Exploring a sustainable anti-corruption regime for Tanzania

Abstract

Corruption is among the world's devastating social, economic and political problems. It is enormous to the extent that ''not one single country, anywhere in the world, is corruptionfree''. Its effects on the quality of life of billions of people around the world are widely acknowledged. Kofi Annan, former UN Secretary General, in his statement on the adoption of the United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC), proclaimed that: Corruption is an insidious plague that has a wide range of corrosive effects on societies. It undermines democracy and the rule of law, leads to violations of human rights, distorts markets, erodes the quality of life, and allows organised crime, terrorism and other threats to human security to flourish. Corruption takes different forms depending on the time and the social, political and economic circumstances that create avenues for its occurrence. Consequently, scholars construe corruption from different viewpoints. On the one hand, post-colonialists and Marxists perceive corruption as a product of capitalist pursuit of profit and capital accumulation. On the other hand, liberal-rationalists and free-market economists define corruption by looking at its negative effects on development and economic sustainability. The argument is that corruption discourages foreign investment and allows public officials to siphon off resources for their private advantage, thereby defeating the public good. Despite the definitional and ideological differences found in literature, there is an agreement that corruption is a bad thing and should be fought vigorously.