A war we have to fight

Corruption worldwide is at a high and keeps rising, with South Africa being a particularly serious case in point.

Corruption has become more organised, sophisticated and embedded in the public sector psyche in recent years.

This has serious consequences for society, in particular for ordinary people's living standards. High levels of corruption cause investment to be deterred, employment levels to be lowered, international trade to suffer, resources to be misallocated and the country's reputation to be damaged.

The government seems unable to arrest the problem. In the past 15 years, there has been a raft of anti-corruption laws, policies, institutions and other initiatives, yet public sector corruption continues unabated. Why is this and what can be done about it?

In academic circles, there is considerable contestation around the nature and causes of corruption.

Some social scientists say corruption is the result of a lack of ethical standards; others that it flows from inadequate anti-corruption laws. Some say it is caused by a weak sanction regime; others that it is due to ineffective control systems.

While all of these are no doubt part of the problem, there has been no rigorous, empirical study offering a comprehensive understanding of corruption in the public sector.

It is against this backdrop that Stellenbosch University has established an Anti-corruption Education and Research Centre within its School for Public Leadership. It ties in with the university's recently launched Hope Project, a set of development goals through which the institution aims to tackle pressing needs in society.

The centre sees a role for itself in removing much of the peripheral uncertainty around corruption and what to do about it. In addition, we believe the education and training we provide to government officials can help make existing anti-corruption mechanisms and regulations more effective.

The centre analysed research findings on how and why people become involved in corrupt activity. It found three main contributory factors: motive, opportunity and people's ability to justify their actions.

Motive: There has been a growing tendency towards consumerism and materialism in many countries over the past few decades. Be it Russia, China, India or Africa, ever more people aspire to wealth and material possessions. People end up using whatever opportunities there might be, even if inappropriate and dishonest, to gain what they have come to expect.

Conspicuous consumption is a particular problem in developing nations like ours because, unlike more developed countries, we lack sufficient social control mechanisms, such as effective policing and a solid judicial system.

Rationalisation: the ability of corrupt individuals in South Africa to justify their behaviour is linked to the rapid transformation our society has undergone since 1994. This has led to a fluidity of social values, which invites deviance from acceptable moral behaviour. Expectations were lifted to unrealistic levels by political leaders making promises of material prosperity.

Opportunity: the poor quality of management in government departments leads to poorly administered management and financial systems, which makes public sector corruption possible.

Even prior to 1994, the public sector in South Africa was not as efficient as it should have been.

But, back then, it was a functional sector that achieved most of its operational objectives, including ideologically controversial ones. This was largely due to a stable, experienced and tightly regulated bureaucracy that possessed a basic civil service mentality, albeit only towards a part of the population.

The policies introduced by the government since 1994 led to a loss of hard management experience and crucial institutional memory. The extraordinarily high turnover of public sector personnel continued well into the new era. The Department of Public Service and Administration estimated there to have been an almost 80% turnover in senior management personnel between 1994 and 2007 across all national and provincial departments.

In the Auditor-General's 2009 report "Consolidated audit outcomes for National Departments and Entities", it stated that the main causes of noncompliance with financial regulation were "insufficient supervision of day-to-day activities by all levels of management and a failure of leadership".

Missing link: The centre concluded it could do little to decrease the "motive" and "ability to justify" components of the corruption formula.

But we found much scope in the "opportunities" component. The idea is to get public officials to internalise the various anti-corruption policies, methods and practices introduced by the government.

Education of the right quality and content is the vital yet missing link in the war on corruption in South Africa.

Designing a curriculum and developing course materials for the centre has taken almost three years. Fortunately, we have been able to draw on the experience accumulated in the School of Public Leadership and the University of Stellenbosch Business School.

Resident expertise in law, accounting, financial management, auditing, investigation, organisational science and systems developments has helped give our learning materials a particular depth and effectiveness.

Our courses are designed to provide the public service with both a defensive and offensive infrastructure against corruption.

The defensive infrastructure reduces opportunities for corruption and greatly increases the chances of would-be perpetrators being discovered and caught.

The centre's education will help officials get to grips with financial and management systems. Included here would be personnel vetting and monitoring, as well as skills training covering such areas as procurement, assets, internal controls, risks, creditors and debtors, cash, financial information and auditing.

The centre's package of offensive measures in the war against corruption consists of a range of methods, practices and specialist skills. These include fraud prevention and response plans, corruption detection strategies, risk management practices and investigation techniques. Our courses also teach officials how best to use anti-corruption agencies, such as the Special Investigating Unit, the Hawks, the Auditor-General and the Public Protector to fight graft.

Experience indicates that out of every 10 people, one will never be corrupt, one will easily be corrupt, while the rest could be swayed by pressure or temptation. We need to focus on the undecided 80% of the workforce by eliminating corruption opportunities and by increasing the risk of criminals being caught and suffering harsh consequences.

Breaking the cycle: if corruption is not properly challenged and becomes systemic in nature, a culture of graft becomes embedded in society, especially if perpetrators regularly get away with their transgressions.

In a number of other developing countries the experience has been that the battle against corruption is much more difficult to win than to lose. In South Africa we still have the chance to prevail - if we all play our part. The Anti-corruption Centre for Education and Research is ready for this challenge.

• Woods is director of Stellenbosch University's new Anti-corruption Centre for Education and Research. This article is an edited version of his inaugural lecture as a professor at Stellenbosch this week