Corruption is the menace of public power for private gain (Susan Rose-Ackerman 1998). Agency-principal relationships in the public sector give rise to corrupt opportunities. This definition, however, simply assumes that a distinction exists between one’s public and private roles. 

In many societies, no such clear distinction exists. In the private sector, gift-giving has become a norm, and it seems natural to provide jobs and contracts to one’s friends and relatives. In fact, the very idea of a sharp distinction between public and private life seems alien to many people.

Payments, whether in money or in kind, can be characterised along two dimensions. 

First, does an explicit quid pro quo exist? If so, the transaction can be labelled a sale, even if there is a long time lag between payment and receipt of the benefit. Both market sales and bribes involve reciprocal obligations. 

Gifts to charities or loved ones after, do not explicitly involve reciprocity, although many do generate implicit obligations. The second dimension is the institutional portions of payers and payees. 

Are they agents or principals? 

A restaurant bill is paid to the State; a bribe to the police officer. Employees, sales agents and customers can pay agents. Bosses give Christmas gifts to their employees, sales representatives give gifts to purchasing agents, and customers tip salespeople for favorable service. 

Some people, however, have duties to the public, or to some other amorphous group that lacks well-specified, sharp-eyed principals. Politicians, for example, can be described as the representatives of the public interest, or of the citizens who elected them. Under other news, they have considerable discretion. The desire for a re-election is a constraint, but one that does not always prevent lucrative side deals because the quid pro quo is often vague, contributors commonly say they are giving gifts, but others disagree.

Gifts differ from prices by the lack of an explicit quid pro quo, but there may be subtler links between gifts and beneficiaries’ behaviour. 

A university may start a new professional school with the hope of attracting donations, and a child may work hard in the hopes of attracting parental gifts. Nevertheless, many gifts are purely altruistic transfers with no expectation of a material reward. 

They may provide psychological benefits such as the “warm glow” of sympathy, or the satisfaction of living up to a moral commitment (Andreoni 1988; Rose Ackerman 1996a; Sen 1977) but no tangible gains. Some self-sacrificing gifts harm the giver, as when a person imposes sacrifices on family members or gives up his or her life for another person or a cause.

If individual gifts are large enough to have a marginal impact on the recipient’s behaviour, a quid pro quo is complicit. This will be true of many gifts to family members, and some large donations to charities. 

In that case, there is little functional difference between gifts given to further announced goals, and those given under the condition that such goals be established. If conditional gifts create enforceable obligations, they are like sales, except that the benefit given in return must be something that accords with the charity’s purpose (Gordley 1995). Such gifts belong in the “price” box.

The definition of bribes and gifts is a cultural matter, but “culture” is dynamic and constantly changing. If behaviour labelled “corrupt” by some observer is, nevertheless, reviewed as acceptable gift-giving or tipping within a country, it should simply be legalised and announced. 

If, however, these practices are imposing hidden or indirect costs on the populace, analysis can classify and document these costs. Definitions of acceptable behaviour may change once people are informed of the costs of tolerating payoffs to politicians and civil servants.

The lack of credible institutions capable of learning complaints and enforcing the law is a weakness in many developing and transitional countries. The one area for reform should be either improvements in existing institutions such as the courts, or the creation of new bodies such as independent inspectors or anti-corruption commissions. International institutions and the international business community can help provide incentives for reform. Aid and lending institutions should take a broad-based approach. Efforts to keep aid projects clean while ignoring the rest of the government’s activities will be ultimately ineffective as corrupt officials, private individuals and firms seek opportunities elsewhere.

Therefore, fundamental change requires commitment from the top of the government, and a willingness to follow through as the anticorruption effort unfolds. Serious reform can be carried out within any existing structure of government. Governments that make it very difficult for independent voices to be raised in criticism, however, will have an especially difficult time establishing a credible commitment to honest and transparent government.

Anti-corruption campaigns can be used to undermine political opponents and discipline troublesome groups. Reforms should resist those who would use an anti-corruption crusade to limit political opposition. Nominal reform efforts that become a vendetta against political opponents will lose credibility. In a highly political atmosphere, individualised prosecutions will not produce real reform. Only structural changes in the underlying corrupt incentives built into the operation of government can accomplish credible change.

*Reverend Jan A Scholtz is the former chairperson of the //Kharas Regional Council and former !Nami#nus constituency regional councillor. He holds a Diploma in Theology, B-Theo (SA), a Diploma in Youth Work and Development from the University of Zambia (UNZA), as well as a Diploma in Education III (KOK) BA (HED) from UNISA.