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Combating Corruption for Accelerated Development

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Combating Corruption for Accelerated Development
COMBATING CORRUPTION FOR ACCELERATED DEVELOPMENT: THE RULE OF LAW, TRANSPARENCY AND ACCOUNTABILITY BY: OCHIENG KENNETH OMONDI Table of Contents {text:bookmark-start} {text:bookmark-start} ABSTRACT {text:bookmark-end} {text:bookmark-end} {text:bookmark-start} {text:bookmark-start} INTRODUCTION {text:bookmark-end} {text:bookmark-end} Corruption - defined as 'the abuse of public power for personal ends ' - has always existed. During recent decades, however, it has grown both in terms of geographic extent and intensity. Since the mid 1970s, it has infiltrated virtually every country in the world. It was hoped that the easing of political and economic restrictions that characterized the 1990s after the end of the Cold War would have gone some way to reducing this phenomenon. Through increased openness resulting from political pluralism and the freedom of the press, the process of democratisation should, under normal circumstances, mobilise efforts to overcome corruption. However, emergent democracies are still fragile and seem to find the task of tackling established self-interests a formidable one. By reducing state intervention and therefore the opportunities for corruption, economic liberalization should, for its part, likewise improve matters. In the short term, however, the opposite would appear to be true. Weakened state structures, a lack of appropriate legislation, powerlessness on the part of the judicial system to combat corruption, the pursuit of easy money - mistakenly perceived by some as being equivalent to a market economy - all these factors together contribute to aggravating the phenomenon, at least in the transitional stages. Such a state of affairs cannot fail to have some effect on those who are involved in and concerned with development issues. Needless to say, corruption and its effects can be seen from a multitude of viewpoints. There is always the ethical angle - but how can we possibly presume to preach to


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