Behind the Fa�ade of Corruption in Ethiopia and what the Government ought to do
IDEA viewpoint
Ghelawdewos Araia, PhD
May 12, 2013
Corruption is a very intriguing concept in theory and an
elusive human conduct enmeshed in bizarre and
rather subtle but toxic human activity, and it is
manifested in different forms, as well as assumes
different scales and scopes. To be sure, unless
there is a system in place to monitor corruption
or there is a political system strong enough to
mitigate, if not eliminate this disease, it could
pervade the larger society like a malignant
cancer.
Human societies are corruptible and corruption is as old as
the first systematically organized human
communities. In the Book of Genesis (6:12), it is
stated, [before the Great Flood] �God observed
that every human in the world was corrupt.�
Ancient Egyptians had enormous literary accounts
on what they call Declaration of Innocence or
Negative Confessions to deter moral, social, and
political corruption. Ancient philosophers like
Plato and Aristotle also deal with corruption in
their respective treatises; Plato, for instance,
remarks on political power in his book entitled The
Republic and advises that power is good only
if it is attributed to wisdom, otherwise the
�imperfect humans� could be corruptible
especially if the powers are not prescribed in
small doses. Put otherwise, Plato logically
inferred that bigger power could result in bigger
corruption. In the same vein, Aristotle, like his
teacher Plato, wrote an entire book on corruption
entitled On Generation and Corruption.
If humans are potentially corruptible, it logically follows
that this social ailment is not unique to specific
countries like Ethiopia. On the contrary, it has a
universal dimension. Thus, corruption prevails
even in advanced countries like the United States.
Incidents of the latter phenomena are abound but
suffice to mention some examples that I am
familiar with: the former Governor of Connecticut,
John Rowland, was jailed (later under house
arrest) for improper conduct and economic
corruption; the former Governor of New York, Eliot
Spitzer, was forced to resign for social
corruption (prostitution scandal) and Ellen Hauer,
the comptroller of New York State Realty Company
admitted that she stole $1 million and she had to
negotiate a 3/12 to 10 years prison terms.
The corruption in Ethiopia, thus, is not unique to that
country although from this premise it should not
follow that the Ethiopian corruption should be
justified under any circumstance. On the contrary,
the corrupt officials should be punished to the
fullest extent of the law. Instead of simply
employing the law against corrupt citizens,
however, the Ethiopian Government should first
educate (informally via the media outlets) the
people by focusing on the defining characteristics
of corruption and furthermore by exploring and
exposing the larger picture of corruption or
debilitating disease behind the fa�ade.
As indicated above, corruption could be manifested in
different hues and colors. In English speaking
countries it is euphemistically known as
kickbacks. In Middle Eastern societies it is
popularly depicted as Bakshees, and in Ethiopia as
Musuna. These definitions, in turn, can assume
different exploratory terms depending on the type
and practice of corruption. Some corruption is
small and may be practiced in gift exchanges or in
dividing up stolen money from the government
revenue amongst members of the bureaucracy in the
ministries and/or government agencies. This has
been a standard practice in Ethiopia since the
days of Emperor Haile Selassie.
A great-scale corruption, on the other hand, affects the
entire government apparatus and it could have a
debilitating impact on the overall operations and
performance of the State structures or on its
component parts (the executive, legislature, and
judiciary). At this stage, since corruption
penetrates the highest level of government
offices, it becomes a real political nightmare
because the political and economic parameters of
the State and its legal apparatus are effectively
subverted to the extent of creating steel-born
government policies and directives and subsequent
paralysis of government operations. This kind of
corruption is attributed to high-ranking
government officials and they should be held
accountable for their actions. The general public
in Ethiopia is very much cognizant of the
great-scale corrupt officials and proverbially
depicts them as follows: Ya Asa Gi�matu
Ke�chinq�latu (a fish stinks at its head)
and it is a figurative speech to mean �if the
culture of corruption is not dealt with by
striking at the top officials who steal the public
purse, the middle-level bureaucrats and
low-ranking officials could easy get away with
theft of government money.
