africa is amazing. By using a holistic approach, we trace the history and the impact of corrupting in Africa and Cameroon in particular first by addressing the invasion, exploitation, and occupation of African territories by West Eu-ropean powers from the late 19th century and its impact on economic, political, socio-eco-nomic, and corrupt cultural life style of the people today. It will also be important to analyse pre-colonial Africa for its vast diversities, progress, education, self-sustaining and numerous trades and powerful kingdoms.

In Precolonial African societies, laws were made collectively by various head of sub com-munities, and the king couldn’t make a decision without the collective agreement of these representatives, and they had very little outside influence on their decision making. Disputes were resolved by various heads of sub communities who presided over the case by engaging parties in oath taking, by doing so, delivering equal justice to all was certain because of the consequence that followed if done otherwise. Bribery and corruption was very less practiced due to the power of the oaths. African societies developed various means of agriculture, hunting, and war weapons and even intra trade between other kingdoms and to Asia, India and Europe. The empire of Sudan, Mali, Songhai, Ghana etc., were all great and prosperous. Corrupt practices were very common among intra trade by providing brides and slaves for personal gains.

The high demand for slaves in Europe and the Middle East gave the foundation of corruption in Africa. The Portuguese for example, traded European wheat and cloths for Africa’s gold and workforce. African kings were now forced to enrich themselves by attacking other king-doms and taking slaves for themselves and shipped them for sale. The European traders also supported these kings by providing weapons so as to accelerating defeat and to boost their trade. It was here that the great African civilization started deteriorating because the man power needed for economic growth of those societies were been taking away, and so the society continued to grow weaker and weaker until there were very few warriors to defend their lands, the western European however noticed this after over 200 years of trade, they started domination of weak kingdoms by using other kingdoms to fight another etc. Coloni-alism brought systematic corruption on a huge level across their colonies. The crushing of indigenous values, the devaluation of standards, the elimination of checks and balances and the excessive imposed western structures destabilized the well run status quo machinery pre-viously in use across precolonial times and the end result is what we see today; absence of loyalty and political good will to the state, oppressive, dictatorial, stagnant economies and corrupt state institutions etc. The colonial rule adopted direct and indirect rule. In indirect rule, the rulers held power for the colonial authorities instead for the people, consequently leading to poor infrastructure development, hunger and rise in poverty.

The colonial authorities also imposed a flat tax on all citizens which was used to pay colonial officers for running the colony and surplus was sent to Europe for Europe’s development. The colonial authorities also created a military to force and supress anticolonial activist, to acquire cheap labour, and in Belgian Congo let to about 10 million dead’s who were mainly the educated and or important man power of the country. Men and women were taken off their farms to work as house helps, miners, clerks and other menial capacities for the colonial authorities.

The post-colonial Africa however never had the required skill force to engineer their socie-ties after independence because the colonial authorities gave very little on educational in-vestment, in short, for over 200 years of brutal rule, tortured, hanging and killings, there were just about one doctor compared to a thousand in Africa today after just 50 years of independence or partial independence. The cold war never made it better, the Soviet Union in desperate search of allies supported dictators and fuelled arm conflict to coup away na-tionalist leaders who were for or against capitalism or communism.

US and Europe’s support for brutal dictators, like Mubutu who killed and impoverish his own people, is never to be denied. Such regimes which were and are still rampant across Africa were supported with arms to crush members of the opposition or human right activist. At independence, African countries never gained its full independence, leaders such as Pat-rick Lumumba, Kwame Nkrumah, Thomas Sankara who stood for a corrupt free Africa and....

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Item Type: Project Material  |  Attribute: 66 pages  |  Chapters: 1-5

Format: MS Word  |  Price: N3,000  |  Delivery: Within 30Mins.

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