OBSERVER – The news from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Director Dr Karen Hilliard that Jamaica has experienced a 12 per cent decrease in corruption since 2006 is most welcome.
Indeed, for many years, corruption scored high among Jamaicans as one of the country’s greatest ills, further soiling our image internationally and competing for prominence with so many of Jamaica’s positive achievements.
Just last year, for example, an Observer/Don Anderson Poll conducted between June 25 and July 2 found that 21 per cent of Jamaicans interviewed felt that there was too much corruption in the country. That compared to 5.4 per cent who held the same view in June 2007 when Mr. Anderson conducted a poll for the Observer.
Corruption, Mr. Anderson noted, is a factor that consistently emerges when the question ‘What is the main thing wrong with Jamaica today’? is asked.
So the fact that the USAID’s 2008 survey shows that 24 per cent of Jamaicans have been victims of corruption, compared to 36 per cent in 2005, is cause for serious reflection on this problem – reflection that should not only examine causes, but strategies aimed at significant reduction. For the cold, hard fact is that, try as we may, we are never going to eradicate corruption from the society.
Not when there are so many among us who do not appreciate the value of hard work or who place greater value in material rather than spiritual wealth.
Dr Hilliard, in her analysis, attributes the 12 per cent slide in corruption to an acknowledgement by the Government and the private sector of the “distaste for pervasive corruption” transmitted by the electorate in the 2007 general elections.
“Various entities – both in the public and private sectors – are beginning to do something about it and it’s beginning to show results,” Dr Hilliard was quoted by the Jamaica Information Service in this week’s edition of the Sunday Observer.
But Dr Hilliard also reiterated what most Jamaicans already know, that despite the decline, not everyone in the country is convinced that we are achieving any amount of success in fighting corruption.
The fact is that corruption has become so entrenched here that many of us are guilty of engaging in the practice without even realising that we are doing so.
When, for instance, we pay individuals rather than the State for a Government service, on the basis that going the required route will take too long, we are engaging in corruption.
But the fact that so many people regard that as the norm also speaks to inadequacies in the way the State functions and the quality of the service it provides.
Having people wait for hours in long lines to access Government services is not only frustrating, it is counter-productive.
The authorities, therefore, need to place greater effort in improving administrative efficiencies, even as they enhance their system of detecting, investigating and prosecuting corrupt officials.
The Government would also do well to act on the observation of Professor Trevor Munroe, the director of the National Integrity Action Forum, that despite our having a set of laws and institutions to tackle corruption, the missing link is that many of the institutions lack adequate resources.
Source: Jamaica OBSERVER