Many have argued that corruption abounds in our institutions due to meager salaries paid to the employees; others have argued differently. Looking at the case of Kenya, the most high profile cases of corruption have been perpetuated by high ranking government officials in collusion with well oiled business men hence its hardly a case of meager salaries. We also have heard of cases where persons who hardly had meals for the next day have returned substantial amounts of money which did not belong to them. If then the argument that meager pay/wages leads to corruption these persons would not even have had a second thought on whether to return the money or not. Another case in point is that of the famous Goldenberg whistle-blower who died out of lack of money to cater for his medical expenses. Again if really pay induces one to engage in corrupt practices this man would have had greater motivation to do so than the actual Goldenberg crooks.
It is true that poverty leads to a rise in social misdemeanor but corruption hardly falls under this category. I believe corruption has got to do with ones moral values and ethics. We have people in institutions where there are avenues for corruption and whose salaries are as meager as for the rest of us but they would rather go hungry than engage in corruption. Yet again, we have individuals who are well paid with all the allowances one would wish for to boot but all that they think of from the moment they get out of bed is how they can defraud the exchequer and the people they are meant to serve in general. The former category shuns corruption because they have a personal code of ethics which guides them in their lives. As for the latter group, no matter how much money you offer them as pay they will still look for dodgy avenues to make that extra buck. In Kenya tens of billions of tax payers’ money are lost every year as a result of corruption; money that would go a long way in uplifting lives of the general populace.
Nepotism and cronyism have not helped in our case. Government contracts are awarded not on the basis of the contractors qualifications or because their quotations were the least costly but on the basis of their relationship or kinship to the head of the department/ministry. Let us fight corruption by shunning nepotism and cronyism. Let us pay our employees the salaries they deserve not as a way to fight corruption but because the rightly deserve the pay. And above all lets us been people of good moral values and let each and every one of us have a personal code of conduct and ethics.
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