Measuring Corruption Risk in the South African Public Service: An Institutional Analysis
Journal Article
2017-03
Permanent link to this Item
Authors
Journal Title
African Journal of Public Affairs
Link to Journal
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
African Consortium of Public Administration
Publisher
University of Cape Town
Department
Faculty
License
Series
Abstract
Corruption features prominently in assessments of the governance, performance and capacity of South Africa’s public service. However, accounts of corruption too often fail to offer systematic appraisals of its occurrence within the diverse institutional makeup of the public service. This article seeks to address this gap by investigating the relationship between the level and type of corruption, and the institutional characteristics of government departments. Based on an original dataset which assembles published data on nancial misconduct, staf ng and budgetary information, the article examines whether the institutional makeup of national departments render some more susceptible to corruption than others. The ndings highlight the multi- dimensional nature of corruption, indicating that departmental risk should not simply be judged on its cumulative or aggregate effect: how much corruption do departments sustain, but incorporate the proportional effect of corruption: how much does it matter? Indicators such as overall staff size, ratio of supervisory to non-supervisory staff and functional orientation are necessary but insuf cient indicators of corruption risk, whilst budget size appears to have little bearing on increased risk; although there is more, though not unequivocal, reason to be concerned about departments with a higher percentage of their budgets allocated to goods and services spending.
Description
Reference:
Naidoo, V. (2017). Measuring Corruption Risk in the South African Public Service: An Institutional Analysis. African Journal of Public Affairs, 9(6): 73-87.