15. Corruption in African Countries: A Symptom of Leadership and Institutional Failure

This paper explores the lingering effects of corruption within the context of weak or bad governance after African countries gained their independence. Within the African context, bad governance is characterized by dictatorial leadership, non-free media, policy manipulations, and undemocratic elections. Jespersen (1992) observes that African economies performed well in the early years of their independence, but they failed their performance test thereafter, and the region is now characterized by poor living standards, declining agricultural production, stagnating manufacturing, rising imports, and rapidly expanding external debts. Additionally, the continent is notorious for its coups d’état, civil unrests, ethnic violence, widespread bureaucratic corruption, administrative inefficiency, and institutional ineptitude or outright failure. Van de Walle (2001) states that the weakness of political institutions explains the region’s persistent crisis and that reform efforts will fail unless regional politics are reformed.