Causes Of Corruption In Government

Salary increase as an effective method to combat petty corruption of government officials Corruption is an issue that get major concern on almost all governments. According to World Bank (1997), corruption is “the abuse of public office for private gain”. Many countries, especially developing ones, are struggling to reduce corruption in government bureaucrats. Corruption among government officials is widespread from top to bottom level. It do not only happen on top level, where corruption is in form of political maneuver and policy making for profit gain, but also arise in middle to low level civil servants. This low level corruption is known as petty corruption. Petty corruption occurs in administrative or bureaucratic part of government

There are other factors that contribute to corruption practice of civil servants. Palmier (in Quah, 2001) suggest that opportunities and policing also play important role to cause corruption. Opportunities for corruption are exist because most governments have long administrative process. Procedures for granting a driving license, business permit, passport, construction permission, and even citizen identification and birth certificate are often complicated and time-consuming. These kinds of bureaucracy lead public officials to offer facultative services for speeding things up. Mahmood (2005) states discretionary power of public officials could prompt corruption. He also adds that monopoly of public services also has influence on corruption. Low level civil servants gain power in complex administration system of government because there is no competition for providing public with government services. Public and private sectors depend on civil servants for dispensing their needs. Civil servants determine the authorization of products like permits or licenses, put it on hold or reject it, and even they can shortening or bending the regulations. Since civil servants have capabilities to control and involve significantly in the administration, high chances for them to extort and ask for

System improvement could be done by several approaches. Firstly, better civil servants recruitment. In many developing countries, some people become public officials without proper selection but in favor of their relatives or colleagues. Some even have to bribe to be employed. In the Philippines, some people still can be a teacher even they are unqualified enough by giving 3,000 to 5,000 pesos (Quah, 2006). Recruitment based on corruption or nepotism leads to potentially corrupt civil servant because they have to pay back those who help them and return the employment cost. A study by Rauch and Evans (in Tanzi, 1998) indicates that recruitment and promotion that are not based on great qualifications increase the level of corruption. Qualified civil servants likely have better integrity and ethics and perceive corrution as illegal and morally wrong. Second, fixing the administration system. Bureaucracy should be simpler and transparent. Complex procedurs open opportunities for public officials to attain extortion and external demand for bribery. Deregulation will lift excessive power from some bureaucrats and lead to lower corruption level (Svensson, 2005). Transparent system result in clearer and less ambigious procedurs to public and private sectors, and then enhance service quality. Next, better accountability mechanism by increasing supervision