The small and great-scale corruptions, in turn, are almost
always accompanied by systemic corruption that is
usually manifested in the lack of accountability
and transparency. The latter two constitutional
responsibilities of government officials are
effectively debunked and in most instances the
corrupt officials manage to cover up their
criminal acts by their official capacity and abuse
of power.
When the Government initiates to educate the people about
corruption, it should also make introspective
examination of itself and see to it if it is
equipped enough to combat corruption. If the
government has the necessary tools readily
available to fight corruption, it should seriously
consider short-term and long-term plans to
overcome the deeply rooted corruption in Ethiopia.
The short-term plan entails bringing corrupt
officials before justice, and the long-term plan
must aim at educating the people in order to
change their mindset, a psychological make-up that
inadvertently embraces the culture of corruption.
With respect to endemic corruption in Ethiopia and the
attendant psychological makeup of Ethiopians, I
have specifically mentioned how Ethiopians justify
corruption in my new book entitled ETHIOPIA:
Democracy, Devolution of Power, and the
Developmental State. The Ethiopian gesture on
corruption goes on as follows: Shi�shom
Yal�bela Shi�shar Yi�qochewal (he who
does not eat �metaphor for bribe � when
appointed would regret it when demoted). It is
this psyche of Ethiopians that the Ethiopian
Government must combat in its long-term plan and
it is this kind of cultural ethos that serve as
one factor in hiding corruption behind the fa�ade.
Another major fa�ade that the Government of Ethiopia should
seriously rethink is the patronage politics or
patron-client relationship that has engulfed
Ethiopian government bureaucracies at local,
regional, and federal levels. At local and state
levels, connections are forged via loyalty to the
ruling party or via ethnic intermediary roles in
order to garner personal gains. This kind of
corruption is fostered in a patron-client
relationship and it is in this kind of networking
that the rent-seekers or the self-interested
privilege seeking officials flourish.
The late Prime Minster Meles Zenawi had addressed the
problem of rent seeking in his major thesis in
2007 that I have reviewed and critiqued. I have
also addressed the same issue in my new book, in
which I have argued, �Incidentally, Meles Zenawi
has been emphatic on the problem of ethnic-based
political patronage through much of the body of
the text of his work. However, like most African
nations Ethiopia suffers from political patronage
and unmistakably from ethnic-based politics. It is
for this apparent reason, therefore, that I
suggested � the PM of Ethiopia need to clean up
his mess before he ventures on the grand agenda of
the developmental state.�
Political patronage is the fa�ade behind the many forms of
corruption that I have discussed above. The
current rent-seeking officials in the Ethiopian
bureaucracy are not necessarily the deliberate
making of the EPRDF, but they are certainly its
byproducts. Under the rubric of loyal
cadre-cum-public servant, thus, they have craftily
manipulated their role and status in the
government and immersed themselves in great as
well as systemic corruptions.
The corrupt rent-seeking officials have neither contrition
nor remorse in stealing money from the public
purse, and by their toxic activity they have
ensued cultural fragmentation and they could best
be defined as predatory officials. The late PM
Meles had discussed the predatory state in the
context of Africa and it is this kind of state
that could create havoc to the developmental state
that the EPRDF has embraced for quite sometime
now.
If indeed the EPRDF is going to fight the predators within
its ranks and within the larger Ethiopian society,
it should deal with the corruption behind the fa�ade
that I have discussed above. It should seriously
address the bigger picture in the canvas. The
present measure taken by the Ethiopian Federal
Anti-Corruption Commission and the National
Security Agency is commendable but it is probably
going to solve the problem of the petty scale
corruption in the short run and not achieve the
long-term plan to completely uproot corruption.
It is not going to be easy to fight corruption in all its
facets and dimensions and the government alone
cannot accomplish this task. The Ethiopian people
should be involved at a grand scale in the
struggle to drastically minimize or eliminate the
culture of kleptocracy. This is not going to be
easy either because Musuna and/or Gubo (corruption
and/or bribe) are inherently Ethiopian
characteristics. This does not, of course, mean
that all Ethiopians (as stated in the Book of
Genesis cited above) are corrupt. What it means
is, in one form or another, corruption has
affected Ethiopians at all levels.
