Causes of Corruption |10 Main Reasons which can be Eradicated

Corruption is one of the biggest threats to the well-being of society.

It degrades the quality of the services and also ruins the life of the common person. Many countries in the world are affected by this problem called corruption.

Political parties that promise to stop or take steps to eradicate corruption are being voted to power.

This shows the significance of a corruption-free society for the public.

Unlike in developed countries, corruption is high in developing countries.

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These causes of corruption are many and complex that the promises of the parties to eradicate corruption are not hard to implement.

Corruption is primarily seen in jobs, businesses, promotions, election campaigns, sports, etc. Below is the list of

Main Causes of Corruption

1. Low Pay scales and Wages

causes of corruption
  • Most of the employees in the government sector are paid low wages and salaries.
  • Hence some employees revert to corruption for more financial benefits.

2. Low Job opportunities.

  • This is another cause of corruption.
  • Due to the lack of job opportunities, many people opt to bribe authorities to get a job offer.

They readily pay large amounts to the job offers to the higher officials or politicians.

3. Lack of Strict and fast punishments

  • Even if someone is found guilty or even caught red-handed by the anti-corruption officials or media, the convicts get less punishment.
  • First, they will be suspended for a few months or weeks and then re-posted to another location with the same job grade and pay. Or the guilty will take up the case to the courts and get bail and delay the punishments.
  • So this means the official who did the corrupt practice is given a free license to continue his practice.
  • If there are strict provisions to permanently fire the corrupt employees or else punishments of several years in imprisonment, then the corruption will decrease to a large extent.

4. Lack of fear of a bad reputation

corruption causes
  • If a person is corrupt or has done some unacceptable misconduct, they have to be avoided and not be respected.
  • Instead of being disrespected, they are respected. This emboldens others to be corrupt.

5. Lack of Public Unity

  • The public openly criticizes corruption, but interestingly there is no unity among the public to stop corruption.
  • If a person wants to get his done his work, he gets it done by means of corruption where possible and then later criticizes the corrupt official.
  • If the public stands united against corruption so that no one is ready to offer bribes to get their work done, then the corrupt officials will have no other option but to work in a corruption-free manner.
  • During the election, politicians try to lure the people by offering money and other things.

If these politicians win and get power, they try to regain 10 to 100 times the amount spent in the process.

6. Lack of transparency in affairs and deals

  • Many appointments or seat allocation processes like in education, contracts, job, and employee income reports (wealth possession) lack transparency.
  • This lack of transparency in the processes provides loopholes for corruption.

7. Lack of Independent detective agency

  • Lack of an independent detective agency to investigate with full power and freedom to expose the corrupt individuals.
  • The existing agencies are under the control of either the government or the armies and are not free to work.
  • Hence anyone who commits an offense will not be afraid of the investigation as they can escape from it by taking the help of those controlling them.

8. Lack of state funding for elections

  • State funding for polls is the best way to beat corruption.
  • Political parties receive party donations through public or businesses and will not disclose them to the fullest. In doing so, they encourage corruption.
  • They collect massive amounts from industrialists with a promise to help when in power.
  • The presence of state funding can abolish party donations and minimize corruption.

9. The option of many political parties

  • In a democracy, anyone can establish a political party.
  • So there are chances for the corruption of many political parties in the country.
  • If a political party wins, the party members will desire to expand the party all over the country.
  • To do so, they need enough financial reserves. Once they come into power, they opt for corrupt means to make the wealth necessary to expand the party.

10. Lack of enough powers for the judiciary.

  • The election commission cannot ban a politician from contesting if they make a mistake or do not comply with the rules during the poll campaign (like distributing freebies or money to people).
  • Similarly, the judicial system has low options to punish someone who is found to be guilty.

11. Lack of accountability

  • There is a big trend in corruption in government due to a lack of accountability.
  • The employees in government offices do not perform to their par excellence.
  • If they have 100 files to be cleared in a week, they may not even clear 50 of them in that week.
  • They tend to postpone the clearance of the files. So those in the urgency of the clearance have to get them done by rewarding the officials involved in the clearance office.
  • This lack of accountability in government offices is the chief cause of corruption.
  • If there is a mandate that all the files or at least 95% of files received by government offices for clearance are cleared in the said period, then corruption can be minimized to a large extent.

