Political will in combating corruption in developing and transition economies. A comparative study of Singapore, Hong Kong and Ghana
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/13590790910993753 |
| Pages | 387-417 |
| Published date | 09 October 2009 |
| Date | 09 October 2009 |
| Author | Abdul‐Gafaru Abdulai |
| Subject Matter | Accounting & finance |
Political will in combating
corruption in developing
and transition economies
A comparative study of Singapore,
Hong Kong and Ghana
Abdul-Gafaru Abdulai
Institute for Democratic Governance (IDEG), Accra, Ghana
Abstract
Purpose – In recognition of corruption as a major obstacle to the development processes of poor
countries, the search for effective strategies in combating the phenomenon in developing countries has
become a major preoccupation of the international donor community, particularly since the early
1990s. The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of “political will” in combating corruption in
Hong Kong, Singapore and Ghana with the view to drawing significant lessons for all developing and
transition countries in their anticorruption crusades.
Design/methodology/approach – The findings in this paper are based on an extensive review of
relevant literature and personal experiences in Ghana.
Findings – This paper concludes that controlling corruption in a sustained manner requires a
consistent demonstration of genuine commitment on the part of the top political elite towards the
eradication of the menace. Where the commitment of the top political leadership to the goal of
eradicating corruption in a country is weak, as has been the case in Ghana, governments are only
likely to engage in “zero tolerance for corruption” talk but continue to play a “tolerant corruption”
game. Anticorruption reforms, in this regard, are bound to fail.
Practical implications – The paper highlights a number of lessons from the successful
anticorruption crusades of Singapore and Hong Kong that are significant for Ghana and other
developing countries in their fight against corruption. These include the need for anticorruption reform
initiatives to be participatory and inclusive of all stakeholders including public and private sectors as
well as civil society; the need to provide adequate budgets and staff for specialized anticorruption
agencies and grant them independence in the execution of their mandates; and the need to establish
effective mechanisms for: providing positive incentives for those who comply with anticorruption
laws; and exposing and sanctioning compromised individuals and institutions.
Originality/value – Whilst studies on the role of political will in combating corruption in developing
countries abound, most of these have either not provided in-depth country experiences or relied on
single country cases. One major departure of this paper from extant literature is its cross-country
comparative nature.
Keywords Corruption, Politics, Developing countries, Ghana, Singapore,Hong Kong
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
In recent times, corruption has become an issue of major political and economi c
significance and the necessity to tackle it in developing and transition economies has
become more evident and urgent. During the Cold War period, bilateral donors such as
the USA and its allies not only overlooked partisan self-enrichment on the part of
developing country governments; but they also supported many corrupt regimes in
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
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Developing
and transition
economies
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Journal of Financial Crime
Vol. 16 No. 4, 2009
pp. 387-417
qEmerald Group Publishing Limited
1359-0790
DOI 10.1108/13590790910993753
Africa in return for bilateral relationship and control. The demise of the Cold War and
the emergence of the “good governance” agenda in the 1990s has however witnessed a
major paradigm shift with regards to donor-recipient relations in many developing
countries; low-income borrowing countries are now required to formulate and
implement national anticorruption strategies as a pre-condition for development
assistance[1]. Not surprisingly, and as Hobbs (2005) has observed, amidst all the
disagreements over the level and mode of debt relief during the 2005 G8 summit in
Gleneagles, Scotland, one idea that enjoyed universal agreement was that any
development assistance should be conditioned by the need for recipient countries to
eliminate the misappropriation and embezzlement of state resources. The critical
question that remains debatable though is: how best can developing countries combat
corruption in order to move their development agendas forward? Put differently, what
determines the success or failure of anticorruption reforms?
It has been argued that one important step in controlling corruption is the need to
conduct a detailed country-specific analysis of what constitutes corruption and what
its causes may be. This is because different countries have divergent perceptions about
what constitutes corrupt behaviour, given their social history, bureaucratic
development, and the balance of political and economic opportunities and interest
groups (Canadian Parliamentary Centre, 2000, p. 21; Johnston, 1997). In view of the
divergent socio-economic and political histories of different countries, many have
cautioned against the adoption of a one-size-fit-all approach in curbing corruption,
suggesting that any successful and sustainable anticorruption reform must necessarily
involve a serious effort to diagnose and understand its causes, so as to tackle the roots
rather than the symptoms of corruption. Without disagreeing with this line of
argument, this paper contends that “political will” is the decisive factor in determining
the success or failure of anti-corruption reforms in any country. Indeed, “[w]ithout
demonstrated political will, anti-corruption programs become empty gestures , or
camouflage for continued abuses” (Johnston and Kpundeh, 2004, p. 4).
While studies on the role of political will in combating corruption in developing
countries abound (Brinkerhoff, 2000; Pope and Vogl, 2000; Pkundeh, 1998), most of
these studies either do not provide in-depth country experiences or rely on single
country cases. In the Asian Pacific region, Hong Kong and Singapore have often been
studied as successful examples in fighting corruption, largely due to the genuine
commitment on the part of political leaders to combat the phenomenon (Ho, 2003;
Quah, 1999, 2003). More recently, Amundsen (2006) provides a significant analysis of
corruption in Uganda, arguing that despite the tangible progress made in establishing
the legal and institutional framework to fight corruption in Uganda, the country’s
anticorruption reforms have not achieved any meaningful results largely due to the
lack of a clear demonstration of political will in implementing reforms. But as
Lancaster and Montinola (1997) have argued, while descriptions of corruption in single
cases might be useful in drawing practical lessons for policy transfer, they add very
little in terms of explanation to our comparative understanding of the phenomenon.
More emphasis needs to be placed on comparative studies in order to find generalizable
patterns of corruption and its control. One major departure of this paper from extant
literature is its cross-country comparative nature. The paper compares the experience s
of three former British colonies, namely Ghana, Singapore and Hong Kong, in their
anticorruption efforts, arguing that what makes the difference among these countr ies
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