Some examples of corruption in Ethiopia are the following:
In traditional Ethiopian communities, it was
customary for Ethiopian plaintiffs or defendants
to offer live chicken, goats, or sheep to
presiding judges in order to win their case;
during the reign of Emperor Haile Selassie, it was
virtually impossible for people to get municipal
services without surreptitiously handing over Gubo
to the low-paid local officials. By the same
token, during the same period if police traffic
stops motorists for apparent traffic violations,
the drivers instantly used to envelop 5 Ethiopian
Birr in their driving licenses and hand it over to
the police officer. The latter knows well what is
encased in the driving license and let the driver
go without issuing any ticket. This culture still
continues: In 2012, a relative of mine was
visiting Ethiopia and in his sojourn from Addis
Ababa to Hawassa along with his friends, a highway
patrol officer stops their car and threatened them
that he would take away their driving licenses
unless they pay 400 Ethiopian Birr. They
negotiated for 300 Birr but he adamantly refused
and they had no choice but to pay the requested
amount. This is a very good example of highway
robbery.
One other example I was told in 1999 when I was visiting
Addis Ababa is what friends told me how they
managed to bribe the local officials in the Piazza
area. They said they had a major problem in
getting through the officials in order to get
public services and the officials were
impenetrable without Gubo and they decided in a
meeting to �give� whatever they could so that
they get services in return.
There are many other areas where corruption reigns. Some of
these are the municipal governments, the many
institutions including universities and non-profit
organizations that get aid from donors; the
Ethiopian postal service where it is customary to
open envelops suspected of carrying money. These
days, Ethiopians in the Diaspora send money via
Western Union and the postal workers know it but
they still commit postal fraud. They either open
envelopes and then return it to the sender or
write, �we found it damaged� and deliver it to
the addressee.
In modern Ethiopian history, the Ethiopian people
encountered the worst of all corruptions during
the Derg military regime where military officers
became managers of nationalized enterprises and
companies and squandered the finances of these
companies without any accountability whatsoever.
The Derg officials committed the highest form of
grand theft in Ethiopian history and there was no
system in place to bring them before justice,
because they acted as the government and the state
at the same time and the Ethiopian people knew
very well of the scale of corruption of the Derg
officials in spite of their attempt to cover it up
with socialist sloganeering. It would have been
completely impossible to sue the Derg officials in
the absence of judicial proceedings and the only
solution was to do away with the entire system of
the Derg as has been done in 1991.
Apart from the Derg-type kleptocracy, the other examples of
small-scale corruption can be dealt with easily
but it is not going to be easy to combat the
large-scale and systemic corruptions. However, if
the Government exhibits resolve and commitment
through to the end, with the help of the people
the mission could be accomplished.
Thus, beyond institutional pretensions and a shadowy
existence of government officials, the Commission
and the Security Agency entrusted to monitor
corruption should be reinforced by militias that
patrol respective communities and by undercover
agents that could help trap corrupt officials.
This would be part of the short-term plan.
In the long-term plan, the Government is ought to uphold the
agenda of the developmental state whose objective
is to transform Ethiopia and create opportunities
for Ethiopians. If indeed the developmental state
is going to overcome the problems of poverty and
unemployment and produce a sizable middle class,
then we could say with confidence that we have
begun to undercut corruption and eventually uproot
this endemic societal illness. If this goal is not
achieved, however, the promise of the
developmental state will be sabotaged and the
country could encounter the same fate Nigeria
countenanced. Nigeria is one of the potential
leaders of the African continent because it is
blessed with resources and technical know-how but
it is also bedeviled by unparalleled corruption
that has forestalled Nigeria�s prominent role in
Africa. Ethiopia, thus, must learn from its own
homegrown corruption and from the negative
encounter of Nigeria.
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