12. Encouragement of unhealthy competition

  • Competition in business is a good sign for the quality of service to be delivered.
  • But in developing nations, there is an encouragement of unhealthy competition.
  • When there is a tender, you can notice that only a few companies bid for it.
  • This is because the companies having political relations have higher chances of winning while others do not.
  • So, companies with no political influence will not bid for the tender in spite of being a good company.
  • That is where the number of bidders for a tender will be low due to political interference.

These causes of corruption have to be eliminated for the better growth of the nation.

Leave a comment

  1. Good for students like me , but I think this review see only the one face of corruption but we must know that corruption is a mirror having many faces.
    Thank you at all.

    Reply
  2. It will definitely help broaden up my mind to talk about corruption in Papua New Guinea affairs. Common Interests for collective actions is a must rather than clinging to the culture of silence. Clandestine should be eliminated for the sake of eradicating corrupt behaviors every where.

    Reply
    • Hello, I strongly agree with some points towards corruption, but in a simple term, corruption Is unauthorized economic transaction between households and the firms and the best solution is to try and change the intermediate body( government) economical dynamics.

      I have a full theory of how corruption can be curbed

      Reply
  3. How about this of reason.
    Too much wrong that's legal.
    Too much legal of wrong.
    United we stand.
    Devided we fall.
    Democrats and Republicans wouldn't unite together for the people while Trump was president. There shouldn't be two side as in good and bad. It's a TEAM EFFORT.
    While Trump was president, the corruption was within the Eliphent & Donkey, not working together, plus, adding Foreigners to the AMERICAN GOVERNMENT deffinently did help, only added to our future nation of destruction. President Lincoln said, we will be destroyed from the inside. That's where the corruption of destruction is. Them in office, participated in the 911, do we really think they are here to be friends ? I don't know of an enemy that was/is genuine agenda of good for our nation. Since Foreigners have been allowed to be a part of our government, is the cause of too much wrong, is why we ain't great no more. Our government is paying them good money to destroy us, while they set up positions, to take us down to take over. No one has to take my word for it but when it's too late to be stopped, we are doomed to lose. Our government holds information they need to succeed.

    Reply
    • “Since Foreigners have been allowed to be a part of our government, is the cause of too much wrong, is why we ain’t great no more. Our government is paying them good money to destroy us, while they set up positions, to take us down to take over.”

      Quite interesting. Marla :-)

      Reply
  4. good and correct essay, also lack in government commitment to funding Human development programs is yet another reason.

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  5. This can only be helped if only people take actions unitedly. Corruption should be removed from the root.

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  6. favoritism is one among source of corruption so must be eliminated that is the situation to combat corruption.

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  7. the whole country is becoming corrupt ..it’s not the job of corruption bureu to look after it but it’s the responsibility of the citizen to stop corruption..

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  8. Good idea karthik
    I also thought same band of 1000&500 notes will give better result in reducing corruption

    Reply
  9. Its very nice to read and easy to understand ..but it is difficult to process …i request to make them process and make our country better

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  10. Nice essay I liked it but it would have been more helpful if u would have added some ways to stop it…anyway it was a good one

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  11. Acceptable reasons. I liked it. But u could hav mention some points regadarding how to stop corruption. anyway its good thanku.

    Reply
  12. We can end corruption in case all of us say no to corruption because we natives who is in need of some thing were the one who gives it out to another person, so what we should is stop giving out money because we want our things done

    Reply
    • @kalpana! because there are unlimited means and ways to be corrupt and so we need many means to stop them…:-) Thanks for stopping by.

      Reply
    • Conclusion the normal think is that our govt give the number of act but common pepole are not implement because of that corruption is like a diabetes we cannot totaly eliminate but we can control now our responsbility to that implement the act defintely corruption will be reduce.kalpana i m right

      Reply
  13. i have read that top 10 causes of corruption and i have seen that are the same like other countries .but you should reduce the level of corruption by taking some measures like here in Rwanda in recent days the corruption is on longer a serious problem .we have the office of the ombudsman which has played greater role in fighting against corruption

    Reply

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